Boxing

Take the "Q", HBO

Bernie McCoy

13.06 - This one is about name recognition and making the right choice for the sport of boxing and all its fans. In the television business, "name recognition" is a bit too mudane for the "suits"; they prefer the phrase "Q" ratings. Phillip Ndou, William Abelyan, Yoni Vargas, Julio Gomboa, Laila Ali, Valerie Mahfood, Lucia Rijker and Jane Couch are all professional boxers. The four male and four female fighters are scheduled for bouts underneath the Lennox Lewis/Vitali Klitschko fight on June 21. If past is prelude, HBO, which is televising the card, will choose to present a night of boxing completely devoid of female fighters, even with some very good ones readily available.

Phillip Ndou is a highly regarded lightweight with only one loss, while William Abelyan is a ranked featherweight. Their respective opponents, Yoni Vargas and Julio Gomboa, on the other hand, are essentially household names only in their own households. Ndou should experience about as much troube with Vargas as Abelyna will with Gomboa, that is, very little.

Laila Ali and Valerie Mahfood, on the other hand, fought in Las Vegas in November, a bout that Ali dominated by keeping the shorter Mahfood at the end of her (Ali) jab before the ref called a stop in the eighth round. The Mahfood people insist that they "learned a lot from that bout" and have a "different plan" for June 21. And while Mahfood is a notably tough fighter who has beaten some of the better fighters in the division, it is well to remember the words of that noted ring philospher, Mike Tyson, "everybody has a plan until they get hit". The more compelling female bout is Lucia Rijker against Jane Couch. Rijker has been relatively inactive for four years, fighting a total of slightly more than four rounds (against an overmatched Shakurah Witherspoon in February 2001). Prior to that, she was, after Christy Martin, the most recognized name in Women's boxing.

That title, the "face of Women's boxing" now, arguably, belongs to Laila Ali, who has been brought along carefully and skillfully by her husband/manager Johnny McClain. Lucia Rijker, despite her unconvential past, still commands a fascination among boxing fans who recall the manner in which she tore through the Women's boxing ranks in the late nineties, compiling 13 KOs in 14 fights. Couch is a veteran English fighter who has compiled a 20-4 record over almost ten years in the ring and enjoys a well deserved reputation of "showing up to fight" every time out. Rijker/Couch could easily turn into the best fight of the night.

Despite the rankings of Ndou and Abelyan, both of whom are quality fighters, I would make the case that should HBO do a "Q" rating on the eight undercard fighters, Ali, Rijker would rank ahead of Ndou and Abelyan. For some reason, known only to their programmers, HBO, the premier cable outlet in the television universe, has shown a past bias towards the sport of Women's boxing. To such an extent, that, to my knowledge, HBO cable has yet to "air" a bout with female boxers, despite televising many cards that featured female fighter in preliminary bouts. HBO, to be fair, has televised several female bouts on their PPV telecasts, featuring Christy Martin and Lucia Rijker, among others.

The June 21 program is currently moving, somewhat unsteadily, towards its airdate. Initially, Lennox Lewis was scheduled to fight Kirk Johnson. The promoters and HBO, realizing that this bout hardly qualified as "appointment television", originally included Mike Tyson in a co-main event on the card. To the surprise of maybe eight people in the boxing business, Tyson pulled out of the bout shortly after it was announced, most probably as a reaction to not being the main attraction. Attempting to save the card, the promoters quickly inserted Vitali Klitschko to fight Cedric Boswell. This, of course, was a somewhat less compelling matchup than one featuring the still fascinating Tyson. It was then Kirk Johnson's turn to drop out of the Lewis fight and, as a result, Lewis/Klitschko is now the the "main event". While this matchup is a decided improvement on Lewis/Johnson, it must be said that, aside from his size, and the ever present "puncher's chance", Klitschko seems to fit, comfortably, into the 5-1 underdog status the "smart money" makes him.

Thus, an interesting question for boxing fans and television viewers becomes, what fighters open the night for HBO"? Ndou/Vargas, Abelyan/Gamboa, or does HBO make an innovative programming call (remember those "Q" ratings) from both an audience and a boxing standpoint and, breaking with the past programming tradition, put a Women's boxing bout on the air. Ali/Mahfood would provide the better known"name" female fighter in Laila Ali. Rijker/Couch would be the more interesting bout. How about acceding to the old Ernie Banks axiom and "lets play two".? Since women fight two minute rounds, it can be argued that both eight round female bouts would take only a little more television time than a ten round male bout. In fact, given Rijker's punching power and Couch's straight ahead style, this bout probably doesn't go into the fifth round.

But that's greedy and as everyone knows, greed has no place in boxing. Lets just hope that on June 21, HBO takes the cue they should have picked up on several years ago and breaks their tradition of ignoring the sport of Women's boxing. Lets hope they did a "Q" rating and found, to their surprise, that a very large segment of boxing fans would enjoy watching Laila Ali or Lucia Rijker, or both, opening up for Lennox Lewis and Vitali Klitschko. Its time. Take the cue, HBO.

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