Not since the Rumble in the Jungle, when Muhammad Ali fought George Foreman in Kinshasa in 1974, can there have been such an eagerly anticipated punch-up as the one due to take place in New York in a fortnight.
Odds as to whether the bout will go the distance, or on who can deliver a knockout punch, are already being offered as ring-side seats are sought.
The Grapple in the Big Apple will pit “Gorgeous” George Galloway, the MP, against Christopher Hitchens, the writer and polemicist, in a public debate over Iraq and US and British foreign policy. Political junkies in America are drooling at the prospect.
When the anti-war Respect MP for Bethnal Green visited Washington earlier this summer to deliver a lecture on Iraq to a gobsmacked Senate and to denounce allegations made against him by Republican senators, he briefly exchanged verbal fisticuffs with the pro-war Hitchens, and accused him of being a “drink-sodden former Trotskyist popinjay”.
Now it’s time for a re-match. The event will take place on September 14 in the Mason Hall at the Baruch College performing arts centre in the Gramercy Park area of Manhattan. It may not have quite the whiff of Madison Square Gardens, and the cornermen will be more likely to have to deal with wounded pride than bloodied cheekbones, but the venom will be as potent as in any title bout.
Wanna know what a “popinjay” is? Me too. Tune into the Media Blog September 15th for a blow-by-blow account. (via Sullivan)
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