America's Sweetheart

  

A great American comeback story ended in bloody defeat last week. The Comeback is as Americana as baseball or apple pie. MacArthur, Chrysler, Suge Knight- all speak to that punk in all of us who slinks away from treacherous seas. We need heroes, because most of us are pretty average. I got beat up once, and I hid when I saw that girl again. Come to think of it,,,,that girl looked a little like Tonya Harding.

   How tremendous is it to see a figure skater reduced to prize fighting? Figure skaters aren't bred for combat. However athletic the skater may be, her game is finesse and grace- virtues not apprecited when the fur flies. It isn't a gender thing, either. I have never heard of anyone trying to avoid a confrontation with a male figure skater.

   Society grabbed Tonya by the back of the head, rubbed her face in the mud, and tossed her to the curb like Hefty. Make no mistake, she deserved it. Her people hired the first Hitman in figure skating history. What's worse, they got caught.

   Tonya quickly rose to the top of the Double-Wide hierarchy, and managed to turn up in the news for the occasional drunken brawl that you could almost imagine people chanting "Jerry...Jerry!!" during. I understand that she hit a boyfriend in the face with a hubcap, once. If you snoop enough online, you can find pics of her doing community service, cleaning some Washington median strip.

   I'm sure the future was supposed to be quite different when Harding was kicking ass as a young skater. Peggy Fleming and Dorothy Hamill became famous, got commercials, and rose to prominence through figure skating. Figure skating is a powerful media event, and is always a good ratings draw. It carries the Winter Olympics. Harding could skate circles around Fleming, and is still the only American woman to hit a triple axel- whatever the heck that is....

   Beautifully dressed, alone on a stark white rink, with every move being judged and watched by millions of people- American figure skaters became household names....Divas. Divas usually don't end up boxing.

   Yet, that's exactly where Tonya Harding ended up last week. Banned from skating, she dabbled in Wrestling and Porn, and ended up trying to become a professional boxer. I approved of this move. She was an Olympic-caliber athlete, and had a name people knew- even in infamy.

   Her public debut- on a Fox show that may have been called "Look At My Failed Career," or something- was positively dripping with promise. Showing deft skill, she pounded an overwhelmed Paula Jones into the sort of terrified submission that Clinton was probably hoping she'd show when he pulled out his unit in that hotel room.

   Most people looked at Tonya Harding on Celebrity Boxing and saw a disgrace. I looked at it and saw a scrappy powerhouse with a mean streak. As was once said of Stonewall Jackson, Harding "knew how to hate." I filed her name away in my selective memory, and it didn't pop up again until last week.

   Tonya had actually worked out a pretty good deal for herself. A Canadian promoter was going to pay her $600K to fight some heavy-hitting-hussy from Edmonton. All Tonya had to do was get a few fights under her belt, get her name in the news....and not suffer a humiliating loss at the hands of whatever tomato can they set her up with.

  

   The best laid plans of mice and men go oft astray.

   Tonya was allowed to fatten up, and came in overconfident for her match with Edmonton's Amy Johnson. Tonya had to starve to make weight, which was eventually moved up to 135, and went into the fight weak and distracted.

   Amy Johnson was raw, but tough. Despite the starving, Tonya looked like she trained at Krispy Kreme. Johnson cut her over the nose in round one, and repeatedly landed straight right hands to the ever-more-dazed American. Harding rallied in round 2, laying the Canadian at her feet at one point, but then things went Picabo Street/downhill.

   Tonya came out for the third round with her hands down, and got tagged. She staggered back to the ropes, where Johnson cornered her. A fierce hook stunned Harding, who was unable to defend herself. As the crowd bellowed in joy, a poleaxed Harding then took a series of unanswered punches to her face before the ref jumped in. Harding fell to the floor, and her new career was over.

   Thousands of miles away in the Massachusetts suburb of Stoneham, a  retired skater with an old knee injury enjoyed a last laugh- in the wealthy, pampered life that she carved for herself after her time in the the world's eye.

   Tonya may seize the spotlight again. She will keep working at her boxing, and maybe one day she will win the big fight. She'd make a terrific WWE villain, and Fox is way overdue for some more Celebrity Violence. Forever cursed to fight an uphill battle, Miss Harding may one day show us all something, after all.

   Or she gets beaten to death by Geri Haliwell. Either way, we get a laugh. And at the end of another humiliating day in the rat race, we need a disgraced figure skater to goof on.