One of the criticisms I get a lot is that I?m too negative. I?ve even been accused of playing the intentional curmudgeon as a gimmick, dwelling on the negative to play-act boxing writer vigilante for clicks and attention.
The truth, though, is that I write plenty of positive pieces and also do a fair share of straight pre-fight and post-fight technical, tactical analysis. Readers maybe don?t recall much of that work because those pieces don?t generally do as well, readership-wise, as the nasty ?negative? stuff.
So, if I do gravitate towards the critical and cynical, could you blame me? Traffic determines, to a great degree, whether I keep my job or not and most of you respond more when I dip my hands into the cesspool.
But, damn it, if boxing doesn?t foster the cynic in any thinking, caring man. As a boxing writer, if you?re not swinging at bad guys and jabbing at injustices a good portion of the time, you either have no heart or you have no soul. This sport demands a negative vs. negative mindset.
And this brings us to the latest nonsense coming from the sport I love?Amir Khan vs. Billy Dib in a welterweight bout, July 12 at King Abdullah Sports City in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
Originally pushed as a Pakistan vs. India battle pitting Khan, who is a Brit of Pakistani descent, against Indian pro Neeraj Goyat (and, yeah, Khan-Goyat would?ve been a mismatch, too), Dib got the call as a late replacement on two-week?s notice when Goyat was injured in a car accident.
Australia?s Dib, who has been in and out of retirement over the last several years, has spent the vast majority of his career competing at featherweight or super featherweight with only an occasional dalliance at lightweight against low-level opposition. And now he?ll be fighting at 147 against a guy in Khan who has chronically underachieved, but who?s also got legitimately heavy, fast hands and is a pretty big welterweight to boot.
As I recently wrote over at FightHype.com:
?How the hell did anyone sanction a fight between Amir Khan and Billy Dib? I know the fight is in Saudi Arabia, where crazy shit is part and parcel of the everyday experience, but this is a mismatch of brutally epic proportions. Dib was a second-tier paper champion featherweight eight years ago when he was in his prime?and even then he got stopped by light-hitting Evgeny Gradovich.?
The WBC, in its infinite crappiness, had planned to issue the ?Pearl Belt? to the winner of Khan-Goyat, but opted to withdraw that ?special? belt when Goyat pulled out of the fight. Instead, the Mexico City outfit will put the similarly dubious International title up for grabs to the Khan-Dib victor because of ?the proven quality of both contenders,? guaranteeing a top 5 placement in the rankings to whoever comes out on top July 12 (Khan)
?He will be coming up to fight me like I went up to fight Canelo,? said a Khan totally lacking in self-awareness, who was brutally knocked out by Canelo in six rounds. ?He feels confident and he wants to fight me.?
It?s hard to blame the 33-year-old Dib for his part of this dangerous nonsense. A man has to pay bills. Plus, it?s hard to let go of dreams.
?In life you get a limited number of opportunities to do something monumental, and like the greatest in any industry will tell you, when an opportunity comes knocking, you answer,? Dib said via his verified Twitter account. ?This is my real life Rocky moment.?
But Rocky was just a movie and, in real life, most Rockys need to be protected from themselves.
If choosing to write about this desert sacrifice comes off as excessively calculated-critical, cynical, curmudgeony, a bit jaded, and a whole lot of negative, then so be it. I can live with being THAT guy.
Khan vs. Dib deserves all the awfulness and negativity all of us can send its way.
