One of the disturbing aspects about media coverage of the Edwin Valero-Jennifer Carolina Viero tragedy is the appalling parochialism shown by the U.S. press. This ugly American superiority complex also reared its head last year during the Alexis Arg?ello and Arturo Gatti stories.
The notion that ?this or that could never have happened here? is equal parts arrogance and stupidity. Two months ago, The Cruelest Sport published a post on Chelsea King, appealing on behalf of a Fansided blogger for information on her whereabouts. At the time, King, a 16 year-old from Escondido, California, had been missing for three days. She was found buried in a shallow grave on March 2. Her killer, a multiple-murderer named John Albert Gardner, was on parole for a prior sex offense. While on parole, Gardner violated the terms of his probation at least seven times. Or, to take things a step further, how about the case of serial killer Westley Dodd, who once stated, ?The biggest thing is that everything could have been prevented?.I?ve had so many contacts with the police and confessed to so many crimes and never been charged, or the charges were dropped and I was never prosecuted for one reason or another.? Who can forget the story of what Wisconsin police did to a bloodied teenager who had escaped from the clutches of Jeffrey Dahmer? These officers assumed some sort of romantic quarrel had broken out between sadist and victim and actually returned the 14-year old to Dahmer! These are only a few random examples and hundreds more can be proffered, but the point is simple: heinous acts are committed?and overlooked?everywhere.
It is beyond comprehension how some grand personages of a press corps that barely covers boxing competently can sit around making oracular pronouncements about world politics and international justice when all they really care about is making a beeline to the buffet table at a press junket or seeing how many times they can use the word ?I? in one of their articles. Naturally, they should be urged to stick to what they do best.
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HBO recently aired a Real Sports episode that focused on the three tragedies that shook boxing last summer: the deaths of Alexis Arg?ello, Arturo Gatti, and Vernon Forrest. Despite the fact that the Arg?ello segment featured Frank DeFord, a man who has openly displayed his abhorrence of boxing over the years, it was worth viewing for the simple reason that it put to rest several inane conspiracy/murder theories promulgated by boxing observers who, in their egocentrism, were bold enough to make the leap from covering sports to being experts on international intrigue. It was infuriating and embarrassing to read and hear idiotic speculation based, once again, on the premise that another country, in this case Nicaragua, was diabolically inferior to the United States. Max Kellerman, in particular, was reckless enough to air his boneheaded theories to hundreds of thousands on an HBO telecast, even going so far as to mention the non-existent ?shotgun? that only the lowest rumor mongers considered worthy of perpetuating. Here is how The Cruelest Sport covered the Arguello story within hours of the official verdict of suicide: The Last Goodbye.
Now that Real Sports has established that Arguello did, indeed, take his own life, it is high time some of those folks, especially Kellerman, stand up and retract or at least clarify their baseless claims.
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It would be nice if boxingscene.com would attribute some of its coverage of the Valero tragedy to the proper sources. A couple of days ago they ran a post that was basically a translation of a piece published in El Nacional, a Venezuelan newspaper. Inside Fights also used the same translated material, but had the principles to credit the source. Printing material lifted from elsewhere without attribution is, of course, plagiarism, but maybe some folks are not content with merely scraping the bottom of the barrel.
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Andre Berto and Twittergate was one of the less meaningful aftershocks of Valero coverage, but interesting nonetheless for what it revealed about the boxing media. Instant cyber-outrage erupted when Berto made some callous remarks about the murder of Jennifer Carolina Viero. So far as can be determined, Berto is not a member of MENSA; he is not a philologist; nor is he a post-structuralist, an ethicist, a cultural theorist with a background in feminist studies and post colonialism, or a diplomat. He is a professional prizefighter. He said/wrote something stupid. Anybody else out there say something thoughtless once in a while? Judging from the number of comments The Cruelest Sport has had to block and delete, you know, the ones that include words/phrases like ?faggot,? ?nigger,? ?fuck your mother,? and so forth, there are plenty of nasties among boxing fans. In fact, since The Cruelest Sport is on a sports blog network and regularly sees the comments of websites that cover every sport?including NASCAR and MMA?boxing fans appear disproportionately malicious compared to other sports fans.
As for Berto being assailed by the boxing media, well, this just borders on the absurd. Boxing writers (not all of them, of course, there are several intelligent and thoughtful reporters and bloggers out there) specialize in fanning idiot winds, and reading their purple prose one gets the impression that just waking up in the morning counts as overreaching for some of them. If these jokers were censured every time they typed something stupid, servers all over the world would sizzle and catch fire. Instead, many of these ?award-winning? scribes just clog up cyberspace with hypocritical moral proclamations written as tactlessly as the catalysts that allegedly generate them.
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Finally, we can end this grim edition of Sound & Fury with a little comic relief. The headline of a recent Saddoboxing.com article reads, ?Edwin Valero Kills Himself In Jail After Murdering His Wife.? And the last sentence? ?His 27-0 boxing career is certainly now over.? Really?
