Sometimes, especially when it comes to social media, it’s best to say nothing at all. For example, if someone dies, eminent or not, there’s no need for JoeBloggs649264883 to comment publicly or express what the deceased meant to them. Likewise, if a huge news story seems to be trending, there’s no need for JoeBloggs649264883 to express his opinion on it in the hopes that his opinion — and therefore JoeBloggs649264883’s — will be noticed.
Sometimes it’s best to just sit back, wait, watch. This is especially true when news is about to break, and the temptation is to jump ahead and pounce before everyone else. In fact, it could be argued that the hunger to win in this race has never been greater, with good taste giving way to haste, and the newsfeed’s greatest enemy is the restless fingers of those with the power to scroll up and down.
In that respect, and that alone, Ohara Davies was right when he acted as he did on Tuesday (September 3). That day, Davies learned via @NoSmokeBoxing that he had been scheduled to fight Adam Azim, one of the warm prospects in the UK, on October 19. That same day, Davies criticized @NoSmokeBoxing for spreading what he considered “imitation news,” adding on his account: “This is what I mean by boxing media.”
And yet, despite the denials, because this is boxing, there was always a chance that Davies would end up fighting Azim, as it turned out, and the official announcement of their fight came just two days later. This, rather than being a surprise or a Shyamalan-esque plot twist, was merely a reminder. It was a reminder that the only groups of people who lie as much as the media does are actors, drug addicts, and professional boxers, those men and women who have to lie to themselves to get into the ring on fight night; those men and women who lie to the media as much as the media lies to them.
Davies, playing coy, did nothing wrong. After all, it’s his prerogative to keep his cards close to his chest and try to maintain the illusion of control. More likely, he was just annoyed at being gassed; robbed of his own exclusivity by the zeal of online fans.
Either way, when Davies writes, “Don’t call or write me for interviews, you can all fuck off,” we should at least acknowledge his irritation in those words. We should also acknowledge that the constant thirst for news these days can become a bit tiresome for those boxers from whom the news is ultimately collected. For example, after hearing the Azim rumour, one can only imagine how many fans with webcams contacted Davies in the hope of catching him driving somewhere, then asking him pointless questions in pursuit of a coveted video clip. Doing it once is demotivating enough, but when you make a career out of it, you can understand why the likes of Davies are susceptible to moment on a random Tuesday afternoon.
Because these aren’t interviews in any classic sense. Instead, Davies, when asked to do an interview, knows he’s simply being used, relevant only to Adam Azim and the need to create content for an online audience. He knows that when he gets these calls, people aren’t interested in his career or how he felt after his defeat in January, but rather what they want from him is confirmation; confirmation of a rumor spread without his consent. In that moment, he’s reminded of his place as a boxer. He’s reminded of both his value and how it fluctuates.
The truth is that if classic interviews weren’t so infrequent these days, Davies might have a different perspective on what he considers media, or rather interviews. He might know what an interview is, and therefore appreciate that creating clickbait and farming engagement aren’t the only reasons people want to talk to a boxer when a publicist offers them six minutes on Zoom. He might understand the difference between journalists and content creators.
A few weeks ago, British featherlight heavyweight Joshua Buatsi expressed similar weariness when asked about pre-fight interviews. “Usually,” he said, “they ask us the same thing over and over again, and I think, ‘Oh my God, I’ve been asked that a hundred times.’”
“This is completely different.”
Our interview was different only because the interviewer anticipated the mood of the interviewee and therefore did everything he could to make the interviewee feel (a) as if they mattered more than a news headline and (b) remotely stimulated – or at least made to think – by the line of questioning. That, with such a low bar, was no real feat, to be truthful, but it was still depressing to think that such measures had to be taken. It was equally depressing to think that there were boxers like Buatsi who were shielded from journalists by a legion of publicists and managers who had never really experienced what it was like to be properly interviewed.
In the case of Davies, 25-3 (18), I have no doubt that he is a character worthy of an interview – a proper one. In fact, I interviewed Davies properly in 2018, around the time he was emerging as a mature, reformed figure, believing that the best way to get noticed was to be as raucous and annoying as possible. By the time we spoke, Davies, or “OD,” was a different man. It was only with the passage of time and a few humiliating setbacks that he realized that no amount of fame was worth the energy it took to simultaneously keep a mask in place, juggle balls, and dance on cue.
Now 32, Davies says he has learned his lesson and found his voice; voice. He no longer boasts about beating every fighter in his weight class, or claims to have all the answers. In other words, he has been humbled, disciplined. First he was humbled by Josh Taylor in 2017, then by Jack Catterall in 2018, and most recently he was caught frosty and stopped in the round by Ismael Barroso, a loss so humiliating that one might dare suggest Davies should be grateful that the “media” picked up the phone, let alone pretend to care.
But a boxer would obviously never think like that. Some people have difficulty thinking at all, while others, like Davies, who perhaps think, or simply offer too much of themselves to the public, will utilize the Me vs. the World mentality as both motivation and, when necessary, a way to create separation. “You can all ‘fuck off,’” he said Tuesday, and he probably thought so then, too. That’s not to say he’s right to think that way, or that he wants people to stop contacting him indefinitely, but maybe Davies was just a little tired that day. Tired of being used. Tired of not having control. Tired of having to consider the thought of now being someone’s springboard. Tired of boxing itself; the ferocity of it, the speed at which it evolves. Or maybe he was just bored that day. Maybe what Davies needed to do Tuesday was sit quietly and say nothing; something he should have done two days earlier, when he wrote on the same Twitter account, “I hate doing medical tests because (I have to) sit in that MRI place for so long and it’s so uninteresting.”
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