?Lomachenko won two gold medals. We mentioned that on two or three occasions.? ? Jim Lampley
Saturday night at the Thomas and Mack Center in Las Vegas, Timothy Bradley accomplished the somewhat remarkable feat of torturing Brandon Rios into submission in nine rounds. Bradley, with his stork?s legs and propensity for slapping punches, had not registered a stoppage since retiring an aged and undersized Joel Casamayor in 2011. Rios, meanwhile, had absorbed the worst from fighters such as Mike Alvarado and Manny Pacquiao without touching anything to the canvas but his soles. Yet on this night Rios wilted, finding reason enough in Bradley?s torrent of abuse to kneel under blows that would once have only prompted an arrogant crowing. Rios again failed to make weight and then ballooned to 170 pounds on fight night. He was unfit for the rigors of his profession, and this, more than the presence of Teddy Atlas in Bradley?s corner, was what determined the outcome. Still, while Bradley was rightly expected to win, forced capitulation was not his expected method of victory.
Bradley, then, exceeded expectations by becoming the first person to stop Rios. It is in part a testament to how Bradley is esteemed that his undoing of Rios was met with less than the typical gusto from the HBO broadcast team. He has beaten better fighters on their network, endured greater peril, and displayed greater vulnerability before triumphing. Were that not the case, if say, it was Bradley?s first venture onto HBO, or if a more glamourous matchup awaited him (and a third fight with Manny Pacquiao is not that), the commentary team would have found ample opportunity to laud ?Desert Storm? in a manner befitting whatever synthesis of former greats Max Kellerman could be encouraged to see in him. Bradley, however, is a proven commodity; he does not require cultivating.
Or perhaps Max Kellerman, Jim Lampley, and Roy Jones Jr. celebrated fittingly the effort Bradley put forth, and this perceived lack of praise was the result of the m?nage of fawning that preceded it. Because the commentary provided during the opening bout, which saw Vasyl Lomachenko dissect Romulo Koasicha in ten rounds, was shameless proselytizing. Lomachenko is a wonderful fighter, that much is obvious, (though, and this point may be lost on HBO, not made more so by the quality of opponent Lomachenko has recently faced). But his efforts were exceeded by those of the commentary team, who over ten rounds constructed a mythology for Lomachenko out of keeping with a fighter who needed more than a single punch to turn Koasicha into dust.
This mythology was constructed first, with the language of avoidance, used both to aggrandize the house fighter, and to defend his hapless opponent. Fighters are certainly avoided at times?watch how the winner of Miguel Cotto-Saul Alvarez maneuvers around Gennady Golovkin?but this is almost always the product of economics or promotional/network allegiances?not fear. Either way, it is hard to believe that the only man brave enough to tempt Lomachenko was Koasicha, and woe to boxing if that is true. ?We can?t take away from Koasicha,? Jones advised, not out of courtesy to the condemned, but because to do so would be to diminish Lomachenko?s performance.
Avoidance requires an explanation, of course, and viewers were provided one; though not via an initiation into boxing politics, which would require acknowledging the competition and perhaps throw the concept of fear-based avoidance into doubt. No, Lomachenko is avoided because he, even with only five fights (one of them a loss) participates in a further myth-making tradition: the pound for pound list. This list, comprised almost entirely of HBO fighters, boasts names like Andre Ward, a fighter who has fought three times since 2011, the year he scored his last notable win; genuine victim of avoidance, Gennady Golovkin who, impressive trail of bodies notwithstanding, still pursues his defining victory; and Terence Crawford, who established lightweight supremacy by turning back the number-one-ranked challenger in his division (which there, of course, must be if there are rankings). Yet in the eyes of Jones?who loathed to say a positive word about any fighter who threatened his standing when he topped that list?it is Lomachenko who probably could be already is, in theory, the best fighter of them all. It is easy to understand why Jones, irrelevant as a fighter for nearly ten years, is so comfortable praising Lomachenko considering the frequency with which Lampley flatteringly compared Lomachenko to Jones during the broadcast.
It is telling that the most remarkable moment of Lomachenko?s outclassing of Koasicha went unmentioned by all three commentators. In the eighth round, Lomachenko pulled Koasicha?s guard down with his left hand to land a right hook, then did the same with his right hand to land a left hook. A brilliant moment, over in a flash, and one certainly deserving of recognition. Yet this trick received not a moment?s attention. Why? Because the primary responsibility of Lampley & Co. is no longer to call the action but to create protagonists.
So why the shift to character development? First, because HBO has a proven track record of creating memorable characters, and second, because they are fighting the quantity of Al Haymon?s army with quality. As they should. But hoarding stars can be difficult with so few available. The solution to that problem is to first, ignore that the competition even exists?a fundamental step, and one that Haymon?s PBC practices as well?and second, to lower the criteria for stardom, which allows Sergey Kovalev to become a star should he beat Ward on a pay-per-view no one buys or Terence Crawford to be a star because he sells out the CenturyLink Center in his hometown.
This is a misguided pursuit of stardom, one that devalues precisely those it looks to elevate and irks those who care to notice (the same people who care at all). But it is a strategy indicative of the mindset of boxing?s power brokers, who have disregarded the wants of consumers for some time and continue to fashion the sport into the wrong kind of drama.
