Paul Spadafora and Joe
Mesi: Two Cities and a 'Baby' Indeed
By Steve Trellert
28.04
- Lightweight Champion Paul Spadafora and Heavyweight
Joe Mesi currently occupy an enviable position lacking
amongst the vast majority of today's fighters. Both
have become local heroes in their respective communities
of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and Buffalo, New York. This
has garnered both fighters substantial market power
to such an extent that even against marginal opposition,
their hometown supporters come out in droves. Of course
this situation provides both benefits and drawbacks.
A clear benefit is a relatively full cash register as
the support tends to be generally inelastic in demand,
not in terms of price, but in terms of the quality of
opposition. The major drawback tends to be something
largely exclusive to these situations, where a kind
of conflict of interest arises due to an inevitable
dichotomy between the "cash cow" and the fighter's
career progression.
Traditionally, fighters tend to get paid more as their
level of career success increases. The bigger the victory,
the greater the potential of an even larger payday in
the future. To increase ones revenues, fighters generally
must go on to fight stronger opposition that naturally
entails the need to take a greater degree of risk of
defeat. Like a financial investment, the greater the
degree of risk, the greater the potential reward. In
its most pure and idealistic form this is exactly how
financial compensation within the sport of boxing should
work. Now some may argue this is far from ideal, as
fighters should be compensated for other factors such
as the level of excitement they create both in and out
of the ring. This rings true and in the cases of fighters
such as Arturro Gatti and Mickey Ward it is also well
deserved. So ideally fighters should be compensated
for their ring accomplishments and if they provide a
high level of entertainment. If this is true then boxing
already has naturally built in incentives for fighters
that directs them into choosing one (or both if possible)
of these two paths, and this in turn benefits the boxing
public as the fights they want to see come to fruition.
But what of the two fighters that are the focus of this
article? Clearly neither fighter is being paid primarily
for their entertainment value in terms of the excitement
they create in the ring, Gatti and Ward they are not.
For Paul Spadafora and Joe Mesi, the only real remaining
incentive is career success and that has been distorted.
Since both are already attaining substantial attendance
figures, and their corresponding gate receipts dollars,
there is little incentive for each fighter to risk defeat
and the accompanying potential to burst their revenue
bubbles. In fact it could be financial suicide as both
fighters in some sense have already laid the golden
egg, sure it is not a platinum egg like Oscar De La
Hoya or Mike Tyson, but nobody is suggesting either
of these fighters has that potential, and golden would
be more than enough success for most. So is permanent
ossification in store? The answer here is no, as the
chickens always come home to roost. Inevitably the general
public becomes wise to a fighter's procrastination and
demand a more challenging opponent than Joe Blough.
Of course inevitable can mean a long period of time
before myth fades before reality.
The standard, and perhaps most financially wise approach
for these fighters is to drag out and stall the advent
of risk for as long as humanly possible until it becomes
clear their fans have caught on to the game. This largely
includes creating a myth of progression by taking on
fighters with enhanced names that are already far past
their peak and act as if these opponents are still in
their prime. What separates Paul Spadafora and Joe Mesi
is the fact that the former had every opportunity to
continue to take advantage of his situation and did
not, while the latter continues to exploit it to this
day.
In terms of Paul Spadafora's career there is no myth
of progression, but actuality. Many a boxing pundit
regarded Angel Manfredy a legitimate threat and he was
overcome. Now "Spaddy" faces an even more
imposing opponent in the tough and rugged Leonard Dorin
who currently holds a top five ranking according to
Ring Magazine. It is true that Paul Spadafora may have
been overprotected in the past, but nothing like 'Baby'
Joe Mesi who retains that status and yet is two years
older than Spadafora.
Unlike
Spadafora, Joe Mesi's career resides within the "myth
of progression". Now one must acknowledge that
this is not completely true as he has graduated beyond
the tomato can stage of victories to a higher level,
but considering he is 25-0 and at age 29 just entering
his prime years, his resume has been underwhelming to
say the least. His resume reeks of the recent Mike Tyson
agenda, sans the Lewis fight, of choosing the path of
least resistance as his primary accolades are against
fighters who are shadows of the shadow of their former
self. His win over Bert Cooper was regarded as a major
accomplishment but Bert was clearly spent with his loss
column quickly catching up to his win column. David
Izon seemed to qualify as an opponent as soon as HBO
commentator Larry Merchant declared him "a shot
fighter" in his previous fight. Leaving no doubt
was the fact that David lost to another universally
recognized spent force in Al "Ice" Cole soon
after his predictably egregious performance against
Mesi. Those in the know already knew Mesi's victory
was barely above hollow. 'Baby Joe's' best victory came
against semi-journeyman Talmadge Griffis who had likely
won the Buffalo Sweepstakes by previously losing to
Taurus "who" Sykes. Clearly the Mesi camp
chooses fighters on weakness rather than strength and
yet he has not been held to account for it and no homebound
pressure has come to bear on him. Nevertheless somehow
Joe Mesi is being regarded by some members of the press
to be a 'top contender' even though he has never even
arguably defeated a top-forty heavyweight to date. What
we are witnessing here is a fighter maximizing his financial
gain for the least possible risk. Is it intelligent?
Most certainly, Is it rational? Yes. Is it right? No.
First of all Joe is shortchanging himself by not maximizing
his potential. Each human being has to have pride in
what he does and put forth the best effort he possibly
can and clearly Joe is not doing this as his opposition
list demonstrates. Is his management responsible? Perhaps,
but fundamentally they are his employees and he must
take responsibility. Secondly he is risking alienating
his fan base, as inevitably they will catch on to the
charade and stay home realizing that 'Baby Joe' is not
the 'Real Deal'. Additionally, Joe's cautious route
entails a lack of faith in his own fans in which he
is implicitly suggesting the City of Buffalo would flee
like rats off of a sinking ship and not support him
if he lost a fight. Is he suggesting the people of Buffalo
lack character or devotion and are simply 'fair weather
friends'? If so, that would be insulting.
Although Paul Spadafora and Joe Mesi are fortunate
to share a similar type of support, their reaction towards
it of late has been quite a contrast. Paul Spadafora,
despite being two years younger, has risen into the
top five of his weight class and is taking on serious
threats. Joe Mesi is choosing his opponents through
their weaknesses and is implicitly refusing to advance
his career despite the fact that he is entering his
prime years as a fighter. Up to now he has taken little
heat for this charade but now is the time for the people
of Buffalo to ask more of their local boy than the path
of least resistance. It is time for Joe Mesi to step
up and give us more than a career of smoke and mirrors.
If he fails to do so before the people of Buffalo catch
on, it may be too late to eliminate the impending label
of being a fraud.
If you have any commentary regarding this article please
elaborate here on Eastsideboxing.com or email me at
Vancanste@aol.com
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