The fear that stalks the ring

A sport in crisis: The downfall of Akinwande added further fiasco to the heavy list of sorry spectacles; Harry Mullan argues that boxing's new disasters stem from an old instinct

Excessive concentration on self-preservation is neither endearing nor profitable in a professional fighter. It discourages aggression and thus reduces marketability. Some outgrow it: Ingemar Johansson was thrown out in the final of the 1952 Olympic heavyweight competition against the huge American Ed Sanders, but seven years later flattened Floyd Patterson to win the world title in one of the sport's famous upsets. A J Liebling wrote of his humiliation: "Sanders was so big that his opponent simply ran away. The judges disqualified the Swede, who said afterwards that it had suddenly occurred to him he might be killed."

Something similar must have occurred to Henry Akinwande before his dismal challenge to Lennox Lewis's World Boxing Council title at Lake Tahoe, Nevada, last week. He had been disqualified in the 1986 ABA final for repeated holding, and unlike Johansson he reverted to his amateur persona on the biggest night of his life. It should have been the night when boxing regained its pride after the Mike Tyson ear-biting fiasco last month. Instead, Akinwande's thoroughly deserved fifth-round disqualification thrust the sport even deeper into crisis and added yet another farce to the growing list of scandals and sorry spectacles which have afflicted heavyweight boxing in recent times.

We have had the two Andrew Golota v Riddick Bowe affairs, when on both occasions the Pole committed every foul other than ear-biting to salvage disqualification defeat from the jaws of sensational victory; we watched Scott Welch sleepwalk through 12 rounds against Akinwande for the World Boxing Organisation Championship in January in probably the most boring title fight in history; we had the bizarre experience of observing poor Oliver McCall experience a nervous breakdown during his WBC title fight with Lewis in February; then Tyson-Holyfield, and now this.

The knee-jerk reaction from television executives, the moneymen who are the real power-brokers in world boxing, was to blame the organisations concerned for making undeserving fighters into contenders. Yet that is only half true. Certainly there are a lot more championships on offer today than is healthy, so that bad fights attract more publicity just because they have a WBO, WBC, World Boxing Association, World Boxing Union or International Boxing Federation label. In the old days, fights such as Akinwande-Welch or Lewis- McCall would have been obscure 10-rounders of no significance. McCall's tragi-comic display would have been a nine-day wonder, while the soporific Akinwande-Welch affair would barely have been reported at all.

But there are no grounds for criticising the WBA for matching Tyson with Holyfield, or the WBC for pairing Lewis with Akinwande. Both were fascinating even-money fights. I hesitantly picked Tyson to stop Holyfield, and thought that Akinwande had the tools to give Lewis a desperately difficult night's work. My mistake in both instances was to form an opinion based on facts and formlines, whereas in boxing the outcome is so often determined by the one factor which cannot be known in advance - what is going on inside a man's head.

Who could have dreamed that Tyson was planning to turn carnivore, or that Akinwande would be so swamped by fears and self-doubts that he would be virtually incapable of throwing a punch? His anxiety was evident in his bearing during his introductions in the ring, but even that was not a reliable indicator of what might happen once the bell rang. I have been in the dressing-rooms of men who were grey with nerves - no, let's be honest and call it fear - yet who went out for the first round and fought like lions.

The men who claim that they don't feel fear are either liars or psychotics, and Akinwande is neither of those. Most fighters feed off fear and use it as a stimulus, but some are overwhelmed by it. They are not cowards, nor is their behaviour in the ring consistent. Frank Bruno fought heroically against Tim Witherspoon, yet froze against Tyson. Nigel Benn marched to the gates of hell against Gerald McClellan, yet surrendered tamely to Steve Collins. Akinwande has had his good nights (he was unbeaten in 32 fights before facing Lewis) but could not summon any kind of effort against Lewis and now his career is in ruins.

Lewis, too, has suffered through his involvement in two championship fiascos in succession. McCall's breakdown was no fault of his, and it would be unfair to criticise him for his failure to dispose of the American before the referee Mills Lane (the man in the middle for all three of the year's disqualifications) ended the shambles. Lewis was as bewildered as the rest of us, and was clearly reluctant to launch a full-scale assault on such an obviously deranged man.

Yet we are entitled to fault him for his failure to get rid of Akinwande since it was immediately apparent that the challenger had no stomach for the job and would probably have welcomed a knock-out punch like a Lottery win. How long would a fighter as frightened as Akinwande have lasted against Mike Tyson? Bruce Seldon could answer that one. And now Lewis risks it happening again, with his talk of meeting the geriatric George Foreman.

What he needs, urgently, is a credible opponent like the winner of the forthcoming Ray Mercer v Golota match, or best of all, a showdown with Holyfield. That could be the match to blow away the cloud which lingers over boxing's flagship division.