My son is a 29-year-old car engineer working for Toyota, living in Toyota city adjacent to Nagoya (the third biggest city in Japan). When there is a boxing show in Nagoya, I meet my son to have a dinner as he drives his Toyota car from Toyota for an hour. I often advised him to meet at a boxing arena, or watch boxing bouts together. My son shows definitely no interests in watching the sweet science that I ardently love. Why not? I have asked him why he dislikes boxing.
My son simply says, “When I was a boy, you always watched some boxing video at home even at dinner. The television screen showed a bloody boxer, closing up a profusely bleeding cut in the corner. I hated seeing blood, so happened to hate boxing.”
I have been a boxingaddict since my childhood, since my relative was a sponsor to a boxing club and I used to play at the gym. I got accustomed to see blood (though it might be strange), having frequently watched nose-bleeding boxers and eyebrow-cut fighters. I don’t care about blood at all as I sometimes serve as cutman even now.
After I heard my son’s surprisingly negative comment, I began to carefully watch boxing bouts on television with a different thought. I simply wonder why the TV camera so emphatically closes up a cut of a boxer who is treated by a cutman in the corner. Who show interests in such a scene? Only boxing people that watch another cornerman’s work for reference and limited blood-thirsty persons. Majority of TV watchers don’t wish to watch any bloody scene.
In short, a television camera had better refrain from closing up a grotesquely bloodied gash during a recess, which might certainly decrease such TV watchers as ladies, boys or girls. With their strong rejection to watch our Noble Art, AKA bloody sport, boxing will become less and less popular with decreasing TV ratings. I have been a TV commentator for thirty years, but was stupid enough to have ignored such a simple logic. Worldwide TV people, what do you think?
(5-18-09)