For a while, it looked like whoever trained Le’Veon Bell for his exhibition boxing match had been pulling an elaborate prank on him. Then Adrian Peterson singled to right.
The former Pittsburgh Steelers running back emerged victorious from a poorly attended social gauntlet display against fellow NFL running back on Saturday despite an embarrassing showing of form through the first four rounds. Each boxer landed only a handful of punches, and few, if any, significant strikes as the announcers tried dismally to justify what the viewers had paid.
Bell, in particular, seemed to be fighting somewhere on Nate Robinson’s level, nearly bending over at the waist every time he tried to land a punch and getting knocked down by a single in the second round.
But of course, boxing matches can be decided by one punch, whether it’s from Deontay Wilder or a former Pro Bowler trying to switch sports. In the fifth round, Bell caught Peterson with one of his hardest swings of the night and left the former MVP too dazed to continue.
It wasn’t the wildest end to the night though, as former NBA guard Nick “Swaggy P” Young saw his boxing debut come to an end with him flying through the ropes afterwards of contact with TikTok influencer Minikon, a last-minute replacement for rapper BlueFace.
The match was called as Young was lying on the mat in obvious pain.
Fortunately for Peterson and Young, there weren’t many people around to witness their fall. According to a report from Dexertothe Social Gloves event sold only about 200 tickets at the 22,000-seat Banc of California Stadium in Los Angeles, and eventually organizers resorted to giving away 1,000 tickets.
Even with this attempt to increase attendance, there were enough visible empty seats to go around the blush of the Oakland Athletics. The void was visible almost at all times during the broadcast, but the desolation was highlighted through social media video.
No matter how he got there, Bell can at least call himself a winner, though. Which is good, because it looks like the former All-Pro wants to make a career out of it.
Bell said before the fight that he is staying away from football to focus on boxing and reiterated that after his win on Saturday. When asked if he wants to turn pro or stick with the celebrity boxing circuit, he replied “hell yes.”
“I want to see how far I can go. I want to test my limits,” Bell said after the game. “I’ll keep going, let’s see what happens after this. I’m going to enjoy tonight, don’t get me wrong. I’ve worked so hard for so long. I’m going to enjoy tonight and then work on everything else. later .”
