Mitt(ens) Romney And Evander Holyfield To Punch Each Other In The Face, In A Boxing Ring, For America

On May 15th former Bain Capital CEO Mitt Romney will enter a boxing ring constructed in Salt Lake City’s Rail Event Center to fight Evander Holyfield, a former world champion heavyweight boxer with 44 wins, 29 of which came by knockout.

Mitt(ens) Romney is famous as the CEO and co-founder of private equity firm Bain Capital, where he turned an initial fund of $37 million into a company overseeing over $4 billion. That, and the time he ran for President of the United States and failed miserably. Aside from that latter failure he’s been pretty damn successful at everything he’s put his mind to in life, but will that be enough to knockdown the former Heavyweight Champion of the World?

The bout is taking place in the name of charity, blindness to be exact, but will charity be enough to stop Evander Holyfield from punching a hole through Romney’s heart?

Here’s what we know so far from The Salt Lake Tribune:

He’s taking up boxing.

In fact, Romney is slated to fight former heavyweight boxing champion Evander Holyfield in the marquee event during a several-bout evening at the Rail Event Center near the Union Pacific Depot in Salt Lake City on May 15.

“It will either be a very short fight, or I will be knocked unconscious,” Romney quipped in an interview recently. “It won’t be much of a fight. We’ll both suit up and get in the ring and spar around a little bit.”

Holyfield agreed to participate in a fundraising event for Charity Vision, a humanitarian organization founded about 20 years ago by retired Salt Lake physician Bill Jackson, who, as a mission president in the Philippines for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, saw the suffering in areas with abject poverty and the total lack of medical care.

The Romney-Holyfield fight will not be the only bout that night. “There will be bouts between real, active professional prize fighters,” he said.

Josh Romney said a reception will begin at 6 p.m. and the fights start around 6:30. It is a black-tie event, and the fare will be heavy hors d’oeuvres.

“It’s patterned after a 1920s-style event,” Josh Romney said.

The fundraiser will be aimed toward attracting corporate sponsorships, and will run between $250,000 to $25,000, depending on the level of sponsorship. Josh Romney said corporate sponsors can then bring in guests, “so it will be a good promotion for them [the sponsors].”

It’s not very fun if Mittens is already admitting that he’s going to get knocked unconscious almost immediately, is it? On the one hand he’s at least admitting he’ll put in an effort, but he’s also admitting that people are going to pay a shitton of money for a fight that’s going to last as long as the time you lost your virginity.

And I don’t really get the idea of raising money and awareness for blindness by punching people in the face, it’s like raising awareness for obesity by eating pizza every day for a year.

I’ll be rooting for Mittens though, he’ll need all the fans he can muster up to withstand a K.O. from Holyfield. And in the end this isn’t about charity at all, is it? It’s about watching two grown ass men punch each other in the face while other people make prop bets on the side.

[NYDailyNews via The Salt Lake Tribune]