If you?ve read my work in the past, you know that I?m a fairly big fan of the slick-boxing Anselmo Moreno, the current WBA bantamweight champion, who hails from Panama. In the past, I had the opportunity to watch a few of his fights against the likes of Wladimir Sidorenko, Mayhar Monshipour and Frederic Patrac. When I did, I mentioned his exploits in my ?Final Flurries.? It turns out I wasn?t the only admirer of ?Chemito.?
Last summer, I received an email from a fan who also expressed his admiration of the smooth-boxing southpaw. It turns out that this guy had a whole collection of Moreno fights on DVD. And he was nice enough to make this offer- because he liked my work and had been reading for years- that if I ever needed anything, in terms of recorded boxing matches, all I had to do was ask him. All he wanted in return was for me to keep writing often (This might be the most unbalanced trade since the Dodgers traded away Pedro Martinez for Delino DeShields).
So, from that point on, every couple of weeks, I?d receive a bubble wrapped envelope full of HD-quality DVDs of all the fights that take place internationally and bouts that take place in the States that aren?t televised.
His name is Tim (his last name is excluded to save him any potential hassles) and he lives in Iowa (the city has also been omitted for the same reason). He?s a fight collector. He?s a guy who?s passion- outside his family- is the fight game. If there is a fight taking place somewhere across the globe, he wants it in his possession. Based on what I have been sent recently (the most recent batch includes Vikapita Meroro-Jevgenijs Andrejevs and Raul Garcia-Nkosinathi Joyi), I?m beginning to think that if Tim doesn?t have it recorded, it really didn?t take place at all.
“What?s funny is that I?ve always watched the fights but not until- unlike most guys who collect stuff- I really didn?t start recording fights till about 2005, when I got my first DVD recorders,” Tim told Maxboxing. “Then, from that point on, for whatever reason, I just started recording everything to DVD. I mean, Telefutura, Telemundo, FoxSports, you name it; if it was on, I was recording it. And I?ve stayed consistent with it ever since.”
Luckily for him, you can record on DVDs. The reality is that VHS tapes are much more cumbersome and present a problem when it comes to storage. I should know, since I have my own (much smaller) collection of fights and Miami Hurricane games and highlight tapes that take up too much space in my home for my liking.
“I?ve got hanging file folders in my office just all over the place and at work,” he said. “I never even thought until I got about a thousand DVDs that I could store my DVDs the same way I could store my paperwork in the office. So I was putting them in plastic cases, then I had this war stock of DVDs sitting in my house and then someone turned me onto this thing online. It looks like a suitcase, got a bunch of hanging file-folders in it and I can just store DVDs in that sucker. And I got about 5,000 DVDs in these cases. It doesn?t take up hardly any room at all. So as long as you have the right tools, I think the DVDs are a lot easier, for sure.”
He may not be Netflix but he has his own sophisticated filing system where, if he had to pull together the most recent fights of Anselmo Moreno for a certain boxing scribe, he could do so easily.
“That?s probably the most important thing of collecting fights is starting early on a categorization system,” he explained. “I mean, after I had gotten about a thousand, I hadn?t even started. I just started sticking notes on the case and then I realized what a nightmare I had in front of me trying to start categorizing all these things. So it took me forever to start it. But once I did, I just put them in an Excel spreadsheet with a date, fighter last name, in one column. And then the other column, fighter last name, fighter first name, location, broadcast. And that way, I just categorize them as I record them. Or, as I get them in a trade, I?ll just put them in numerical order. But then if I wanted an Anselmo Moreno fight or what have you, I just sort that spreadsheet any way I want by number.
“So, in that way, it doesn?t matter; like if I get a fight from ?79, I can just put it right next to a fight from last weekend because as long as I have it numerically attached to a fighter and a date, then I can just pull it out and watch it or trade it or whatever else.”
The day this interview is conducted is July 16th, a Friday night which just happened to have the return of Zab Judah on ESPN2 and then fights on Showtime and Telefutura. The following day, HBO had a ?Boxing After Dark? doubleheader featuring Tim Bradley and Alfredo Angulo and a telecast on Fox Sports Net/Espanol. There is a detailed process that takes place for such a weekend.
Tim says, laughing, “I?ve already set up for this weekend since Wednesday. I have an HD-DVR upstairs so I can record two on that one. Then about six months ago, that saved me because I bought another HD DVR to put in my basement. So now I can record four shows to my DVR and normally, like on Saturday night- like an idiot- I bought the David Tua pay-per-view because I didn?t think I?d be able to find it anywhere else. So I bought it. So now, I?m gonna have to record the HBO show on Saturday night a little bit later. I?ll have to take the delayed broadcast.
“So normally in the middle of the week, I start laying out the schedule and seeing what broadcasts are on,? he added. ?I get Azteca America, Telefutura, Telemundo, I get all those. I have to physically write it out and try to figure out and look at my guide and figure it out, what time the different broadcasts are airing. The Fox Sports Espanol show, luckily, is being shown on Sunday afternoon at 4:00. So I can totally skip the Saturday broadcast. There?s so much on this weekend that I can pick that up on Sundays. It?s definitely a process.”
There?s no doubt this is an obsession for Tim. He admits, “I?m an addictive personality. I don?t drink anymore, covered in tattoos. So this is my addiction now, I guess. I suppose things could be worse.”
But he?s just a small part of a subculture which is devoted to recording fights and it?s a tight fraternity that leans on each other. Boxing, more than any other sport, is one that is international. While it?s relatively easy to gather any contests that take place in the NBA or NFL, boxing spans the globe, which means it takes an entire network of avid boxing aficionados to procure bouts.
“I just met over time- on different forums online- I?ve met friends, a friend in the U.K., one in Japan, one in Australia,” he says. “We swap through the mail sometimes. Sometimes I swap computer to computer, online, from one friend to another. It?s just been a process. Like just over the past couple of months, I?ve been searching forever for somebody in Mexico that could get the Televisa shows- because those are so damn hard to come by- and nobody there has any recording equipment or at least anyone I?ve been in touch with. So I finally got a guy and I?ve been working on that the last couple of months. I actually had an old machine sitting in my storage; it was doing nothing but collecting dust. I figured what the hell do I have to lose? I just mailed it to him. I realize he might just walk off with my equipment but it?s worth a shot. It was doing nothing in my basement.”
Trust me, Tim can get stuff that even the major promotional companies have a hard time getting their hands on (I know since I?ve given some of Tim?s DVDs to matchmakers who, themselves, didn?t have these particular fights). In fact, he has gotten fights that promoters swore weren?t taped. KZ Promotions tried to tell everyone that there was no copy of the fight between Beibut Shumenov and Gabriel Campillo for the WBA light heavyweight title in August of 2009 in Kazakhstan, which was won by Shumenov in a highly disputed decision.
But lo and behold, months later, what arrived in my mail but a copy of that fight (which, by the way, was a horrid house decision. I can see why KZ Promotions attempted to expunge any copies of that fight like Stalin). But just how in the world did Tim track this down?
Well, it turns out his friend in the U.K. had a friend in Poland and, according to Tim, “That guy knew how to speak Russian; he starts getting on all these message boards over there searching for this fight. And I don?t know where he got it from; I have no idea, some private collector over there. As soon as he got it, he just started sharing it with all of us. It was fantastic.”
With this international network of collectors, he is able to procure undercard fights on major cards which are televised overseas but never see the airwaves domestically. Some fights, such as Shumenov-Campillo I, don?t have any commentary and just seems to be a raw satellite feed.
Just recently, I asked him for a copy of Miguel Acosta?s sixth-round stoppage of Paulus Moses in Namibia that was for the WBA lightweight title on May 29th. And guess what? Nobody seems to have it. And it?s at this point where the hunt begins. Tim is like Captain Ahab in pursuit of Moby Dick.
“Yeah, for sure,” Tim says, laughing at the thought. “I?ve got a mental list of a couple of fights I don?t have and that Paulus Moses one is definitely on there. It honestly becomes like a challenge. My friend in the U.K., he actually knows Moses? trainer or manager or something like that; he?s based in the U.K. So he?s been working through him and the trainer sent him off to someone. So my friend in the U.K. is still running this thing down there. He?s emailing these guys back and forth. We just talked about it the other day.”
I don?t know when but, rest assured, one day I will have seen Acosta?s stoppage over Moses.
And then it shall be ?flurried? about.
HUMP DAY FLURRIES
HBO is focusing in on making the rematch between Paul Williams and Sergio Martinez on October 2nd. Gary Shaw said on the most recent edition of ?The Main Event? that he will hold off on offering up the likes of Sergiy Dzinziruk and Aflredo Angulo for one of those slots until that issue is settled…I got an idea; why not involve all four of those junior middleweights in a doubleheader that night and start creating some natural rivalries and stuff?…It?s great that Golden Boy Promotions will start doing monthly shows at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York that opens its doors in 2012. My question is, are there any boxers left in that area?…Speaking of Brooklyn, Kathy Duva of Main Events told me that Zab Judah will return to the Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey on October 2nd…Another edition of ?Fight Night Club? takes place from the Club Nokia and I really l like the fact that the talented Gary Russell Jr. is now the main event against the experienced Mauricio Pastrana…I can?t believe Autumn has made the final four of ?Hell?s Kitchen?…Is there anyone who hasn?t piled on LeBron James for his decision to join the Miami Heat [Editor?s Note: I haven?t. I don?t even watch hockey]? I?m just waiting for the ghost of George Mikan to rip him a new one…The newest edition of ?The Main Event? features Shaw and David Mayo of the Grand Rapids Press…I can be reached at [email protected] and you can follow me at www.twitter.com/stevemaxboxing. You can also become a Facebook fan of Maxboxing at www.facebook.com/MaxBoxing.
