If anyone that is reading this article remembers Muhammad Ali, you will certainly remember the rope-a-dope.  Ali had used the technique in prior fights, but it became famous in his historic battle to retake the world championship from George Foreman in what was certain  to be a humiliation for Ali.

Ali sat back for seven rounds and let Foreman do his worst.  He essentially played possum and made it look like the only man in the fight was Foreman.  Then, gradually, he emerged, stinging Foreman with shots George didn’t even know existed and certainly had never felt in his career.  The slow motion shots of Foreman’s head being twisted unnaturally b y Ali’s shots with sweat and blood flying are not to be forgotten.  Ali fooled everyone, including big George.

Why do we bring this up here?  Because tonight’s competition was not close.  And one performer had laid back on the ropes for the past several weeks,  performing well enough to stay in the competition, but never knocking anyone dead.  This performer had been knocking them dead the first several weeks, but smartly pulled back.  The other performer worked to the front spot fighting to prove that this was not going to be a one horse race.

The Crystal Bowersox Strategy

The rope-a-dope worked.  We believe Crystal held back the last several weeks intentionally to make this her victory in this finale more convincing.  She brought all we remember her for when she started, and we do not think this was any accident.  She came out with her knock-out punches after seeming to play possom hanging on the ropes.  Now there is no question, she dealt the final knockout blow.

Crystal did not just beat Lee, she humiliated him.  Lee never had a chance.

Lee made it much worse.  Earlier in the season we have noted that Lee has often been OA.  He has had bizarre overplayed performances with church choirs and bagpipes and God knows what, and whenever he does this, he looks stupid.

Instead of just being himself, he did it again.  He had huge choirs and overplayed performances that he would hever do under normal circumstances.  Other than his first rather good performance of the Boxer, he had choirs everywhere.  and they ate up his perforamnce alive revealing his insigificance.  They diminished the voice and the unique nature of the man and left us with wondering what happened to the performer we liked over the last several weeks.

We would try to sum up each song and give the points for each, but Crystal nailed every song, and other than his first song, Lee sounded silly.  He has such a recordable voice and it was buried in noise.  He will still make more money than the petty million dollar token trust fund he would have won anyway, so it won’t matter much.

But we can guarantee, Lee will make it on his voice, and he will never make it if he tries to become the lead in a church choir with bagpipes.