Death in the Afternoon

"What had happened was that the horn wound, the first real goring, had taken all his valor. He never got it back. He had too much imagination."


In Hemingway's great bullfighting history and meditation, Death in the Afternoon, he asserts that one can never know the true value of a matador until he has been seriously gored for the first time. The reason being that every matador worth his salt eventually will be gored - it's part of the job description - and that the courage requisite to ply the matadoring trade is often in great abundance prior to that first horn-wound, and utterly fleeting after it. A truly great matador, Hemingway argues, returns from his first goring better than before, because the stakes have been raised, and that's just how he likes it. But this, of course, is a rare breed of man.

Last night in Connecticut, Acelino "Popo" Freitas quit on his stool in his lightweight unification bout with Juan Diaz, refusing to answer the bell for the ninth round. It's the second high-profile title bout that Freitas has opted out of early, the first coming in 2004 against Diego Corrales. Though Popo was heavily scorned in the boxing world for quitting in the Corrales fight, I myself thought he fought courageously in that bout and had no problem with his decision. He got up off the canvas twice under heavy fire, the second time so battered that he could barely stand. When he essentially TKO'ed himself after the third knockdown, I thought to myself, "good riddance." He'd endured savage punishment, and nothing was left but for him to be severely hurt.

But I thought of Hemingway last night when I heard Max Kellerman's assessment of Popo's performance against the "Baby Bull" Diaz. Seeing that Freitas was not getting off his stool to begin the ninth round, Kellerman said something along the lines of, "he's been there before, and once you go to that place, it's hard to come back."

The career of Freitas has not been dissimilar to that of Roy Jones - a uniquely talented fighter known for thrilling knockouts and utter domination in the ring. Popo mixed it up a lot more than Roy ever did, but still, he owned his opponents in Roy-like fashion for years, once stringing together 29 straight KO's. Then, much like Roy, his first real goring irrevocably changed his mettle. Freitas has not been the same since the Corrales debacle, his first loss, and last night we saw what I think was his own acknowledgement of that fact. Diaz was beating him soundly, but Popo was still very much in that fight, down maybe two or three points on the scorecards with four rounds to go. And yet, just as in the Corrales fight, he was running out of gas and his opponent seemed intractable. In the end, he feared the horns more than the ignominy of another cowardly exit.

Bizarrely, not long after he quit on his stool, Acelino's handlers lifted him onto their shoulders and paraded him around, a beatific, beaten smile on his face. Later we saw him in passionate embrace with his painfully beautiful Brazilian wife. They left the ring together arm in arm, the beauty queen and her 31-year-old vanquished husband, 31 going on 60. Cheating death has always been a young man's racket anyway. I think it's safe to say that Popo Freitas has fought his last bull, baby or otherwise.