I'm no spin doctor, but announcing your desire to emulate a convicted rapist, drug offender, and rampant reprobate seems unlikely to feature in a PR model for professional sports stars. Clearly, snooker player Ronnie O'Sullivan, who did just that following his UK Championship triumph on Sunday, has not been reading many sporting autobiographies lately. In the kingdom of the one-dimensional, cliché-spouting, market-friendly robo-athlete, banality is king.
To his endearing credit, O'Sullivan has never been one for conformity. In truth, his stock as snooker's dark circus, its biggest draw, and most popular player, is built on precisely the opposite. The Rocket's allure is his genius, and genius is inevitably accompanied by chaos. It should therefore come as no surprise that Mike Tyson serves as O'Sullivan's role model elect. "For all his faults, whenever he was in the ring, he brought excitement and that's as important to me as records. Tyson was explosive, on the edge and with an edge," he said.
The edge, it appears, is where it's at. Aerosmith wrote a song about it, U2 named their riff-churning guitarist after it, and Keith Richards once said he lived on a ledge hanging over it. Unsurprisingly, O'Sullivan's favourite band is The Rolling Stones, and not The Beatles — proving that almost half a century on, the debate that divided a nation is still a viable cultural barometer. The Beatles may have made better albums, pushed musical boundaries, and sold more records, but The Stones have always been more entertaining. And there's a reason they call it the entertainment business.
Anybody who witnessed O'Sullivan's maximum in the deciding frame of his semifinal victory over Mark Selby could relate to that sentiment. As he set about making the table appear four-feet long and the pockets as wide as an estuary, there wasn't a statistic in the world capable of undermining O'Sullivan's status as the greatest player snooker has seen. That Stephen Hendry has won almost twice the number of world-ranking titles seemed as relevant as the fact that Melanie C has written more number one singles than any female in the history of British music. If only statistics could measure joy.
In many ways, O'Sullivan's enduring popularity represents a yearning for the sporting heroes of yesteryear. Like John McEnroe, George Best, and Alex Higgins before him, O'Sullivan appears unconcerned with the consequence of his words or actions. Life's too short for pretence. Tellingly, in the era of the guarded, press-savvy sports star, the public have met his honesty with adulation; the news of every opened wound pulling them deeper under his spell. Nobody is perfect, but everyone can relate to a flawed genius. Maybe the PR gurus have got it all wrong.
Leave a Comment