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Dear Anthony, I just wanted to write to you, out of the enormous sense of gratitude I feel for the joy you have brought to me and millions of my fellow Australians.
This is one of the wonderful things about sport, of course, the way it can cause such uplift in our souls, the way it can gladden our hearts and help us forget about the grubby cares of the everyday world for a while.
Anyone who has seen a Mark Waugh century, or David Campese score a try, or Roger Federer in full flight, or the magic of Maradona, is familiar with the transcendent bliss that come from watching a master sportsman in action.
And I can truly say, Anthony, that you have now joined the ranks of these immortals, in your ability to generate happiness beyond the usual spectrum of human emotion in the bosoms of those who follow your endeavours.
You’ve made me happy, Anthony, and you’ve made so many others happy, because you lost.
Just saying those words brings back such sweet memories, do you mind if I say them again? You lost. You lost. You LOST. Oh the shivers of euphoria sizzling up and down my spine just repeating that, it’s so exquisite. I want to relive this feeling again and again, to remember every detail of the experience.
I mean, you prepared for this fight, you trained, you told everyone how you were going to win, you went into the ring, and you lost.
I almost have tears in my eyes, Anthony, I appreciate what you’ve done for us so much. You truly are the People’s Loser.
I remember the first time you caused joy to swell in my heart this way. It was the 1999 NRL grand final. You lost that day too. You lost spectacularly. I mean, a bunch of other guys blew that big halftime lead too, but it was your central part in the losing process that won me over more than anything.
Since then you’ve switched to boxing, and carefully selected your opponents so that you didn’t overload the pleasure centres of our brains, but every now and then you bring a wholesome smile to our lips again, and we are so grateful every time you do.
But this time you really outdid yourself. I mean, it wasn’t just the way you talked yourself up, it wasn’t just the way you keep going with that adorable “greatest athlete Australia’s ever produced” routine that makes us want to pinch your little cheeks like a toddler who’s just done the Gangnam Style dance for his grandparents.
It’s incredibly cute when you do that Anthony, seriously: the only way it could be cuter is if you tied a towel around your neck for a cape and ran around doing whooshing noises while you said it.
But it wasn’t just that. It wasn’t even just the way you decided to hurl racial slurs at your opponent (although obviously that helped: it really gave your loss some pop and fizz).
No, the fact is that when it comes to losing, you’re not just some everyday, common or garden defeatist. You’re not some mediocre Bernard Tomic or Jana Rawlinson. Your attention to detail makes you an artist.
It’s not just your preparation for losing, and it’s not just your ability to commit to the loss in the heat of the battle.
No, it’s the way you keep up your devotion to the loss even afterwards. I mean, here you are, defeated, battered, broken, embarrassed, no doubt, but you press on, and tell the world that you didn’t really lose.
I mean, sir. Clap. Clap. Clap. Bravo, Anthony. I’ve never seen such skilful losing.
You don’t only light the flame of your loss, you fan it and fuel it until it is a blazing inferno of failure. Running around saying there’s a conspiracy against you, the other guy barely touched you, that you beat the crap out of him.
To think that you have the stamina not just to lose in the ring, but out of the ring, repeatedly and thoroughly, just impresses the hell out of me, and it makes me so, so happy. And I’m all the happier knowing how hard you worked to make sure you’re not just a loser, but a humiliated, ridiculous, sad laughingstock of a loser.
I’m practically walking on air whenever I think about it.
So excelsior to you, Anthony. You’ve served your country well, and although you’ve already given us so much of yourself, I hope we get to see you boost our spirits for many years to come, losing, losing and losing again.
Yours lovingly,
Ben