Today, we’re going to cover two subjects, hence the title above.
#1.
Write the Right People
As we all know there are a lot of things wrong with the sport of Boxing. We hear it over and over again.
The fighters who shout that they are the best frequently fight everyone except their most dangerous challengers. The decisions made by the World Championship sanctioning bodies are self-serving, doing the sport more harm than good. The judging is inconsistent at best and criminally incompetent at worst.
That’s just a small sampling of the things that are complained about right on these forums regularly.
But you might ask; what the hell do we do about helping solve these problems?
Well, I’ll give you my answer because today I seem to be playing answer man.
We are the paying public, the guys who purchase the pay per views who pay everybody’s salaries. As such we do have the same power that every consumer has. Don’t buy the product that you don’t like and they’ll quit producing that product. When they feel it in their bank accounts they will start giving you the product that you want to buy.
We also have another power: The power of consumers communicating their wants. If you write to the people in control of the sport of Boxing telling them exactly what you will and won’t buy and do it intelligently they will take notice.
Write to the people who caused the problems or who might have the power to be able to do something about them. You don’t ask your dentist to fix a hemorrhoid (Although I’d really like to see his face expression when you ask him for that examination.)You ask a proctologist to take care of that.
So for you, my fellow consumers of the sport of Boxing I have provided here a list of emails and links to facebook pages for you to air your complaints or suggestions about how to improve this most noble of sports.
This is not a complete list by any standard but it is a good place to start. I do have to admit some of these email addresses may no longer be active.
In no particular order here they are:
World Boxing Association: info@wbanews.com
World Boxing Council: contact@wbcboxing.com
International Boxing Federation: Couldn’t find an email address but here’s an address I did find.
International Boxing Federation
516 Main Street
2nd Floor
East Orange, NJ 07018
World Boxing Organization: info@wbo-int.com
Golden Boy Promotions: info@goldenboypromotions.com or drop into their facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/GoldenBoyBoxing
HBO Boxing: Find their facebook page at: http://www.facebook.com/#!/hboboxing
Showtime Boxing: Here’s their facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/#!/ShoBoxing
Bob Arum’s Top Rank: You could drop them a note here: http://www.toprank.com/CreateTicket.dbml?DB_LANG=C&DB_OEM_ID=23700
Or drop into their facebook page here: http://www.facebook.com/trboxing
Don King Productions: I couldn’t really find a good email address for King. This is a facebook page but I don’t know if it means anything or not. http://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/pages/Don-King/137709362925841?sk=info Anyway, it’s something. If somebody comes up with an email address for Don King drop it on the forums. I’d sure like to know how to send him a message.
Fathom Events: drop into their facebook page here: http://www.facebook.com/FathomEvents
I added them here because I’ve been lobbying a bit for them to show more pay per view Boxing Cards at the local theaters. Just drop in and post on their wall for them to add Pacquiao VS Mosley. Whether you think it’s going to be competitive or not, you gotta admit it would look a whole lot better seeing it live on the big screen.
Write to these guys anywhere and everywhere that you can and don’t expect them to answer back. The bottom line is that these guys are businessmen. They do want to know what the buying public wants even if it is contrary to what their plans are.
Always remember, for these guys it’s all about making money. Appeal to their bank account and you might get what you want.
#2.
A Few Words about The Fighter
I usually avoid Boxing films because most of the time they are a letdown. Even with all the tons of money spent on special effects and personal trainers when you watch Boxing movies fight scenes it’s obvious the average journeyman Pugilist will beat the holy hell out of any Hollywood actor. If you know what to look for it’s easy to see that at his best Rocky Balboa would be lucky to last 30 seconds with Chris Arreola. As to what would happen if he ever would have gotten in the ring with a real world champion? Well, I’m not sadistic enough to even allow myself to think about that.
There was that and the fact that different Boxing sites have given The Fighter a big thumbs down that made me decide to wait to see the film when it hits cable.
But for some reason my wife really wanted to see The Fighter. So we went. (Maybe she’s got the hots for Mark Walberg. I don’t know and she ain’t saying. One thing’s for certain. If a woman has the hots for Christian Bale The Fighter might cure her of that urge.)
For once I was pleasantly surprised.
Mostly it wasn’t because of the fight scenes. It was because the portrayal of how Micky Ward’s family pressuring him to keep a bad situation going (the junkie Dick Eklund training him) and how much that damaged his career.
There are times in a person’s life when you have to step away from your family and what they want or you will never know how much you can accomplish. Micky Ward may have been a much better fighter had he made the move sooner.
We’ll never know.
But we do know he did get a crack at and won the WBU Title from Shea Neary.
As for the fight scenes from the film’s title fight; they were done so well that it made me pop in the old VCR tape of the real Ward/Neary fight as soon as we got home. What I had thought I’d seen was true. Key sequences in the simulated fight were choreographed very closely to what actually happened in the real bout.
I was impressed. It was very good filmmaking.
It was the Ward/Neary fight and the mismanagement of his earlier career that were covered in The Fighter. To put it in a nutshell: According to the film, Micky Ward was managed by his mother, who was not a good manager. He was trained by his brother, who was a crack head. Of course his career was going nowhere.
Where else could it go with that team behind him?
When he got new management and a better trainer his career changed direction.
Christian Bale’s performance as the vacant eyed, drugged out junkie Dick Eklund is Oscar material. I wish I did not have personal experience in that world, but I do.
He made me very uncomfortable because his portrayal of that type of person was so accurate.
The Fighter is a movie worth seeing.
My wife was right.
She usually is.
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Boxing Quote of the day: “I only had two fights as an amateur and lost both of them. Heck, I figured I didn’t have much of a future there, so I turned pro.” —Tex Cobb
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B.L. Morgan is the author of Blood and Rain, Blood for the Masses, Blood on the Celluloid and Night Knuckles through Speaking Volumes http://speakingvolumes.us/authors_ebooks.asp?pid=79
He is also the author of Blood and Bones and You Play, You Pay through StoneGarden.net Publishing.
YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!!!