25.02.04 – By Chris Acosta: Whenever the words “boxing” and “blackeye” are used in close proximity, you can bet that a “punch” is nowhere in the same sentence. It has become the standard line used by the mainstream media to describe yet another incident in which boxing has slit its wrists via the boxer himself, promoter or bad judging. Unlike other sports such as basketball and football, scandalous behavior in boxing usually takes a much longer route to finding forgiveness.
Whether it’s because people still identify boxing with organized crime or plain just can’t understand a sport where athletes aren’t given signing bonuses right out of high school or paid ridiculous amounts of money to sit on the bench, we sit and listen and find our arguments to defend, futile. Through all this banter about where problems lie and getting a Federal Commision involved, I think that the problem may in fact, be internal. It doesn’t take much thought to realize that when the power of influencing mass opinion is involved, the media, namely print media such as your local newspaper columnist, has no equal. I am not talking about your associated Press article which are just facts that come down the wire. I am speaking about people like Michael Katz and Ron Borges who write for both the N.Y Times and Boston Globe, respectively.
Katz, a tonnage of cynical humanity has represented our sport -lucky us- by giving the casual sports fan every reason not to watch boxing. I am not suggesting that we proclaim this as some kind of “golden era” to create a beneficial illusion, but by making statements such as “nobody out there can fight,” which Katz made a few years ago in K.O. Magazine, he is as much a detriment as Melvina Lathan. The man is a talented writer but my God, can he find anything uplifting to say while sitting at the comfort of his desk with quart of Haagen Daas in hand? If you don’t think this is a black eye, think about Joe Sportspage sitting there reading one of Katz’ insipid rants and then telling one of his buddies and so on and so on and so what. The word spreads and before you know it, an HBO After Dark segment gets worse ratings than a saturday night re-run of some Pauly Shore movie. Hey Katz, how about trying to find the light in boxing (there really is some if you take your head out of your…fridge)and then write about it? If things are that dismal and you can’t bring yourself to do that, go cover another sport.
Borges is the same way. Yea, he writes for HBO’s website aside from his day job, but I have yet to read anything of his that has to do with the actual strategies within a fight. His columns are usually inundated with observations of just how terrible the sport is – and this while writing for the most powerful boxing network in the world! Does HBO actually pay him to help “promote” their fights? If that’s the case, why not turn up the volume on Lederman’s mike so we can continue to hear his voice well into our sleep? You guys are killing us!
With this kind of “help” it’s amazing that the sport has survived. Maybe this means that enough of us are knowledgable enough to gather our own opinions, which would be great but I am not too sure about that one. Losing Max Kellerman on ESPN hurt because despite what we may have thought about him, he connected to the audience in a way that so many other boxing analysts could only dream. Mainly, he put the actual bouts first and things like the lack of depth at any weight, politics and the state of the game twenty years ago, second. Like it should be. So I say, start putting your support into those who show boxing’s best side rather than putting it out there in bad lighting.
I was listening to a local radio station here a few days ago and the Dj’s were talking about Lennox Lewis’ retirement and how there was no one out there in the heavyweight division. It was pretty obvious that the two fellows weren’t up on boxing but then one of them remarked, “They don’t even write about boxing in the newspaper.”
Oh they do, just not the right people.