Thoughts on showboating
I've seen a lot of reactions to Ben Whittaker (AKA The Silver Surfer)'s antics recently. The two most common refrains are "it's disrespectful" and "boxing is supposed to be entertaining".
First of all, we have to address the elephant in the room. Boxing is NOT supposed to be entertaining. It's supposed to be a sport. We just happen to like it more when it's entertaining. Like most people, I prefer to see exciting back-and-forth contests in every fight. Realistically though, that's never going to be the baseline. You're supposed to hope that a boxing match will be entertaining.
What sort of entertainment you have in mind is subjective. Few expect to see pirouettes and boops on the head when they tune into a fight. This makes the Silver Surfer's antics surprising, and surprise is an important element of comedy. It's the jokes that aren't seen coming which make us laugh hardest. So his novel antics can be described as being entertaining by virtue of being funny. Which is precisely why I find myself leaning towards the "it's disrespectful" camp.
Boxing is a bloodsport. A lot of athletes across a multitude of professions will describe situations as "life-and-death". It adds a dramatic flare to 90 minutes of kicking a football around or potting the black on a snooker table. Boxing is literally a matter of life and death. People die in this sport every single year. Some say that that's why the levity is required, that we need lighthearted moments to balance out the endless heartache the sport causes. This is why I don't think showboating is necessarily disrespectful, but there is a line where it becomes insulting.
The Silver Surfer is on the wrong side of that line for two reasons. One is the aforementioned reason that boxing is supposed to be a sport - his antics are not what most people would call sporting behaviour. Two is the quality of his opposition. His most recent opponent had a record of 10 wins, 13 losses, and 5 draws. It's just adding insult to injury to style on a guy who hadn't won any of his previous 5 fights.
But looking at it another way: that's the point, isn't it? Whittaker's not supposed to lose. What if he did though? Wouldn't that be surprising? And novel? How funny would the punchline be if he gets hit with one he didn't see coming? The people most offended by the showboating will get to laugh hardest and the Silver Surfer becomes the butt of the joke. Everyone will get to point and laugh and kick him while he's down. He'd be a mainstay feature in 'when showboating goes wrong' compilations for as long as the internet lives. *IF* he loses, that is. I also doubt he'll have much goodwill if he decides to stop showboating against top opposition.
There is a "you gotta hand it to him" point Whittaker made in an interview though. When the question of disrespect was put directly to him, he made a clear distinction between himself and others. The vogue ticket-selling/attention-grabbing method in modern boxing is to trashtalk, mock, and deride opponents in press conferences, TV/radio appearances, and social media posts. The more outlandish the better, even more so in the world of "influencer" boxing. Whittaker has a point that that's disrespectful.
What he misses is that his antics are also disrespectful. But credit to him, they at least happen in a ring where his opponents are poised to do something about it. Anyone can push someone at a press conference where you know security will step in, there aren't many people dancing inside the squared circle these days. It's a question of risk vs reward, and most of us can't keep our eyes off risktakers.
My closing thought is that these antics will work for him (in the short to medium term). Yes, they're against nameless no-hopers who are essentially being paid to lose. But nobody will remember that years down the line. You can show the average person on the street a knockout/showboating compilation by Ali, Tyson, Jones, Hamed etc and they won't have the slightest clue who the opponents on the receiving end are. What matters is that they will find it impressive. And they'll remember it as entertaining.