Fallout over the recent Golden Boy Promotions suspension story, reported by the now-beleaguered George Kimball, shed some light on the doings of the boxing media, a strange entity worthy of a cover story in The Fortean Times.
Some websites, among them a few with sanctimonious claims of journalistic integrity, did not bother to post anything about Golden Boy being suspended, but, somehow, wound up printing, in its entirety, a Golden Boy statement defending themselves. The only mainstream boxing sources to cover the Golden Boy suspension with any kind of objectivity were Lem Satterfield of Fanhouse and Dan Rafael at ESPN.com. Of the two, Satterfield wrote a more in-depth report.
Michael Rosenthal of RingTV.com scribbled a piece that only adds fuel to the fire regarding speculation that Ring TV.com is a shill box for Golden Boy Promotions. His piece spends three paragraphs (internet paragraphs, actually) on the facts and the rest of the article, 13 paragraphs, on a Golden Boy defense as offered by attorney Judd Burstein. Still, you will read in some quarters what a fine ?reporter? Rosenthal is. Maybe, maybe not. Protestations about objectivity are irrelevant; ultimately, it is the work that counts, and of the three big outlets to cover the story?Fanhouse, ESPN, and RingTV?it is RingTV that came out and gave over 80% of its piece to Golden Boy Promotions. Rosenthal did not bother to contact the New York State Athletic Commission, and he did not bother to contact George Kimball. (Lem Satterfield, by contrast, spoke to New York State Athletic Commission head Melvina Latham. Of course, it goes without saying that Satterfield is a far superior reporter than anyone on RingTV.com, with the exception of Thomas Hauser.)
Boxing has absolutely the worst coverage of any sport in America, and this goes beyond the fanboy pages that dominate the media. It has to do with the vindictiveness of some of the power brokers that run the Red Light District of sports. Yes, if you piss off a promoter your press credentials will vanish (I know this for a fact, alas); yes, if you piss off a promoter you will lose access to fighters. Because there is no league or oversight, promoters have the power?along with the nasty disposition?to make things hard for writers to cover events.
Even The Cruelest Sport, despite being on the fringes because of its ?no cheerleading? policy, has come across difficulties. A critical piece I wrote on ?Fight Night Club? received a complaint from a GBP employee, and a website I was linked to has been banned, allegedly, by a major promoter for running a live round-by-round blog. Years ago I had an article returned to me by a high-traffic website for the following reasons: ?We have to do business with this (sic) people and this would make things difficult because you appear to be going for the throat in this article. I don?t mind a fighter being attacked but when you after an entire orgainzation (sic) like this, it brings us trouble because they get pissed about it.? The promoter who inspired this anxiety of backlash might surprise some folks out there. (Besides, I never aim for the throat! Do I?)
So most media outlets, because they fear recrimination, are far too accommodating to promoters. In addition, boxing is rife with conflict of interest; some of it is inescapable and even, to an extent, understandable, but much of these conflicts can be minimized with a little less arrogance. Take RingTV.com, for example. There are no disclaimers or disclosures on its website concerning the fact that they are owned by Golden Boy Promotions. When Oscar De La Hoya had his low comedy blog on Ring TV (now apparently discontinued, much to the dismay of my funny bone) there was no disclosure. But when retired judge Chuck Giampa writes a column it is prefaced by the following: ?Former Las Vegas boxing judge Chuck Giampa, now a consultant who advises fighters, will provide occasional analysis of officials and scorecards when he is not directly involved in an event.? Giampa deserves a disclaimer but Oscar De La Hoya does not? This is the kind of cute ?We are journalists? nonsense that makes RingTV look silly. Stop pretending to be Woodward & Bernstein or Edward R. Murrow and get over yourselves. A little humility?and some common sense?goes a long way to mitigating suspicions. If you sit around throwing eggs at Bob Arum all year and then print what is basically a defense of Golden Boy when they are actually suspended, it makes all of your holier than thou nonsense seem hollow. (For the record, The Cruelest Sport takes shots at everybody. See ?The Untouchables.?)
As for the Golden Boy suspension itself, here are a few facts.
The last promoter suspended in New York was Dino Duva, punished in 2007 for peeking at scorecards before they were announced. Before that, it was a notorious fly-by-night operation called Lionheart Promotions. The only big-name promoters to suffer at the hands of commissions on the East Coast in over a decade are Murad Muhammad and Don King. Muhammad, whom Don King once referred to as ?the stupidest man in boxing,? might not even fall in the category of ?big-name? promoter. Joe DeGuardia, president of the Boxing Promoters Association, had some trouble with the NYSAC 10 years ago, but brokered a ?settlement.? (It should be noted that 10 years ago the NYSAC had fewer scruples than La Cosa Nostra.)
In other words, not many promoters receive pandies from the NYSAC. And yet, Golden Boy Promotions did. Consider the following brief timeline:
Before the news of the suspension hit, Thomas Hauser had already pointed out the anomalies of a network paying $750,000 for a fight in which the fighters only received a combined $225,000.
Then Shelly Finkel, who managed Victor Ortiz, decided to retire from his career guiding boxers.
Finally, the NYSAC suspends Golden Boy Promotions because of mysterious paperwork relating to a fight already questioned by the press.
There is no such thing as a coincidence in a mystery novel or in boxing. Nor is it a coincidence that many of the articles written about the GBP suspension takes shots at George Kimball or downplay his report.
For every George Kimball and Thomas Hauser, there are 25 shills and hacks whose only purpose?other than mangling syntax and mixing metaphors on a regular basis?is, apparently, to score press credentials and lick the sweat off of fighters. The peculiar ambience of the boxing scene, tinged with the odor of rot, is addictive to many, and for some, it is reason enough to tow a crooked line.
With Jack Newfield, Pat Putnam, and Malcolm Gordon gone, Michael Katz more or less retired, and many media outlets beholden to promoters, watchdog types will soon go the way of the dodo. Poor Kimball, who has been covering boxing as a newspaperman for over 30 years and has published several books not cranked out by a vanity press, has now had two of his articles deleted on thesweetscience.com. Both pieces were linked to Golden Boy Promotions. Yes, perhaps there is a hint of malice in how he wrote about the Golden Boy suspension, but that is probably the byproduct of outrage, something boxing cannot fail to inspire in all but the least analytical or ethical. We will see much less outrage in the future.
