Corner (I)

Scribe interrupts this writer's block to bring you a public service announcement:

STOP TALKING ABOUT TIGER WOODS UNTIL HE REALLY DECIDES TO TALK!

STOP TALKING ABOUT TIGER WOODS!

Moving on...

Continuing the thread of a previous post, December's essay for the Norman Einsteins takes a look at the dymanics between a boxer and his/her corner during a fight.

Something notable from the Manny Pacquiao victory over Miguel Cotto was how Cotto's trainer, Joe Santiago, was raked over the coals from insiders, fans and media for his lack of strategy during the fight.

An analyst on ESPNews (whose name, sadly, I cannot recall) said that fans tend to believe that once a pugilist gets in the ring, everything said by his/her corner is rendered useless. As a former boxer, he said that the corner is just as important on fight night as those members are during training camp.

I reached out to Ashley "Treasure" Theophane, a rising young welterweight out of London, to give me some insight on the dialogue that goes on between figther and trainer. Boxers of all ilks pay attention to each other's movements, especially those who straddle the same weight class.

Just as the last essay for the NE, the deleted scenes will be posted tomorrow in hopes of giving you greater context of our interview. In the meanwhile, not only do I encourage you to read my previous submissions, but observe the rest of the excellent work.

Say What?!?!: Apparently, what will become the biggest fight in boxing history has a date. Venue TBD, but it seems as if Top Rank (Pacquiao) and Golden Boy Promotions (Floyd Mayweather, Jr. via Mayweather Promotions) are really considering leaving Las Vegas for either the Lousiana Superdome or Cowboys Stadium. More on this later.

Corner (II)

Quick note: Your friendly neighborhood Scribe will be a part of a NBAToday.net Roundtable tomorrow. Hopefully, this will be second of three non-Scribe efforts you will see before the weekend arrives. Guess who feels giddy?

As the last piece for the Norman Einsteins where you got to read deeper perspectives from the interviewees, I thought you may appreciate this month's deleted scenes from "Know Your Corner". Good times, good times. Again, many thanks to Ashley Theophane for taking the time to share his insights.

Besides getting your body ready for the fight, much of training involves building a primary strategy against your opponent.

When you are training for a fight you have to get your body is supreme conditioning and building a strategy for a fight is as important. You have to focus on your own strengths but look at your opponent’s weaknesses and certain bad habits they have.

I would say it is more important to focus on what you will do in a fight but your strategy can always fail so you have to have plan B and C just in case.

Is there a point during training that you prepare for anything to go wrong? (Example; dealing with a cut that continues to bleed)

I have only had cuts in training but I have trained with some of the World’s best and none of them have done any training or prepared for a cut. Thinking of negative aspects is something we would try not to do. Your corner would just try to keep you focused on the job in hand if that happened but negative stuff is kept out of the build up as you just want to be thinking of positives and believing in yourself.

Could you describe your mentality during a bout as you are trying to concentrate on the opponent while your trainer gives instructions? Do you actually hear him shouting to you or are you too focused to hear him?

Different trainers work a corner differently. I have had Harry Keit, Francisco Guzman, Johnny Eames, Isola Akay, Lou Fosco and John Tiftek in my corner. They all have experience in big fights so what they say you would take in. If you don’t respect your trainer’s advice, he should not be in your corner.

When I go into a fight I do what I do, but if my tactics are not working, I will take on board what my corner tells me. Sometimes your trainer’s advice can be the difference between a win and a loss. George Benson was probably the best tactician of the last 100 years. He worked with some of the World’s best and read a fight like no other.

My mentality during a fight is focused on executing my strategy and looking at my opponents weaknesses and capitalizing on it.

Typically when a television camera shows a corner between rounds, the conversation is typically one-sided as the trainer and assistant (occasionally the doctor) are talking to the boxer. Have you ever found yourself wanting to engage back in order for him to understand what’s really going on in the ring?

Sometimes you want to, but you have 60 seconds and you want to relax and recuperate for the next round. Sometimes your corner might ask how you are, but there is not much time to have a conversation about tactics. The team would know what the plan is and they can see some things that you can’t, so you have to trust in their eyes.

Despite preparation leading to a bout, is there a fight in your career where truly felt that you wouldn’t have gotten through without your corner? What was it that they said or did that helped you forge through?

The fight that comes to mind is when I beat former World champion Demarus “Chop Chop” Corley. I had fought in London late June and dislocated my finger bone. So preparing for the fight with Corley was not ideal. I couldn’t use my right hand for five weeks and when I did I was in excruciating pain. I did 9 rounds sparring with World number one Dmitriy Salita and World number ten Francisco Figueroa. I broke down in one of the sessions due to the pain in my hand. I was in great shape and believed that I could win. The first two rounds I showed too much respect to Corley and I was apprehensive with my right hand, but Harry Keit and Francisco Guzman told me to show him no respect and gave me some great advice through the rounds. I ended up winning the fight and I owe a great deal to them for their great advice through the bout.

Much was made about Joe Santiago’s background prior to Miguel Cotto’s fight with Manny Pacquiao; being that he was never a fighter himself before becoming a trainer. From a fighter’s perspective, do you think someone of his background can help during the fight, despite the lack of in-ring experience?

If I am correct, the great trainer Eddie Futch was never a pro boxer, but is one of the most respected trainers of all time. (Scribe: Despite amateur success, Futch actually never fought professionally due to a heart murmur. However, he trained four of the five men that defeated Muhammad Ali) I would rather have a trainer who has been through what I have been through with training, losing weight and fightin,g but sometimes a trainer can learn through being in the gym anda,ssisting other trainers. I wouldn’t have hired him if I was Cotto but each to their own.

Piggybacking off the last question, can he have long-term success? If yes, what can help him along the way (especially as over time, trainers can gain enough trust to build a stable of fighters)?

Watching the fight. I think Cotto’s tactics where terrible. He did much better when he boxed Manny Pacquiao. When he traded he got tagged and eaten up. It will take time but if Joe Santiago is a good trainer, his stable with grow.

You’ve had tremendous successes in your career, but I can imagine that you’ve seen plenty of guys (maybe gals, too) who have hit a certain wall that impeded progress. Just as much as some trainers can make fighters, is it possible that the hard-luck guys are handled by the wrong corner men or does it all still come down to the fighter?

My career is well. I have beaten former World, English and African Champions along the way. There is still much more I can achieve. I am half way through my journey, so big fights inspire me. It has been a slow year boxing wise. Since I beat Demarcus Corley it has been hard to get fighters in the ring with me Stateside. My team has tried to get fights with Zab Judah, Juan Diaz, Carlos Quintana, and Victor Ortiz to no avail. Perseverance is the key.

I think it is all about the fighter. A trainer can add to a fighter’s game and advice him well but the fighter has to execute the plan and stay calm under pressure. Look at Jermain Taylor; he is a talented fighter but something is not there. He has always had a fitness problem and now it is all starting to take its toll. Some trainers can ruin a fighter, so it is a balance. The key is for there to be a relationship as the fighter needs to trust the trainer. If there is no trust, there is nothing.

Vulnerable

At some point in the next few days, you will see the replay of last week’s fight between Manny Pacquiao and Miguel Cotto. You will be told to and just might fall in love with the acumen of the newly crowned welterweight champ; how his dominance has upped the stakes and demand for a megafight between him and Floyd Mayweather Jr. in 2010.

You will also be told that Cotto hasn’t been the same fighter since losing to Antonio Margarito last year. There seems to be some truth to that as his intimidating power was smothered in that bout by Margarito’s relentless attack (more on that later), but there’s so much more that’s overlooked. Despite subsequent wins over Michael Jennings and Joshua Clottey – the latter a pretty good fighter who just didn’t finish the job – Cotto wasn’t exactly the rib-bruising power puncher that made him such a force moving up the welterweight ranks. Last Saturday’s loss to Pacquiao was a greater exhibit in how different he became in the past two years.

When Cotto’s name was mentioned as a possible opponent for other big name boxers in the welterweight division, he was just known as devastating body puncher who would have difficulty against fighters who displayed a full offensive repertoire. Some observers believed that he needed to add more to his arsenal in order to work himself to a bigger payday against those better known pugilists like Mayweather. Overpowering Carlos Quintana, Zab Judah and Paulie Malignaggi with hooks to the midsection apparently, didn’t impress enough.

It was when he fought Shane Mosley that he started to show off a more consistent lead jab (in which he goes to an orthodox stance, but leads with his more powerful left hand). He would switch to a more natural southpaw stance at times in later rounds, but no matter what, he would still try to display more jabs and crosses than in previous fights. Though he won that fight by unanimous decision, Mosley fought well enough to show that not only he could still tango with the best of the younger generation (he’s nine years older than Cotto), but that Cotto wasn’t going to have as much ease finishing off savvier and more polished fighters.

Save for annihilating Alfonso Gomez after the Mosley bout, Cotto was already a different leading into his loss to Margarito, only which the changes were of his own making. It’s speculated (yet unproven) that Margarito had the ‘hands of Paris’ in that bout, but it has been generally accepted that Cotto took so much punishment in that fight that it took away the cloak of invincibility. Margarito kept coming with a constant flurry of punches. Cotto was hemmed up in the ropes throughout that fight; something that he customarily did to his opponents was now turned against him. As disovered, neither the new or old style would have succeeded against a guy who may have had illegal assistance.

The Clottey fight did just about as much to show this changed fighter, only with far more legal methods. A cut over his left eye from a head butt in the third round kept bleeding throughout the bout, but if it wasn’t for Clottey’s injured knee, it was more than likely that Cotto would have dropped this fight as well. Cotto was unable to see from his left side, but Clottey’s inhibited movement gave Cotto enough of a chance to get back into the fight. Neither man was able to truly finish off the other because of their injuries, but judges leaned towards Cotto for being game enough to regain his offense in the late rounds.

Boxing, as any other sport, presents so many “what ifs” that it’s too easy to say that one bout is always connected to another. Because of the time between fights, boxing fans and media can only go back to the last showing for some sort of trend. There were too many mitigating factors from Cotto’s last few bouts to say that there would have been a different outcome last weekend. If Cotto was the same fighter in his previous outings when facing Mosley, Mosley just may have won in the same manner that Pacquiao did, if not more convincing considering he’s a natural welterweight. The way the last two years have played out could have been far different for not just Cotto, but the entire division.

He is still a heck of a boxer, even if his losses have looked exceptionally awful. Pundits point to a change in trainers as Cotto fired his uncle after the victory over Jennings, yet Evangelista was in his corner during that controversial Margarito loss (Joe Santiago has been the trainer for the Clottey and Pacquiao bouts). Though a few dare to say that he should consider retirement at this point, he’s 29 years old and will find suitors for more fights. All of the guys he faced in the last three years had rather publicized chances to redeem themselves from defeats. We should expect that Cotto will get his as well in 2010.

Photo Credit to AP via Yahoo! Sports

Ethnic

The bad weather in the northeast should be more of a reason to walk, run, swim, drive, fly or teleport yourself to someone’s place to see tomorrow night’s superfight between Miguel Cotto and Manny Pacquiao. That is, if you aren’t ordering it yourself like this Scribe.

To provide analysis is a fruitless exercise; although Pac-Man is going to win a very tough fight, tougher than what trainer Freddie Roach may believe.

The greatest allure of a boxing match – more than the fight itself, at times – is the ethnic pride that runs deep in its fans. Hoards of people from a common nationality rally behind a fighter, even if the bank accounts differ greatly. Flags that take up three rows and fifteen seats wave ferociously in the cheap seats when those fans see their man has the edge. Rowdy chants that can drown out everything short of an elephant’s bellow give the combatants a charge going into the later rounds.

These displays of ethnic pride in boxing have always fascinated me. For a plethora of reason, you wouldn’t see it so overtly in other sports as you do in the sweet science. Much of this is because boxing seems to be the only sport allowed to even dare use race and country as promotional tools.

Modern day boxing was born from pitting one nationality or ethnicity against another, even if it’s an unintended consequence of many bouts over the years. From the very first right jab Jack Johnson landed on Tommy Burns back in 1908 to tomorrow’s main event, the powers-that-be have come to understand that a fight will gain attention of curious eyes if there’s a glaring difference in skin tones, language and citizenship between the fighters.

(Even the widely-acknowledged Greatest of All Time was bold enough – personal feelings aside about the method – to use these differences in some degree when preparing for Joe Frazier. It’s glossed over and forgotten by many of Ali’s fans, but it worked. Calling anybody an Uncle Tom, let alone a fellow world-class fighter, would do that.)

However, I can’t help but to wonder what others think about this. Does the ethnic card that boxing plays continue to help or hurt the sport’s popularity outside of its hardcore fans? Do you think other sports can actually use ethnic pride as a promotional tool (outside of your Latin Nights and Citi Field)?

Say What?!?!: From Free Darko via The Rumble; Photo credit to MyBoxingFans.com

Thanks

2008 presented all sorts of wonderful and astonishing moments in not only the sports arena, but anywhere there was a camera, a voice recorder and an associated media outlet. Yet, the past 365 (soon to be 366) days also gave us head-scratchers, heart-breakers and fist-clenchers that will reverberate into the next twelve months. While it's not necessary to rehash what made us applaud, condemn, wonder and hope, it is necessary to capture the year as a whole to look ahead.

In this year, we've seen our fair share of challenges that may - if they have not already done so - affect our lives in ways that we have not witnessed in quite some time or ever before.

Leaving this year behind, we are well aware of the global recession that threatens the way we consume, produce and entertain going forward. Again, this is not just in the sports realm as the overall economy continues to take Miguel Cotto-like body shots.

This year made it rather clear that no matter how much we clamor for change - and beyond this seminal political moment, many of us do the best we can as individuals day by day - some things (as this, this, this and certainly this) are resistant to actual change.

This year, we were given new faces of realized dreams, vindication and outerworldly triumphs while familiar ones gave us another reason to take notice. Yet, there were new names to file under 'WTF' and the reemergence of people whose singular strength is the ability to tick off the masses.

There was a reason or 55 to fall in love with sports in 2008. There was a reason or likely more than 55 to absolutely abhor the sports realm in 2008.

If anything, the blog has taken a significant part of your sports consumption in 2008 than in the last four years since the medium’s mainstream arrival in 2004. The blogopshere has served your sports sunny-side snarky, scrambled in über-analysis, over-easy fanboy, straight & no-chaser serious and chopped-up speculative. As the folks at Yahoo! Sports put it, this was the year of the sports blog and while few have had the resources and/or success as the folks behind Big League Stew and Puck Daddy, millions of bloggers are doing whatever they can to become famous or more often, infamous.

When I began A Sports Scribe back in May of 2007, the number one goal was to join the realm of the most recognized independent blogs such as Awful Announcing, Kissing Suzy Kolber and the like. Understanding that some of those sites discuss sports in a far different manner than I do, I accepted the challenge of going forward with a less typical media-driven an admitted pro-athlete slant, despite being a member of the most infamous group in the industry, the New York media. This past year, Scribe has found its voice, but not in the way that I expected.

I found that for some people, the allure of the blog is that the content comes from a New York City native that doesn’t exactly kowtow to the stereotypical “Noo Yawk” perspective. For others, the carrot on the stick happens to be the visits to various ballparks in my travels, whether I have attended a game in another city or had the chance to provide construction updates in person. Many appreciate that there isn’t the sarcastic and jaded view of sports that they come to expect from someone who is apparently in-the-know. For all, however, I hope that Scribe has achieved its singular goal; to be a blog that combines the action, discussion, culture, business and politics of sports… without being an ass.

With that said, this long post is my way of saying thank you. The audience isn’t earth-shattering, but there has been a noticeable and steady growth. Some of you are personal connections; family, friends and co-workers who have supported me on this journey to provide the best possible content. Some of you are rediscovered connections; former classmates and colleagues who have wondered if I’m still the kid who made playoff trees and kept index cards of player statistics (before the Internet made that a little bit easier). Others have come to Scribe through the sheer power of randomization or the shameless promotions on Facebook and MySpace, wondering why does this guy have something to say, let alone what. No matter how you found Scribe, I want to thank you for sticking with it and I will do my best to retain your intrigue and trust in this forum.

I want to say a special thanks to Ken Fang and Paul Sen, the respective proprietors of Fang’s Bites and Sports Media Watch. Both gentlemen have not only added me to their blog rolls (which is still unbelievable considering that many on their rolls are well-established writers), but have provided food for thought along with direct and indirect support.

Also, I want to say thanks for the various scribes, talkies and faces of the industry that actually make being a part of the press worthwhile. To those who I have emailed, chatted with and met in person, it’s been a thrill and I hope to approach your levels of talent and experience.

Finally, though they say that they don’t read the papers, watch television, listen to talk radio or check the blogs, I’d like to thank the players that make what I’m doing possible.

To all of you out there, Happy New Year and please celebrate safely. May the challenges, lessons and fortunes of 2008 make us all better in 2009 and beyond. And to bring it back to the college radio show and former blog that helped start it all, take care of your own and they’ll take care of you.