Too often, the American media sucks. In general, it’s ineffectual and increasingly unconcerned with trivial things like ?truth? and ?facts.?
Do you have a thoughtful, carefully considered, educated opinion on a matter of importance to many people that you would like to share with a news organization? Too fuckin? bad, pencil neck! This angry, screaming guy is waving a Hitler sign and an AK-47, so we?re more interested in what he has to say. Are you a well-informed, practical and sober newscaster? Better hit up Monster.com, bitch! We have a lady who talks like a lobotomized Mother Goose and looks like the Van Halen ?Hot for Teacher? video, and she?s getting your news show.
I criticize the media because I consider the media a benchmark for whether or not a society can be considered truly free, and many (most?) in the American media would currently rather sell ad space and repeat recycled narratives than investigate complex issues and expose corruption. I criticize the media because, like many facets of our society, ?for profit? has trumped ?for purpose? and we all pay the price. I criticize the media because they tell us what we want to hear, as opposed to what we need to hear, and that means what we need to hear goes unsaid.
The repercussions of a failed boxing media are far less extreme than those of a failed national media. A failed national media can contribute to things like, say, wars with lies as the central justification or widespread financial collapse. A failed boxing media leads to things like ?Floyd Mayweather has never fought a true welterweight? becoming doctrine, despite Floyd having beaten two men who held or once held the linear welterweight championship (and a junior middleweight titlist, to boot) before his first ?retirement.?
One of the biggest issues I have with the boxing media today is hypocrisy. There are certain boxing narratives that you will undoubtedly recognize, as they feature prominently in the world of boxing journalism. Unfortunately, many of these narratives directly contradict one another. The following is an examination of what I consider the most common hypocrisies in boxing, with a bit of explanation as to why the bother me so much.
1. There are too many weight classes!/Fighter A is too big for Fighter B!
Boxing is often like a cranky grandfather, pining for the good old days when life was simpler and life spans were shorter. This leads to one of the most common complaints of boxing scribes being the number of weight classes in boxing today. The eight original weight classes have grown to 17, with as little as a three-pound difference in some of the lower weight classes.
This complaint, while a bit crotchety, is fair enough at face value. However, when paired with another common complain ? that size differentials between certain fighters create unfair matchups ? it becomes difficult to determine what boxing writers actually want.
Let?s look at the case of my client (since I seem to defend Mayweather so much, I feel like his defense attorney) and Ricky Hatton. While Manny Pacquiao earned unadulterated praise (deservedly so) for flattening Hatton in two rounds, Mayweather earned little admiration for dissecting and knocking out Hatton at welterweight. The justification for dismissing Mayweather?s victory was that Hatton was a good junior welterweight and a bad welterweight, so Mayweather once again took advantage of a smaller foe.
That?s fine, if that?s your opinion ? unless you also think there are too many weight classes. Under the original weight class system, Ricky Hatton would have always been a welterweight. Under the original weight class system, Mayweather-Hatton and Pacquiao-Hatton would have taken place in the same weight class.
So which is it? Is Mayweather picking on smaller foes by fighting junior welterweights like Hatton, or should the weight classes revert to the original eight? Fortunately for some boxing scribes, they can have it both ways, depending on which narrative fits their opinion best that day.
2. Boxing needs network TV!/Boxing needs to get with the times!
Grandpa Boxing is still rambling about the good old days, when Sugar Ray fought on ABC and the networks were king. Of course, grandpa was watching Sugar Ray on a 13? black-and-white screen powered by rabbit ear antennas and tin foil.
Meanwhile, challenged by the rapid growth popularity of MMA in the States, boxing scribes implore the sport to become more cutting edge. Make fights available on the Internet, they say. Introduce instant replay and other technological innovations. Let?s bring boxing into the future!
Well, guess what ? the networks are not the future. While network television is still a force in American media, its influence has declined sharply over the years. The Internet is the future. Cable television, with a sharper focus on niche audiences, is the future.
Of all the success that MMA has had in expanding its audience, one of the biggest failures they have had is their experiment with MMA on CBS. The biggest MMA promotion, UFC, continues to use Spike TV (a cable network) and pay-per-view as its primary outlets for fights. Strikeforce, a competitor of UFC, worked out a deal with network giant CBS, so clearly, Strikeforce overtook UFC as the elite MMA organization, right? Wrong. Strikeforce struggles on CBS, while UFC thrives on Spike.
If boxing is really going to get with the times, we need to get over the network dream.
3. Boxing needs more competitive matchups!/Fighter A lost? He?s done!
I?m all in favor of making more competitive matchups. However, I find it hard to look at the last few years of boxing and argue that competitive matchups have been lacking. Today, two of the top three pound-for-pound fighters in the sport will square off in Las Vegas. Last weekend, two of the best super middleweights squared off in a tournament pitting six top super middleweights against one another, while a former linear cruiserweight champion beat a legitimate top-10 heavyweight to crash the heavyweight rankings himself. The weekend before that, a man widely considered the best junior middleweight in the world fought the legitimate middleweight champion and took his belt.
All were high profile fights broadcast in the United States. All were excellent matchups, both on paper and in the ring.
However, while pining for the days when mandatories were determined by public demand (and maybe the mob) rather than sanctioning bodies, some boxing writers still have little difficulty dismissing a fighter?s quality because he suffered a single defeat. Hatton, for example, lost to the top two pound-for-pound fighters in the sport. Still, his thoughts of retirement were encouraged by some scribes who determined that he wasn?t fit to fight anymore. Many have dismissed Chris Arreola because he lost to Tomasz Adamek, despite an entertaining performance from the California fighter. When Mikkel Kessler lost to Andre Ward in the first round of the tournament, he was tagged by many as ?washed up.? Until, of course, he beat then-unbeaten Carl Froch. Clearly, as some have penned in retrospect, Froch was exposed.
What has truly been exposed is more hypocrisy. Froch, Kessler, Arreola, Hatton ? all have lost recent fights, and all have more than earned the opportunity to fight again at the top of the sport without questioning their viability. They took risks ? especially Froch, Kessler, and all the Super Six participants, who have risked a lot for their opportunity ? and they came up short.
If we want them to keep taking risks, we might want to stop dismissing them for doing so and occasionally not succeeding.
4. Boxers need to build local followings!/Home field advantage is unfair!
Confession time ? I?m still pissed that Adamek and Arreola fought in front of 6,000 in California, as opposed to the potential of more than twice that audience in New Jersey.
I agree wholeheartedly with the idea of boxers building local followings because I have experienced the magic firsthand. While I liked Tomasz Adamek well enough before seeing him fight Steve Cunningham at Prudential Center in 2008, I would not have really considered myself a big fan of his. He was just another good fighter who was worth seeing because he was in the area.
Since then, I have seen Adamek fight three times at Prudential. I have seen his crowds grow and I have reveled in the admiration his fans express. The electricity in the building is palpable and the fans? enthusiasm infectious. When I see Adamek fight at Prudential I leave happy to be a boxing fan.
Andre Ward is building a similar following in Oakland, California. Mikkel Kessler has all of Denmark supporting him. Kelly Pavlik rode a wave of popularity in Ohio to the top of the middleweight division. Passionate local followings can breed national stardom and, more importantly, they bring in revenue.
Of course, in boxing, there is always a ?but.? In this case, the ?but? is that, when 10,000 people cheer each punch from their hometown fighter as if it were a Mike Tyson knockout blow, judges can sometimes be persuaded that the hometown fighter is doing better in the ring than is reality.
This unfortunate side effect of the subjective nature of boxing has prompted some to call the Super Six tournament into question because of the fact that home fighters have not lost yet in the tournament. It has led to Carl Froch claiming that he will leave the tournament if his next fight is not in England, despite the fact that he isn?t exactly the second coming of the Beatles in terms of popularity.
It led to Chris Arreola refusing to fight Adamek anywhere except California, despite the fact that he probably cost himself tens of thousands of dollars by doing so. He also helped provide a very recent example of the fact that home field advantage isn?t everything, as the smaller Adamek, fighting on the road, won a decision from the larger Arreola, fighting at home.
That last sentence may have made a few boxing writers? heads explode.
5. The sanctioning organizations are corrupt and evil!/The sanctioning organizations are stupid and bumbling!
To paraphrase the late, incredibly great Bill Hicks, can?t we just come to a consensus and agree that the sanctioning organizations are corrupt, stupid, bumbling evildoers?
See, sometimes settling hypocrisy is simple. Now, if only we can convince people that Floyd Mayweather?s ?lack of competition? is not the same as Tyrone Brunson?s, we?ll be all good.
