WHEN the Beach Boys released Pet Sounds in 1966, Brian Wilson couldn’t have known that track 12, “I Just Wasn’t Made for These Times”, would bring so much comfort to the disillusioned; men and women convinced they were born in the wrong era and at the wrong time.
Yet time has shown that there is comfort to be found not only in that song but in the very idea that there is someone else just like you; a time traveler; someone every bit as out of place; a kindred spirit.
For Joshua Buatsi, there was Dan Azeez, his last opponent. Whenever the two were together, they understood, both each other and the etiquette of their profession. Moreover, whenever pictured together, you could have sworn the image had been taken in the seventies or eighties, back when light heavyweights looked like Buatsi and Azeez, fought like Buatsi and Azeez and, more importantly, behaved like Buatsi and Azeez.
Alas, that time has now passed and now men like Buatsi and Azeez, rather than the norm, are seen as outliers. They still have their place, of course, but whereas in years gone by respect and professionalism were celebrated as virtues in boxing, now they are seen as drawbacks to a fighter’s marketability and overall appeal.
“I’ve seen what’s going on and it does seem like those who are more outspoken, or acting like clowns, or just acting in a certain manner, are getting more attention,” says Buatsi. “But I’ve just tried to remain myself. I’m aware that this boxing thing is only going to be part of my life for a short time, so being a certain way in the long run is just going to be fake, isn’t it? After, let’s say, five more years as a pro, I will have to go back to how I actually am. There’s no point in pretending.”
Buatsi, to be clear, does have a personality and can express himself when suitably motivated and inclined to do so. He is just a little different, that’s all; different, that is, by the standards of today. For one, he is quiet, reserved, understated. He would rather do his talking with his fists and he would rather read scriptures from the Bible than a social media timeline consisting of whatever is in the thought bubble of the chronically online and self-absorbed. He is also a student and a role model, two things that had a far greater bearing on a boxer’s popularity in years gone by than they do today, when the idea of an “influencer” means something quite different.
“The reality is, it’s entertainment,” Buatsi concedes. “I do understand people earn money from this sport, so you have to find a balance somewhere. Sometimes I don’t think I get it right, to be fair, but it is what it is.”
Of course, had Buatsi been active in the era for which he appears made, there would be far less pressure on him to be something he is not and no need to beat himself up for failing to strike the right balance. If, for instance, he and Azeez had truly been products of the seventies or eighties, an interview like this one would have taken a very different course, one suspects.
“That would be perfect for me,” says Buatsi. “I always laugh when I think about that. If I had been in a different era, it would have been easier for me.
“It’s funny because I watch a lot of old-school fighters and I think about how it was for them. They didn’t have to do all this media stuff, and tweet, and put pictures up. But also, back then those fights were on terrestrial TV, so everyone could watch it for free and they would get millions of eyeballs on them.”
To express an awareness of this shift proves that Buatsi’s desire to go back in time is not some delusion, or the behaviour of a sulking outcast. It is instead no more than a fantasy he entertains from time to time. He understands, in other words, the reality of his situation and why, to thrive in the current climate, when boxing has never been as hidden, certain allowances must be made and certain pressures endured.
“There is always pressure in what we do,” he admits. “I put a lot of pressure on myself to do well because I have sacrificed everything for this. I have an expectation of myself for that reason. There is also pressure from the fans, the media, and anyone else involved in the sport. That kind of pressure is always going to be there. It’s so familiar to me now that I don’t even look into that sort of thing at all.
“No, the greatest pressure is the pressure I put on myself and the pressure my team put on me. That helps me become a better fighter and stay ahead.
“As time goes on you have greater expectations; bigger goals, bigger dreams. The pressure changes as well. It’s never the same. What’s pressure today might not necessarily be pressure tomorrow. It’s a bit like success in that way. Success always changes. At one point success for me was winning an Olympic medal. But now that has changed because I’m a professional. Now success for me means winning a world title. Then, once you do that, the idea of success changes again. Now you want to unify the division. And when you unify, you might then want to change (weight) category. So it just goes on and on, this idea of success. It never stops.”
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Of all the pressure situations he has encountered so far in boxing, Buatsi says that none have been bigger than when he won Olympic bronze in 2016. Inexperienced at the time, and with no expectation to win a medal, the pressure Buatsi felt in Brazil had as much to do with the pressure of representing his country as anything else.
Having done so with aplomb, winning a bronze medal in the process, there would then for Buatsi come a different kind of pressure. Now pressure had less to do with patriotism and personal pride and more to do with professional achievement and financial success. Now he needed mechanisms to cope.
“Another thing that helps me deal with pressure is my faith,” Buatsi says. “There’s a scripture I always remember that says, ‘Not to worry about tomorrow because today has enough worries of its own.’ Sometimes you can spend too much time wondering about what is going to happen – where should I be, what should I be doing – and not focusing on the thing you can actually control: what happens today, now.
“I really believe that everything is done accordingly and I always try to remember that everyone’s timing is different. I don’t look at other people that way. Of course you benchmark and make goals and long-term plans, but then sometimes it doesn’t work out how you planned, so you have to be willing to understand and accept that.
“I believe in God and I believe our path has already been mapped out. We’re merely walking what’s already been written and done. That’s how I deal with the pressures of life.”
In terms of his pro career, most of the pressure on Buatsi has come from outside the ring. Inside the ring, he has been fine, comfortable. Inside the ring, he has beaten each of his 18 opponents with something to spare and he has always done things both at his own pace and to his liking, often a tell-tale sign of a fighter with gears still to use. Yet it is outside the ring, where all he hears is noise, that Buatsi has struggled to convince. He has struggled to convince people of his star power and he has struggled at times to convince people to watch him fight.
“Maybe I’ve had one or two boring fights,” he says, “but I have an understanding that boxing is only for a certain period of my life and after that there is still a long life to live. I don’t then start thinking, Right, let me take more punishment just because it’s going to look good on TV or it’s going to be considered entertaining. I don’t think like that at all. I think about giving the punishment and trying to not to take too much of it. But I still think I have quite an entertaining style. When I’m in a fight, I get stuck in.”
As ever, true perspective arrives as a result of understanding. To understand what Buatsi is trying to do, both in the ring and away from it, is to get an understanding of both the fighter and the man. However, in a world short on both patience and understanding, it should come as no surprise that Buatsi, 18-0 (11), has seemingly had difficulty fitting in. After all, when everything seems to be moving so fast, and there is neither room for nuance nor, to some extent, quality, fighters like Buatsi rely on the sellers – whether promoter, manager, or journalist – to work that bit harder and pay attention. Their inability or reluctance to then do so says as much about them as it does Buatsi.
“I don’t mind it, to be fair,” he says of pre-fight interviews and media obligations. “This is quite a different conversation, so it’s quite nice. Usually, we’re just asked the same stuff over and over again and I’m like, ‘Oh my goodness, I have been asked this a hundred times.’ This is quite different.”
It is different, perhaps, because we have met on common and solid ground; a place of understanding; a world we both inhabit, bear.
Yet, on September 21, Buatsi knows he will again be in the realm of the absurd, the alien. He will, for starters, be upgrading from Wembley Arena – the scene of his last fight – to Wembley Stadium, as big and bold and look-at-me as you can possibly get. He will also be fighting 26-year-old Willy Hutchinson, a thoroughly modern man who embraces everything about self-promotion Buatsi, 31, resists.
“We’re still going to fight at the end of the day, so how we act before it doesn’t really matter,” Buatsi says. “But he’ll be something different, yeah. Dan (Azeez) was a bit old-school and understood, look, we’re fighting and that’s that. There wasn’t any rudeness or any weird kind of talking. But the good thing about boxing is that you have the freedom to be how you want to be.”
That much is true, yes, only the concern today, given the way both boxing and the world is going, is that there is a growing pressure to be everything but the one thing you should be: yourself.
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