MOLI VIEW™

High up in the box at the Beausejour Cricket Ground in Rodney Bay, Saint Lucia, I felt too safe. Enclosed with the Minister of Tourism, a smelly buffet of curries, and an open bar would be a much too comfortable way to take in my first live boxing match — which also happened to be the first professional boxing event in Saint Lucia. So, with my press pass, I boldly proceeded downward and out onto the green, ringside, so close I would now be sprayed by the boxers' blood, sweat, and tears.

A crowd of 4,000 or so revelers provided some amusing background noise, especially when chanting the Saint Lucian cheer (that I learned later no one is supposed to repeat during polite dinner conversation): "Il salope!" The French Kreyol patois literally means "He's a dirty pig," but figuratively means much worse. That spirited chant would come when the guy the crowd liked landed a punch or the opponent missed a punch — or sometimes just for the hell of it, to fill dead air.

The Showtime Networks camera crews were also on hand to film the final two matches for their sports series, ShoBox: The New Generation, adding floodlights and even more glamour and excitement. The first bout was between unbeaten middleweights Andre Ward, an Olympic gold medalist from Oakland, California, and Roger Cantrell, from Washington state. The finale would be the "Showdown in Paradise" between two hard-hitting heavyweights: Teke Oruh from Nigeria and Joey Abell from the much less exotic Minneapolis. Needless to say, the Saint Lucians, many descended from rebel enslaved Africans, aligned themselves with the black dudes.

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