SPORT ON TV: Philosophy of bittersweet science

Somewhere in the twilight world of the Learning Zone on BBC2 in the early hours of Wednesday morning, Barry McGuigan and Fleur Fisher of the British Medical Association could be found slugging out a point- for-point debate about the question of whether boxing should be banned.

The producers of Philosophy in Action: Debates about Boxing even wheeled out Lord Hattersley to dispute the morality of "the noble art". He sat snugly in a study somewhere, soberly proclaiming: "I believe if you're going to have a truly free society you've got to have a society that respects individuals, respects individual rights and respects individual personas, and I think it's very difficult to have a society that respects individual persons if it's also a society that enjoys seeing young men beat each other to insensitivity."

So much for the philosophy. The reality of boxing is rather more complex, as viewers of BBC1 Wales on Tuesday night will have experienced. In 40 minutes of television that hauled you through the emotional mixer, Johnny Owen: The Long Journey laid bare the raw strands that are woven around the very heart of the matter.

The "long journey" is ostensibly that taken by Johnny Owen's father, Dick, who trained the "Merthyr Matchstick Man" and who was in his corner the night of his fateful World Boxing Council bantamweight world title fight in the Olympic Auditorium, Los Angeles, on 19 September 1980.

Dick Owen travels to Mexico to meet Lupe Pintor, the man whose blows led to the death of his son. It is a journey that digs much deeper than the 6,000 miles that separate Merthyr Tydfil from Mexico City. We see the glory of Johnny Owen, the "painfully slender, massively courageous" boxer, fighting his way to the brink of a world title. Then we see the horror of him collapsing to the canvas after a right-hand punch from Pintor 25 seconds from the end of the 12th and final round - and the chilling sight of his father trying in vain to revive him at ringside. We see the Owen family clinging to hope as Johnny lies in a coma in a Los Angeles hospital. And we hear Dick Owen recall the heart-rending moment he was asked for permission to switch off the life-support machine.

Then we see Johnny Owen's father meet Pintor for the first time since the night of the fight in Los Angeles. Pintor opens a steel gate and welcomes him inside. "This is my home," the grey-haired Mexican says. "This is my wife." Pintor's championship belt and a picture of him in triumphant pose hang on the walls. Dick Owen watches Pintor's sons playfully sparring in the backyard. "Does Johnny have kids?" Pintor enquires, through an interpreter.

"I've never blamed Lupe," Dick Owen says. "He was not at fault for what happened to Johnny. There was a chink in John's armour that we didn't know about. That's the saddest part about it. It could have happened at any time during his career." (It was discovered in the aftermath of Johnny's death that he had an abnormally thin skull; in these days of compulsory brain scans he probably would never have been allowed to box professionally.)

"We have put something behind us now; we're moving on," Dick Owen says, with an arm around Pintor. The reality of the tragedy, however, does not hit Pintor until he makes the trip from Mexico to Merthyr to unveil a statue of Johnny Owen. His composure starts to crumble from the moment he steps into the Owen household and beholds a giant portrait of Johnny on the living- room wall.

Johnny's brother, Kelvin, says he bears Pintor no ill will but admits: "I am not looking forward to shaking his hand because it was his right hand that did the damage." His trepidation is etched in his face as Pintor greets him, but it is the Mexican who breaks down. "Please don't cry," Owen's brother implores. "It was an accident. Nobody blames you." And Dick Owen steps forward to embrace the tearful Pintor. "Come on; come on," he says, comfortingly.

It is a moment that cannot fail to touch even the most staunch critic of pugilism. Johnny Owen: The Long Journey is more powerful in its impact than Raging Bull or When We Were Kings. It goes beyond the boxing ring - far beyond - to the very heart of life and death, and the triumph of the human spirit over the most terrible of tragedies. It is a credit to BBC Wales and to director Dylan Richards and his team (among them narrator Sian Phillips and scriptwriter Eddie Butler), but above all to the family of Johnny Owen and to Lupe Pintor.

"This shows the greater side of boxing," Dick Owen says, after a Merthyr girl wraps a Welsh scarf around Pintor's neck at the statue's unveiling. It would take a harsh philosopher to disagree.

Copyright 2003 Independent Newspapers UK Limited
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