By Paul Strauss: It’s almost as if a potent salve of tranquility and quiet has been generously applied to professional boxing fans, resulting in a vexing risk of torpidity. There’s no emotion. There’s no energy. There’s no vim! Fans have gone dormant.
Agitation is needed to pump up polooka-ville. The salaceous cyst, this carbuncle needs to be lanced. What in puglistic heaven’s name caused this malaise, anyway? This sense of mental cynicism and despair? Many things have contributed. One big factor was cancellation of the Robert Guerrero vs. Marcos Maidana fight. It promised to be a great fight, and when Robert sustained a shoulder injury in training, the resulting cancellation dampened things considerably and contributed to the funk. Not even Amir Khan’s insinuations about Maidana buying off ofThe Ghost did much to mask things. It was almost as though fans listened to his comments and said, “Yeh, right. Whatever!”
Another significant event was the withdrawal by Kelly Pavlik in two of his scheduled fights. Fans eagerly awaited what many hoped would be the successful continuation of his comeback efforts. Fans were disappointed in him and Top Rank, his promoter.
Not even the blabby, profanity laced motormouth antics of the Mayweathers has done much to generate interest. Fans remain laconic, not offering much in the way of usual fight chatter. Behavior of the dysfunctional fight family has gotten old and it fools no one other than their sycophants. Yes, they will have their say, but they’ve become clueless as to what fans really want and expect. How many times can you say, “They don’t know shit”, and expect fans not to believe you’re anything but the real defecator!
Dissatifaction and disappointment are also key ingredients. Fans are used to some degree of deception and trickery, but they felt bamboozled by judges in the Williams vs. Lara fight, and by the referee in the Mares vs Agbeko fight. They wanted to strike out for justice, but instead they “… feel about as useless as rubber lips on a woodpecker” (Earl Pitts).
The upcoming bouts between Pacquiao vs Marquez and Mayweather, Jr. vs. Victor Ortiz come with all of the usual attempts at hype, but the hoped for excitement doesn’t seem to be there. Fans have apparently had enough phony stimulation. They’ve been hornswoggled too many times, i.e Pacquiao vs. Mosley and a couple of the Super Six bouts. As a result, fans aren’t buying into the promoters’ claims, whether true or not, that Marquez and Ortiz are serious threats.
Put all of these things together, and it’s like comedian Dennis Miller once said, “You have a fecal blizzard!” But, in this case, the storm has subsided, and all that’s left in its wake is the squishy, squashy, spongy lingering smell.. It’s created a numbness. It needs to be obliterated, or better yet expunged. Boxing needs to kick the “scheize” out of here. Forget the deodorant, and replace the numbness with real nimbus!