As a father of two adult children I am often the butt of generational jokes, many I can’t decode. In return I get to embarrass my kids and pelt them with endless references to how things were “back in my day” until their eyes get glossy. It’s all in good fun, tit for tat, one of the joys of having adult children and an intellectual way of bouncing them on my knee. However, I do feel sorry for “Gen Y” because they lack romance and perspective. Try listening to their love songs and you can hear the emptiness of a generation held captive by the idea that everything BELONGS on video. Men are reduced to muscle and money and women, even worse. Yet the same romanticism they lack is the thing that turn them away from the great sport of boxing, and keep us blind sided. Looking at the promotional blitz behind Pacquiao vs. Mosley makes me feel like the woman who cries at every formulaic romantic comedy. We get bombarded with clich? (aka shit) storms that exist in an ancient game and by Saturday night against all logic we cave. Generation Y isn’t shunning boxing because MMA is a superior product; but they ignore us in favor of an unpredictable product. They grew up more entitled than us and they want results now, they don’t tune in to witness the latest installment of why something (Mayweather/Pacquiao) can’t � happen.
They want it now, and if they can’t have it they are proactive -they’re mobile- they flip their phones and move on. MMA is held to a different standard than boxing because the young are constantly seeking what is real, romance be damned. The young aren’t shackled and numbed into following the behind the scenes soap opera that is Golden Boy Promotions vs. Top Rank. The Youtube generation is cursed; and blessed with Attention Deficit Disorder and they can’t sit still for melodrama’s that don’t include the best fighting the best. Shane Mosley isn’t the best, Floyd Mayweather illustrated this in a fashion that only a romantic would talk himself out of remembering.
Shane Mosley and Generation X
Fight Week- nobody wants to write or say anything negative about Shane Mosley getting yet ANOTHER chance at a big money fight. This little piece by yours truly will be held up against more well known writers who seem to magically start sounding like Top Rank staff as we near the bout. It’s all by design you see, for nobody in their right mind would criticize a BS money grab on the actual week of -it’s blasphemous. To play on the romanticism and sentimentality of an ever aging fan base we’ll see clips from 2 yrs. And 5 months ago and told “every great fighter has one more left in him.” Remember, we are the ones that made the Rocky franchise and institution and Wrestling more profitable than real sports. The time to express moral outrage is two months before a fight, just enough time for Fight Camp 360 and the parables of Nazim Richardson to make you feel unsure of yourself. We’re romantic; do we really want to be the one guy who ignored what turned out to be a feel good moment? We are dealing with the passage of time daily, do you want to miss the underdog beating the favorite and making you feel like actually using your gym membership?. The two most compelling Rocky movies (by storyline) were the ones that featured the central character as an unknown and a lion in winter. Shane Mosley is more than a Hall of Fame fighter; he’s an astute actor who can play along with the non merit based opportunities his sport provides. CBS and Top Rank know who they are talking to, they know they can count on us to catch the fever; not for a fight but the possibility of romance. Top Rank knows that if they can erect enough straw men with “stories” they can distract us from the poisonous relationship that will NEVER give us the fight we want. In love, an idealistic romantic woman will take longer to identify a fraudulent suitor than a crass gold-digger- young MMA fans are Gold diggers. Gold diggers aren’t afraid to have that uncomfortable conversation, a woman out for money will even make a man feel challenged to step up to her standards …..Or step off.
Young fans have told Boxing to Step off a long time ago
The Power Card…
I find it poetic that this fight is taking place during the NBA play-offs, a classic backdrop for Saturday’s theatre. For months “men of a certain age” touted the size and wily experience of the Boston Celtics as a remedy for the fast twitch muscle fibers of Miami. It just seemed so appealing (and romantic) to imagine young studs in their prime getting humbled by the over the hill gang. Fight freaks like me are watching men like Teddy Atlas and Dan Rafael do undignified segments and columns about Mosley’s “power” knowing full well what will transpire once Pacquiao lets his hands go. Mosley, God bless him was walked down by a defensive minded Mayweather and left a flinching victim- if Floyd is a pickpocket then by comparison Pacquiao is a mugger. Watching Lebron James bounce off of the calcified remains of Kevin Garnett you get the visceral image that power “is” with the young. The Mosley camp is playing the power card because that is all that remains of an amazing fighter that used to have everything. The power the CBS machine is trying to sell you is only activated when approached by a slow, ordinary foe that attacks in straight lines. Manny Pacquiao is always utilizing angles and may just be (at this stage) faster than Mayweather. There is no crime in watching the passing of a torch in sport, but it is heinous when that process happened years ago. Only Boxing, the unworthy lover will ask you to financially support something you know is a distraction from giving you what you deserve.
And then, we’ll play the Results…
After the hangover, and the romanticism worn off we’ll be left with a disgusted feeling and a Cable bill to remind us of that one “Saturday night.” We’ll castigate Shane Mosley as if he was supposed to be the one great athlete with the self awareness to quit. We won’t factor in our upbringing, the “Miracle on Ice” or that night in 1994 when George Foreman opened forever this Pandora’s Box of delusion. Shane will deserve better as well as Manny, because their job is to make us believe. Our job is to use whatever means possible to make them accountable; men like Bob Arum won’t get out of your face unless you shove him down? hard. Young fans are selfish, and self absorbed-they don’t feel it is their obligation to help a promoter break a PPV record under the guise of progress. While Arum and De La Hoya salivate over the monopoly exercised by Dana White they are sorely missing the obvious.
Dana White works for the fans, his appeal to the young is rooted in the mandate that THE FIGHT will be made or else. He isn’t above match-ups like Saturday nights (ask Couture and Liddell) but it isn’t standard operating procedure because his clientele is bullshit proof. After Saturday Night we’ll be fed the story of Juan Manuel Marquez’s quest for redemption while Mayweather inches towards lord knows what. Talents like Ortiz and Berto will be torn away from one another towards old men they can batter for bigger purses while we pay for the right to compare the results. Like the romantics we are we’ll finance Mayweather into his late 30’s; he’ll be the new Mosley with a reliable clich? to ride to the bank. Hopefully by then we’ll get overtaken by young impatient fans, a generation not to fond of chasing unicorns.
