Boxing has become the old man on the block, standing in his pajamas on his front porch, shaking his fist at those noisy kids next door?
Wow, I figured it was going to be bad, but not this bad.
I?m not referring to the Mayweather-McGregor circus, by the way. I?m talking about the concession stand of canned outrage that has predictably attached itself to that Mayweather-McGregor circus.
Following the final date of the four-stop press tour to hype the August 26 event, the most pious of the pious among boxing scribes have belted out their best odes to lament.
Bernard Fernandez of The Sweet Science, in his piece, ?The May-Mac Promo Tour: An Orgy for the Clueless and the Classless,? wrote about ?stirring the most abhorrent passions of tens of thousands of the clueless and classless to a flaming crash alongside the pay-per-view highway.? He would describe potential buyers of Mayweather-McGregor as ?rubber-neckers who apparently don?t know or don?t care that they are being played for suckers,? engaged in an ?orgy of orchestrated or perhaps even genuine debasement of human dignity.?
Funny, the exact same thing could be said regarding most boxing fans. I mean, really, let?s be honest here.
Fernandez, who not too long ago penned a wistfully romantic piece about the once agreed-upon 1971 Muhammad Ali-Wilt Chamberlain heavyweight title bout, is very much up in arms over THIS upcoming cross-sport nonsense fight.
?As the two merry hucksters laugh all the way to the bank with their ill-gotten gains,? he wrote, ?millions of spectators will have to look into a mirror and see the reflection of an enabler who helped defile whatever remains of the nobility of combat sports.?
Again?boxing? Hello kettle, this is the pot?you are black.
And while Fernandez was counting ?F-bombs? and ?cuss words? at the press events (literally?he counted), Ron Borges of the Boston Herald quoted Plato in his own take on canned outrage (because, you know, Borges likes using others? words?wink, wink):
?Wise men speak because they have something to say?Fools because they have to say something.?
A very appropriate quote, by the way, when applied to Borges? piece.
?People will buy this because they love a freak show,? Borges added. ?They love to be conned. Then after they get conned, they love to complain about it.?
And boxing writers love to be outraged. And they love to use feigned outrage as a jumpstart for creative juices that don?t flow so easily anymore. They also love to be conveniently outraged about things that really don?t matter all that much because reporting on the nastiness that DOES matter in boxing isn?t conducive to keeping a boxing writing gig and it sure as hell doesn?t generate clicks or ad revenue.
So, let?s be real here. These guys stacking up their soap boxes and jockeying for position to be the most outraged are doing so for the very same reason Mayweather-McGregor was made in the first place?scandal sells. Nobody?s going to pay attention to a writer railing on the California State Athletic Commission for being a mess of a regulatory body, although lives and livelihoods are legitimately at stake. Nobody?s going to SEE you be the outraged boxing writer killing evil with your sharp words, if you stick to the less sexy stuff.
Boxing writing these days, at least at the ?highest? levels, is made up of comfortable old men (and those who are old at heart) who live in a bubble and communicate, almost exclusively, within a circle of like-minded comfortable old men. Group-think is inevitable in this atmosphere and struggling for relevance comes with the territory when someone finds himself so out of touch with the subject he covers.
Those running the sport as well as those writing about the sport, to a great degree, are old and tired doing what the old and tired do?desperately clutch at the past and damn to hell all things beyond their reach that raise their ire. Boxing has become the old man on the block, standing in his pajamas on his front porch, shaking his fist at those noisy kids next door.
By no means am I saying that Mayweather-McGregor is an awesome thing. Spare me your angry, befuddled comments declaring me the enemy of all things sacred and noble in boxing. I?m just pointing out that on a ?What?s wrong with boxing? list, this silly money grab is WAY down on that list. We?d be better served saving our ire for bigger, badder targets. To blast this fight as ?the most fraudulent, most cringe-worthy and vilest scam in the history of the sport? as Fernandez did, does a real disservice to those dealt a much worse disservice than a bit of buyer?s remorse?including some who lost their lives or suffered permanent disability from things that could easily be defined as ?scams.?
The reality is that Mayweather-McGregor is just a bit of harmless fluff that, to be honest, has much more of a potential upside for boxing than a downside. Boxing writers just love grandstanding and abhor dwelling on the mundane aspects of the sport that DO need addressing. And, because of this, it?s both easy and fun to point out their pretentious posturing.
