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Mickey Rourke Exhibition Bout Was Pointless Whether It Was Fixed Or Not

By @paul_past

Mickey Rourke Immortalized With Hand And Footprint Ceremony At Grauman's Chinese Theatre

Getty Images

On Friday, Nov. 29, Hollywood actor Mickey Rourke “defeated” 29-year-old Elliot Seymour in the most irrelevant prizefight of the past decade.

Rourke, who is 62 years old, knocked down Seymour twice with what appeared to be two gently placed body shots before the referee stopped the fight in Round 2. Following the fight, rumors began to circulate that Seymour may have been paid to lose, which shouldn’t be a surprise considering Seymour is homeless and trained at the Wild Card Gym, the same gym Rourke trained at for their fight.

The Daily Mail Online, which claims to have interviewed “a gym source” as well as “a source close to the family,” quoted an unidentified family member of Seymour as saying, “It was clearly a fixed fight … punches were not landing and they were intentionally hitting each other’s gloves.”

While suspicions of whether the fight was fixed continue to mount, what boxing fans should keep in mind is that the bout never mattered to begin with. This is not to suggest that fixed fights are okay, but the absolute worst should always be expected whenever a bout as absurd as this one is announced.

Keep in mind that Seymour was 1-9 as a professional before he signed on to fight Rourke, and that he wouldn’t have made more money or gained more name recognition than he ended up gaining in defeat. Rourke, known in part for his 2008 Academy Award-winning performance in “The Wrestler,” said before the fight that he’d been mourning the death of some of his dogs, including a Chihuahua, and added that boxing “sort of saved [him] from [himself].”

He entered the ring wearing a white Stetson hat and repeatedly making the sign of the cross as though he were a cowboy preparing to pray. He spent most of the first round smiling and — surprise, surprise — acting. At one point, Rourke did a very poor imitation of Muhammad Ali’s famous rope-a-dope tactic from the Rumble in the Jungle, which was baffling because at no point in the fight did Seymour land a single punch on Rourke.

Thankfully, the fight wasn’t televised in America, and while the bout is available on many online sites, it will inevitably be forgotten or remembered for what it was: pointless.

Paul Pastorini is a Boxing Writer for www.RantSports.com. Follow him on Twitter @paul_past, find him on Facebook, or add him to your network on Google.

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