Movers and Shakers
The year?s end is approaching and a welcomed 2008 is just beginning to settle in. Oscar De La Hoya; the boxing Maverick purchased ?The Ring? this year; without interferences or say-so in their publication; is like placing a brand name on perfume bottles; and just sitting back collecting royalties. You know that you couldn?t very well bargain between the networks, organization committees, and significantly lower sales in the magazine circulation itself if you weren?t influencing something or other?however, one thing is for sure; Oscar?s honesty and integrity were never questioned regardless of endorsements or not.
We?ve had our share this year of promoters launching big fights, and smaller ones, with a steady decline of Don King. It has to be a bad omen somewhere about that, so I?m thinking Don will resurface in the New Year.
Linear Champions
Let this stuff be broken down to shed some light on the subject. In the beginning, there was the WBA and WBC. Now if you wanted to go even further there was the NBA, which in turn converted into the WBA, but we?re not going back that far. Anyway, the two governing bodies were stationed in Venezuela, and Mexico, and came in a 1980 era when the IBF began its infant stages that gave birth in New Jersey.
It became a vivid reality later with the outreach and assesses of the WBO, who did tap on the problem enthusiastically. Now the WBA/WBC have taken their interactive course to simplify the two organizations, as it should be. The one item that they never stepped on was the renowned linear championship. That prominence and privileged formation belonged to boxing immortals, and not all of the champions qualified, including some of the very best ones.
They paid homage at the Ring with a gifted V.O Seagram?s labeled belt, and Spanish publications addressed it as ?Don Q,? but the logistics were drawn that the few linear, for which that there where to go around, that they weren?t going to go their merry way uncrowned. Magazines, newspapers, and rating systems in place made it a point to acknowledge them.
Whenever talking about ?The World Linear Champions,? I sometimes find myself at a loss of words at the callous and redundant way some sportswriters don?t know the basic history and implications. They frequently toss around words like ?world championship? giving it that extra dreaded oomph as if it were saying something without the record keeping texts.
Record chronicling the past is very significant. With so many bids out there to assort partial titles escaping everyone?s memory from additional alphabets? sakes, we?re extremely lucky to still have fight fans supporting our sport.
Believe it or not, it wasn?t the organizations that were the culprit to something that was already there to do. You cannot blame the facilitator, but what you can do is not sustain the utter biases that thrive. It?s an old trick that works until one champion topples another, and then we go on our daily business to licking wounds, making no salacious indifferences whether they?re old wounds or not.
Bob Arum Making Manny Pacquiao International
I always thought that Manny ?Pacman? Pacquiao never needed a makeover, but I must?ve been possibly wrong there. How much bigger does Manny stand to get depends these days on which guy you talk to.
In the Philippines, for example, he?s crossed over Super Stardom, broadening beyond all asked of him with terrific commercialism along sides of Erik Morales advertising local beers. Now Pacquiao knows just how much to give into his wherewithal, and he doesn?t need anybody to tell him?strike that, to remind him about what many years ago Hispanics who made it in the big leagues before him went through. But wait a minute, some of them we?re graced to transcend crossing over into the mainstream populace of sport without uttering English, but do you know why? Charisma. That?s the ticket between crossing over and those who have not.
Filipinos alike, like many Latin?s, have assimilated pretty darned well in my opinion. If you thought speaking any secondary language to making it your major would be easy, try just one of them to find out, and then let me know. Now Bob Arum has the newer improved mythology to teach Pacquiao on how to ?Crossover? with a proper etiquette reducing locked jaw syndrome. I don?t buy it.
English proficiency was for every foreign student an alternative class teachers recommended. That?s a fact. And before some nitwit misconstrues everything about what I?m saying, I myself learned the English language directly through television as a boy, but knew instinctively even then the differences between choosing a language or being given one.
We?ll Always Remember Ali
I suppose there?s no New Year reflection without remembering Muhammad Ali. He?s called simply ?The Greatest,? and we never tire of his savvy and that particular kind of integrity, I think, most moderate writers strive or adhere at least, learn a little knowledge about. He probably owns a book of wit somewhere that hasn?t been capture in any book.
What most impresses me about him was that he never compromised his beliefs, his fans, and where he was coming from. We all stood to learn what thinking out of the box meant when it came to Ali, and substantially we maintained a corner for him to draw strengths in ways from its very character and caring mannerisms. That to me is an extraordinary human being.
He took adversity and made it loveable. Saw wrongs and made them known. Ripped at the establishment to the core, and in a characteristic way rode the wave of freedom of which ears began to listen, and stomachs churned. What a man. When minorities felt despair and hatred, he attacked root causes that the poor and underprivileged didn?t even know about. Boyish in nature, and flamboyant with the sharp tongue of a serpent, he alone would take upon the podium to chastise and rebuke injustices.
He was our sons and daughter, uncle, and cousin, and yet the Ali of any decade you would assort from wasn?t the different guy who approached the Police officer when he parked his bicycle to get some ice cream, introduced himself as Cassius, and reported it stolen.
What I will always remember about Muhammad Ali was his intelligence in the Bio-Scientific know how about the body, even as a youngster, when somebody being poor couldn?t afford protein drinks to build the body and boost the immune system was like eating a chocolate Tiger?s milk bar, or powdered mix added with a banana, which most of that was an extreme amount of sugar anyway. But Ali had a different approach to carrying his amateur career through 100 of 108 wins, and a life besides his reading the Bible daily and rise in the morning. Early breakfasts consisted of two raw eggs broken into a milk carton shook, and a carried bottle of water with chopped garlic gloves to ingest. This was to keep his blood pressure down, besides enormous benefits.
I have to tell you that since in my early twenties I have benefited from the same garlic routine that my babalao Cuban godfather Ignacio had told me, and so the practice is deeply rooted in the medicine of the Yoruba and Batu tribesmen with their families for many centuries.
An Inca Hater
I got this letter that I otherwise wouldn?t put here, but decided that?s what makes it good to begin with. So the writer should get a kick of it as I suppose you will.
Valero?s a Fluke
I’m sorry to say this but I’ve seen Edwin Valero’s fights on You Tube and guess what, he has no defense, step dancing not in the groove and is way off the league of pacquiao, guzman nor marquez. The quality of fighters he also faced are not even near the names that I mentioned. They are class “C” fighters for Christ’s sake. The real fight to watch at 130 or 135 would be all pacman against guzman, juan diaz, marquez and katisdis. Valero is way below to be lined up with these guys! Why make the hype out of him?
Chris
Guess what too Chris,
Edwin?s beaten two class fighters already, but you hadn?t seen the extent of one of those fights watching glimpses on YouTube to know that, and you couldn?t be more wrong if you thought Mosquera and Honmo were C class fighters.
Valero doesn?t need tap dance lessons. This isn?t ?Dancing with the Stars.? He may not be too flashy for you, but he is deceptively quick to short-circuit the circuit breakers off the charts! This was my third time in seeing Valero fight?Saturday night.
The reason you?re infiltrated with an array of highlights about Valero to begin with was because 19 of 23 of those knockouts were so short. Don?t sweat the small stuff.
That is all for this special ?George?s Boxing Report.? I hope that everyone has a good holiday season.
