My dad loved boxing. Absolutely loved it. When I was a kid we would watch highlights of old fights that came on. If there were any upcoming matches, he would get the pay per view to make sure he could see fight night. He would tell me ad nauseum about how certain fighters had different styles. Why a southpaw could have an advantage. How Sonny Liston was unstoppable, until he wasn’t. Or when George Foreman got rope-a-doped by The Greatest. Or that Rocky Marciano was the only heavyweight champion to retire undefeated.
He never told me why he loved boxing so much, though I can hazard a few guesses. Part of it was he grew up in a hard environment and for him personally, fighting was a solution. Being tough was a way to cope, and he was tough as hell. He made sure I was tough too. I remember getting in a fight in second grade. I was dealing with my own issues and trauma at the time and I lashed out and got in a scuffle with a classmate who I don’t remember over something stupid I can’t recall. I must not have fared very well because I remember my dad telling me if I was going to get into fights, I better know how to fight and he signed me up for tae-kwon-do the next week, something I continued for six years.
Dad would spar with me after class and ask me to show him what I learned and give me pointers from his own experience. He loved watching me spar with opponents and win or lose, he loved seeing me stand tall. He enjoyed sparring with me and seeing me grow. Looking back, I think he just loved the competition. It was something he could relate to, two opponents testing their mettle in an arena. Seeing someone’s character reveal itself as pain and exhaustion set in.
As much as my dad loved boxing in general and sparring with me, and as much as he talked about the golden age of boxing and these gladiators of old, there was one rivalry that had a special place in his heart for. Two fighters who are immortalized for their battles. Ali and Frazier. Three fights, each one a retelling of Achilles and Hector. If dad enjoyed boxing in general, he was down right emotional when it came to Ali and Frazier. You would think he was watching the gods of Olympus when he recounted their fights. There was something primal about it to him. Something that captured the imagination and made a person experience the range of human emotion. Something that made me wish I had witnessed these lions fight in person. That is one hell of a rivalry.
Most anyone can think of a rivalry that sits in their heart as something beyond the normal competitions of sport. For dad it was Ali and Frazier. For me, it is the Packers and Bears. A century strong, with no signs of fading. One team, the representation of big city swagger, the other, the resilience of small town America. It spread so far beyond sports that you aren’t really talking about football anymore, you’re talking about you, the person, and why you and your fans are quantitatively better than those fans. The team becomes “us” and “we” instead of “they” and “them”. “We played well today.” “We can’t expect to beat them, not until we fix our defense.” It’s personal, it’s communal, it’s everything.
That’s the beauty of sports. It’s more than just idle entertainment. You become invested on a level you sometimes don’t even reserve for your loved ones. The clothes you wear, the rituals you observe to bring your team victory. The superstition that if you don’t sit in the same chair, wearing the same unwashed jersey every week, that the team will lose because you didn’t follow the pregame ritual.
It’s almost as if it is ingrained in our genetic code. As if we are just acting out the traditions of our ancestors. If you could go back in history, surely you would see something rise out of the fog of the past to confirm that we are behaving as we should.
And you would be right.
Go back 1,500 years to 6th century Constantinople. Seat of the Byzantine Empire, the legacy of the now fallen Roman Empire. Like Rome, Constantinople was an amalgam of cultures and people. Greek, Asian, and African, all intermingled within the cities walls, bringing their own traditions, religions and history.
Part of that history that passed on from the Greeks to the Romans and then to the Byzantines was chariot racing. The teams, Blue and Green, were relics from Rome as well. Originally numbering four, including Red and White, who were eventually absorbed into the Green and Blue, respectively. The names were simple, almost childish. Who hasn’t had a childhood game in gym class decided by the color of unwashed pinnies the gym teacher had stuffed in a box. “I call red team!” “I call blue!” While the names may be simple and childish, it’s not like collectively we are any better in naming sport teams today. We have not one but two baseball teams named after socks, and a professional basketball team named after pants.
Whatever the name, what was not to be childish or simple was the rivalry between these two factions. Anything that spans centuries and two separate Empires is going to run deep with enmity. The team’s followers were broken into two camps, called circuses, and would more resemble rival mafia families than a college booster club. Dictating jobs for members, engaging in fierce bidding wars for talented charioteers, and those charioteers turn the heel and go from hero in villain in an instant. In addition to that, both sides were known for starting riots and staging attacks on opposing members of the camps, there is nothing they wouldn’t do to win.These fans would make Seattle’s famous “12th Man” or the Raiders “black hole” look quaint in comparison.
In the Hippodrome, the races themselves were things of legends. Packed with those zealous fans, Charioteers driving past each other, each team of four horses thundering down the track and around the spine. Fans decked out in their colors, a sea of emerald and sapphire. Overzealous fans sending curses down upon the charioteers. Literally. Stone and wooden tablets with actual curses carved into them, often pierced with nails to hobble the horses in case God wasn’t a racing fan.
It’s not hard to imagine being there. Thirty to sixty thousand citizens packed tight into the stands. You, adorned in green or blue, surrounded by fellow supporters of your team. Watching as the chariots parade around the track, their drivers waving to the crowd as they take their places at the gates. Curses being hurled at the charioteers, in many cases literally. The Emperor Justinian and Empress Theodora in their booths showing their support for the Blues, much like our own celebrities and leaders sit in the skyboxes of today’s billion dollar stadiums.
The gates drop and the horses take off, you feel that sense of building anticipation and explosion of excitement, like waiting for the kickoff in football or the first pitch in baseball. As the chariots move down the track, six in all, three of each color, you share in each team’s struggle. Watching a green maneuver around a blue by taking the outer wall while another green and blue smashing into one another, breaking axles and wheels flying off, riders helplessly forced to choose between holding on to the reins and being dragged against the spine, or risking letting go and slamming against the outer wall and being trampled, as if this were some primitive, brutal ancestor to NASCAR.
The leaders separate themselves, favorites and rivals pushing for the edge as they go seven times around the track, the noise of the crowd shouting “Nika! Nika!” (Victory! Victory!). Can you hear it? Can you imagine the clamor? It would rival the most intense college football stadium for wild enthusiasm.
All of this, all leading up to the moment when that first chariot crosses the line after the seventh lap. All that anticipation, tension, excitement. All of it, building up until, eventually you scream in either unrivaled joy at your team’s victory or unparalleled despair and heartbreak as you watch your champions fall.
And then, just like that, it is over. The victors receive their laurels, the fans fill the exits. The bettors collect their winnings. The victors go off to bask in their glory while the vanquished are left declaring “we’ll get em next time.”
Is this not written in our DNA? It has to be. It’s part of us. We love to compete. We yearn for that sense of adrenaline inducing euphoria that only comes from being wholly devoted to our team. We love to watch titans battle, battle in that rivalry that seems timeless; be it the ring, the court, the field or the arena. To see them stand tall in victory, humbled in loss, and to know that as long as there is a next time there is a chance at glory.
No one knows what the next great rivalry in sports will be. Maybe it will come from boxing again, where we watch two individuals stand toe to toe in the ring and see what each other is made of. My dad would love that were he still here. Perhaps it will be football. Or basketball. Or some sport that has yet to grab the American conscious. Again, no one knows. But what is certain is this, whatever the sport and whoever the competitors, you will find that no matter how it looks on the outside, at the heart of it, it will be rooted in the savage beauty of 6th century Constantinople.
References:
Dash, Mike. “Blue versus Green: Rocking the Byzantine Empire.” Smithsonian Magazine. Last modified March 2, 2012. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/blue-versus-green-rocking-the-byzantine-empire-113325928
Wikipedia. “Porphyrius the Charioteer.” Wikepedia.com. Last modified August 12, 2017. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Porphyrius_the_Charioteer.
Cartwright, Mark. “The Hippodrome of Constantinople.” Ancient History Encyclopedia. Last modified November 28, 2017. https://www.ancient.eu/article/1158/ .
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