Perception is reality, the saying goes. Modern players can never transcend time, athletes only care about the money and the fan is never wrong. Yet, all you need to do is dig a little deeper to find the truth. As a freelance sportswriter, my job is to give the audience a story around what just happened. As a consumer, I expect that sports will always provide more than I bargained for. As a fan, my hopes are to be enlightened by more than points. Welcome to the mind of a sports scribe.
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.
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)?
The most important lesson I have ever learned from a soured relationship is that there’s a difference between being blunt and being honest.
Being blunt is to say what the first thing that comes to mind, though it may not be the most politically correct, well-thought out or even remotely accurate thing to say at that given moment. We casually call refer to such a moment as “telling it like it is” or “real talk”, even though in retrospect, it’s “telling it as (s)he sees it without much regard for what it really is” or “talking some (ahem)”.
Being honest is to carefully balance opinions, facts and time when you speak. Being honest takes a sincerity and respect that may take too long to come out when someone’s being blunt. Maybe the emotions are too subdued and the words are too measured to make a person believable, but honest gets people to truly pay attention to your cause, even if it’s just for a brief period of time.
“Boxing is full of shit”
Either those five words effectively ended Paulie Malignaggi’s career in premium cable, ended his ascension into PPV upper undercard (let alone main events) or some combination of both. Yet, there’s no question that irreparable harm was done to his win-loss record because of a controversial decision.
Malignaggi was rather blunt (maybe pretty tasteless in the minds of some), but he wasn’t exactly lying at the moment. He had a legitimate beef with the scoring, particularly that from the scorecard of Gale Van Hoy, whom he railed on when he discovered who would judge the fight. Before the fight came about on HBO's Boxing After Dark, he took issue with the fight’s location (Houston, hometown of the rising Mexican-American star, Juan Diaz), the referee (Laurence, son of Dick Cole, chairman of the Texas Athletic Commission) and the judges (not just Van Hoy, but the idea that two of the judges were from Texas and one Californian, being of Mexican descent). Even during the pre-fight interview with Max Kellerman, he laid out his grievances once again, though he says that he was assured of a fair fight and knew that he had to prove his mettle in the ring.
Unless he thoroughly dominated Diaz from the opening bell, Malignaggi may have felt that there was no way he was leaving Houston with a career-defining win last night. Yet, the bigger problem was that he didn’t do himself any favors by his vocal crusade.
In the build-up and during the fight, I kept thinking of some of the wisest words ever spoken to me: never give anyone a reason to discount, dismiss, discredit or disrespect you. It sounds like a rather defensive look on life, but the truth is that when the odds are against you and you may feel that there are certain people trying to keep you away from achieving professional or personal goals, the absolute worst thing you can do is to rile up those antagonists… without having the credibility to back yourself up.
As a lot of fighters, Malignaggi has a fairly strong record (26-4-0, five knockouts), yet has not found success against some of the sport’s bigger names such as Miguel Cotto and Ricky Hatton. Despite his fame as being “Little Mac” in the Wii version of “Punch Out!”, he hasn’t reached his expectations for a plethora of reasons; those losses to Cotto and Hatton, a switch in trainers and a lack of stopping power. Whether true fans like it or not, his is not a resume that has made the powers-that-be stand up and listen when he voiced his displeasure about this bout.
Yeah, Malignaggi got screwed by that 118-110 scorecard from Van Hoy, no doubt about it. Yet, those folks that he proceeded to assail in those five words are probably thinking that 20+ win lightweight out of Brooklyn are a dime a dozen.
Not that it’s right…
Scott Christ (SC), editor of the top notch SB Nation blog Bad Left Hook, makes an excellent argument of how a potential “blacklisting” of Malignaggi will basically prove his point of boxing (or as said, the powers that be of the sport) being full of excrement.
At some point, there has to be accountability for this stuff. It's been going on for years, and some people will go, "Hey, it's been going on for years, whatever," but why should we accept what appears to be absolute corruption within a SPORT? This is not professional wrestling. This is a SPORT. The athletes come in thinking they're competing, and that their skills can carry the day even if they're an underdog. Malignaggi essentially had no chance to win this fight. Barring an unlikely knockout or some sort of ungodly domination, Juan Diaz had this in the bag.
And how hard does it get to continue to support and love a sport when guys can lose a fight, take the microphone, and flat-out call the sport a crock, and it's hard to disagree with them? We're admitting that we're watching a sport with some rather inexcusable flaws.
However, the reality is that no matter how many of us may pontificate, predict and promote the self-interests of those in sports; we’re not inside their heads. We’re not following the second-by-second actions and thoughts of the people who will make the decisions. In other words, try as we might, the hardest thing to predict is human nature.
No one could have predicted that Malignaggi would have been right until that very moment he heard Michael Buffer announce that Diaz won the decision.
Because judges are essentially anonymous until they screw up; no one could have truly predicted that Van Hoy would have revealed what appears to be such a personal dislike for Malignaggi that he could not render a professionally fair decision.
Most of all, none of us can be flies on the walls in the homes of those in charge that Malignaggi skewered by those very five words.
Now, this isn’t to absolve Golden Boy Promotions, the Texas Athletic Commission or those particular judges of any blame by any means. When you become a major force in an industry, it’s with knowledge and influence of and over those who you work with. Golden Boy was certainly aware of Texas’ reputation as a state that doesn’t give some fighters a fair shake. The TAC moved forward with Van Hoy as a judge and the younger Cole as the referee, despite Malignaggi’s protest (though to be real here, if they never saw the conflict of interest in the past, there was no incentive to change course). There was not a lack of oversight or even transparency, but rather a lack of interest to placate someone who seemed to have yelled ‘bloody murder’ at every given opportunity.
How this affects fight cards going forward in Houston, at least, remains to be seen as future opponents for Diaz are undoubtedly going to raise similar questions of fairness and go so far as to demand that he comes to more “neutral” cities. Being that this is a sport built on local stars growing regionally before becoming household names, neutrality is rather hard to come by, if non-existent.
Imagine if Malignaggi won in a pro-Diaz crowd in Space City; the Diaz camp would have angled for a rematch, but would likely have to come to Malignaggi’s backyard. With Malignaggi’s promoter (DiBella Entertainment) running the show, three New York/New Jersey/Connecticut judges and decidedly local crowd for Malignaggi in a plethora of locations in the Tri-State Area, Diaz may have not complained about the home-field advantage for his opponent, but he would have the some, if not all of the same exact questions in his mind.
As much as people are attacking the entire sport of boxing (and a good chunk of mixed martial arts fans who refuse to acknowledge that these are two separate sports, but are ridiculously reveling in this latest controversy), it’s the organizations that cause the problems that mire it. Fight fans want more guys like Malignaggi to speak out on those issues without fear or filter and that’s completely understandable considering the history of corruption that has marred the sport. In an individualized sport where fights happen over so often and no teammates in the ring, the boxer is his/her own brand at all times; assuming the risks, basking in the glory and being humbled by the pitfalls alone when the lights shut off. Any prizefighter worth the salt understands this basic reality.
Yet, this wasn’t Bernard Hopkins of the 1990s and early 2000s, mowing down the opposition right and left with a slickly-defensive, rarely exciting, but highly successful style en route to becoming a future Hall of Famer. For as much as The Executioner ticked off the establishment, he schooled everyone on how to dissent by just winning fights and keeping the salty language to a minimum when he did lose those disputable fights to Jermain Taylor. Malignaggi might as well been Zab Judah for all the establishment cares.
Sometimes, the problem isn’t the message and in this case, it’s easy to believe that it’s the messenger. Yet, more often than not, how it’s delivered that halts necessary actions.
Say What?!?!: Despite all of this and while he was gracious enough to have not disparaged Diaz before and after the fight, what the hell was he thinking wearing those shorts? They must have weighed at least eight pounds. Add the sweat, the constant movement and the lack of attachment to his groin protector, they must have felt closer to twelve pounds of extra baggage. As said via Twitter, there was no way my mother would have let me become a boxer. There was also no way she would have ever allowed me to walk anywhere with pants or shorts hanging below my posterior at any point. Next time, I’d advise that he’d rock something like this, even if they are equally questionable in the fashion department.
It's true that people, unfortunately, die every day. It's true that sometimes, there tends to be far more attention paid to the controversial or the easy-one-the-eyes or the unquestioned greats of certain fields. However, those individuals have something within them that gave people in their audiences a shared connection, regardless of race, creed, nationality, gender and anything else that we separate ourselves by.
If you have this unsettled feeling of something in the air with the passings of several public figures in the last month, you are not alone. Another tragic death in the sports world has to prompt the question, "what the hell is going on here?"
Arturo Gatti was the kind of fighter that On Demand and DVRs were invented for. He may have not had the sleek and smooth style as some of his contemporaries. He wasn't as brash and verbally combative as many of his peers believe they must be to survive in the boxing business. Yet, he was a guy that made you pay attention once he went through the ropes.
His come-from-behind win against Wilson Rodriguez turned him into an HBO staple. He was a perennial "Fight of the Year" participant from there on out, long before his epic trilogy with Micky Ward (see below).
Even in his defeats - some more humilating than others - Gatti was as entertaining in the ring as his chin allowed him to be. You have to be fearless and slightly unhinged to be a elite fighter, but there was something within Gatti that set him apart from everyone else in the industry.
It was recently said after Oscar de la Hoya's retirement that the sport of boxing will need another Golden Boy; someone who with the pretty boy looks, world-class talent and familiar heritage to some of the fans (in his case as a Mexican-American) could bring pay-per-view dollars and arena sellouts. Yet, beyond not having the boxer that brings the perfect resume, Gatti's imperfections made him a sorely missed figure when he retired two years ago.
If they weren't before, the powers-that-be in boxing are certainly looking for another Arturo Gatti now.
That’s the question that surrounds the last mega-fight of the 2007 boxing calendar. Undefeated pugilists Floyd Mayweather, Jr. and Ricky Hatton will duel on Saturday in Pretty Boy’s adopted home of Las Vegas. If you have been watching Mayweather-Hatton 24/7 on HBO (the best sports-related show on television right now), you can see not only a stark contrast in boxing styles, but despite very few commonalities, you’ll find that these guys are the complete antithesis of one another. And that makes for an even better fight than people think.
In this era of sports, there is more animosity between and within fans and media – even between local governments and owners – than between athletes themselves. There is more vitriol and venom from non-participants of sports than the folks that put their complete beings on the line. At the same time, there are cries that athletes are too friendly, too chummy, too… nice.
This is where boxing comes in.
What makes the sport so intriguing, no matter how poor the politics or how bad the business is how contrasting styles and personalities can sell the fight. Because teams in league sports tend to try to emulate the style of the current dominant clubs, you tend to have the differences between the original and a near replication or dull copy. In boxing, where there is a greater emphasis on matching styles for their Pay-Per-View fights, the debates that rage reflect how the contrasting styles are selling the fight. You have Floyd’s speed and svelte movement with his punches and defense that the technical fans gravitate to. In the other corner, Ricky brings the bulldog style, combined with his 2-for-1 specialty – takes two punches to give one body shot. These fights come about more often than not, but because of varying levels of experience between combatants, usually one style tends to dominate the other. With a combined 81 professional wins and zero draws or ties, this is not a hard sell to the boxing fan. Yet for anyone who has been mesmerized or enraged by Pretty Boy Floyd’s persona over the past year, there are going to be more buys for this fight just for the chance to see him fail… or succeed.
What made the Dallas Cowboys, New York Yankees, Duke Blue Devils men’s basketball team and Notre Dame’s football squad so polarizing throughout the history of sports were not only the championships and storied histories. They had the built-in advantages of their passionate fan bases with more disposable income to consume anything showing allegiance. They had indelible images that have lived on forever to torture their rivals. Most of all – for most outside those bases – those teams had the players that you wanted to catch in a back alley. Maybe you didn’t have a logical reason for despising the athletes or maybe an overall perception became reality. Yet, you didn’t know them as people.
You know Floyd Mayweather, Jr.
He tells you that he’s the greatest boxer of all time. He shows you how much money he carries in his man-purse. He flips the bird at crowds that boo him. He gets in the faces of his opponents and belittles them… constantly. He was on Dancing with the Stars weeks before he was to train for the most challenging bout of his career. He let 50 Cent ride a Segway! He… doesn’t… stop… talking.
He has about as many supporters and fans as he has detractors and haters. He’s the perfect villain in a sports landscape that craves them. He has the brashness once owned by Terrell Owens. After this fight, he’ll have the bank account stemming from sheer talent and a great sales pitch as Alex Rodriguez. Yet, Mayweather has the championships and a quick combination. He’s perfect for the everyman that is supposed to be Ricky Hatton.
There’s a tidal wave of Hatton backers preparing to order this fight, crossing all socioeconomic backgrounds. Most of them – admittedly, myself included – knew little about the Briton’s career until Mayweather’s camp went on the attack. As they have studied up on his record and looked into his personality, they are anxiously awaiting the fists to fly in hopes to watch the sport’s biggest comeuppance since this guy. In some ways, the fight represents much more than two men dueling.
It represents the Florida Marlins upending the Yankees in 2003. The Arizona Cardinals upsetting the Cowboys in 1999. The Blue Devils losing to Clemson… ever. Notre Dame… well, you know. Notre Dame today.
The Pittsburgh Steelers beating the New England Patriots on Sunday? Maybe.
