Eisenberg: Zbikowski's Boxing An Unexpected Positive
Mar 29, 2011, 11:00AM
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When the news surfaced about Tom Zbikowski getting back into the boxing ring, a lot of people speculated that the Ravens wouldn’t be happy.
Although they couldn’t stop him because of the labor situation, they couldn’t possibly want one of their key defensive players mixing it up and risking an injury.
Well, it turned out they didn’t mind. Owner Steve Bisciotti thought it was so “awesome” that he wanted to lead “Tommy Z” into the ring. And while Head Coach John Harbaugh was slightly more circumspect, saying Zbikowski told him before the lockout “there was no risk of injury so I guess I’ll have to take him at his word,” he didn’t sound upset.
Their tacit backing of Zbikowski is only appropriate, considering how much he is doing for their franchise, however unwittingly, in the midst of a pro football crisis.
Amid the daily onslaught of blah-blah reports from the labor front, Zbikowski is actually competing, giving fans in Baltimore something to follow and get excited about. Just like the old song said, Saturday nights are for fighting!
While teams elsewhere fret about their fans dozing off at the news of lawyers exchanging briefs, the Ravens are actually polishing their image as one of the NFL’s toughest teams thanks to Zbikowski.
They should be thrilled he is out there battling in trunks with purple trim, offering an upbeat distraction from the sobering reality that pro football has hit the pause button. Few other teams are getting such positive P.R.
Sure, there’s an injury risk, but you can get hurt jogging through a drill, as Domonique Foxworth did last summer on the eve of training camp. If I’m the Ravens, I’m glad to see a player conditioning so hard. Zbikowski is in South Florida, a land of distractions, but he’s not exactly smoking cigars and cruising around in a big-finned Cadillac until 3 a.m. He’s working out feverishly, saying he wants to keep training and fighting.
This is one guy the Ravens don’t have to worry about showing up 30 pounds overweight if and when football resumes.
Want to read more ?John Eisenberg
There is actually a decades-old tradition of football players getting into various rings to keep themselves in shape – and make some extra money. In the AFL days, a lineman for the Chargers named “Big Cat” Ernie Ladd became more famous as a professional wrestler, as did “Indian Chief” Wahoo McDaniel, a Choctaw-Chickasaw Native American who played linebacker for the Oilers, Broncos and Jets.
Cowboys defensive end Ed “Too Tall” Jones put his career on hold after five years and spent a season in the boxing ring in 1979. But while he won six straight bouts as, what else, a heavyweight, he knew he wasn’t good enough for the big boys and returned to football.
Interestingly, Jones earned three All-Pro selections during his 15-year career -- all after his foray into boxing. It was almost as if he had to get it out of his system before he could buckle down and become the best possible football player.
Zbikowski is different in that he came to the Ravens as a polished boxer, a pro, having fought almost 100 times as an amateur and once for pay. This isn’t Chad Ochocinco dabbling with a soccer tryout. Zbikowski knows what he is doing in the ring and possibly could go far.
“I love doing it," he said in a press conference last week. "There's nothing like one-on-one competition. There's nothing like the feeling of the anxiety you have before you go into a fight. You feel alive.”
To say he is passionate about it would be putting it mildly.
He is a tough young man who loves contact, qualities that translate nicely to football, and if he ever fought in Baltimore, as he said he wants to do, he would find thousands of purple-clad supporters backing him with full-throated support. Sports fans go for athletes who love what they do so much they would do it for free or very nearly, and Zbikowski clearly feels that way about boxing.
The Ravens should be glad he is out there making news, spinning their name so positively and giving fans something to talk about other than, well, you know.
