Here is what boxing is: You wait for what is to come pretending like you have some kind of idea. Then when the time comes and the flurry is upon, you go back on those heels and throw from your fists. You throw and you throw until you are done, because until the bell sounds the hitting from all directions isn’t done.
Coming to Canada and etching out a new life is a fight. You got the language and cultural things all coming at you in right crosses and all the rest of it. Boom!
There are always those neighbourhoods where the fight to survive and the burn to get yours is brighter. Where the survival instinct wells up pretty nice. You go where the rents are a little high for the crap they are selling at you on the monthly, but the background checks are laxer and they aren’t slamming the door to your face. There is one other constant about all these types of districts - the boxing gym, the place to make good all the things you have been learning about having to stand up for you and yours. And all those rounds you are putting down day after day.
In Toronto, you have your Cabbagetown Boxing Club - in a place where the kids of good Irish stock were set down to live in Corktown and Cabbagetown, because it was close to all that factory and distillery work and the only place that Orange Toronto would keep it so that King Billy wouldn’t take a thrashing to them with their Billy clubs. This was the late 19th century in Cabbagetown and all that Presbyterian Toronto long dresses with no lace was held down like iron by the ruling no-fun brigade. So there was all that before they put up (and now tore down) that monstrosity of a failed housing project called Regent Park. A place where some of the Irish even stayed to fight more than a few rounds. The years went on and some of the families even stayed on - till come the eighties you had the scrapper Shawn O’Sullivan. He was coming out of that Cabbagetown club with the prolific amature title of 94-6. A bloody record matched by very very few Canadian boxers.
The culmination of Shawn’s career was the 1984 Olympics in LA where he grabbed at that siver metal after losing to the American Frank Tate in the finals of the Mens Light Middleweight. O’Sullivan looked to have the gold medal locked up. In the second round O’Sullivan landed some heavy gloves on Tate, taking him to two standing-eight-counts. But the judges unanimously gave the decision to Tate and, incredibly, even awarded the second round to the American. Even the patriotic Los Angeles crowd jeered the decision. But our Cabbagetown boy O’Sullivan was gracious in defeat, calling the outcome “unfortunate.” He did turn pro after this but never, it would seem, reach his full potential - or maybe it was just he never caught his proper breaks.
I saw an interview with old Shawn going back about 5 years on CBC and you could tell, like so many, the blows to the head had taken their toll. He had taken his cuts and lacerations and you could tell that they had a hold on him for life. Probably like a lot of us.
So what of Shawn? In 2007, O’Sullivan’s apartment was busted into, and the thieves made off with all his lifetime: nine rings, including one with four maple leaves and a diamond stud that commemorates his pair of world championships.
He is currently holding it down in of all places, Belleville, Ont. where he can frequently be seen walking his dog (a boxer) and offering a friendly greeting to any who recognize him. I suppose that is the loneliness of the small town and the rewards Shawn had in store for all that courage he took upon himself. The thing about being put in the middle of fights, is you don’t always come out the winner. And you never, that is a surety, come out weightless and without the effects of the thing that came at you.
Immigration it can be a shit-kicker alright. And who knows what all the generations beyond us have in store as they stand to their place with the flurries to come.
For final thoughts on the metaphoricals of the many ways that we all take our turn in the ring when we come to Canada — check the video of our man Dierry Jean. He is a latter-day O’Sullivan coming to the shores of St. Michel in East Montreal and of good Haitian stock, and man is he ready to go back on those heels. They call him the Canadian champ going back to 2006. Weightless one? Well, we will all just have to wait and see about all the beatings he still has to come on down throughout the years….
