When the biggest names in boxing talk about the future of the sport, they point to a soft-spoken man who weighs only a little over 100 pounds and hails from one of China's poorest provinces.
Have vehicularized and, increasingly, sport-utilitized American consumers become Burroughs' archetypical soft machines, beset and enslaved by hydrocarbon capitalism?
On its own merits, the sport has the speed, strength, intensity and sex appeal to drive solid TV ratings, especially against soft competition during the summer sports calendar that really only features baseball.