Despite how much of a mismatch it may be, the point still stands that people were talking about Mayweather/Ortiz.
The critical word there is were.
They were talking about why Mayweather couldn?t get over his demands and just fight the man who took his pound-for-pound crown. They were talking about who this Victor Ortiz kid from Kansas was and if he really stood a chance. They were talking about all the upcoming coverage and the press tours and would Mayweather behave and would Ortiz blow his top. They were talking and talking and talking.
Then, they stopped talking. They, of course, are the mainstream sports media. The mainstream sports media was finally talking boxing beyond more of a blip on SportsCenter. They were really starting to look into this fight, and while they weren?t sure yet if they liked what they saw, they were at least paying attention.
They stopped talking, though, earlier this week, when the National Football League ended its labor lockout.
Instantaneously Floyd Mayweather, Victor Ortiz, and the rest of the boxing world were left behind like a jilted bride in a church. Mainstream sports media wanted to know the terms of the deal, who would get what, would the rich get richer and would the filthy rich get filthier, what will Chad Ochocinco tweet about it, who?s going where, who?s being signed, resigned, getting free agent status, who would receive the next pornographic text message from Brett Favre, who?s going to be Team X?s running back, quarterback, Nickelback, how did they get involved, who the hell cares, FOOTBALL?S BACK!
It was, to use a colloquial term, ?pandefuckingmonium.? And boxing, who sat with one of the biggest promotional opportunities in ages, was stuck wondering where everyone went.
That promotional opportunity, despite Top Rank?s delusions, was not the boxing career of Tommy Zbikowski.
Boxing, for one brief moment, had a window of opportunity where the mighty football was not a direct competitor. For once, boxing could have been the sport of men, and legal wrangling could be the fringe sport shown on ESPN3.com. Even better, from July 1 onward (in practice, probably closer to June 17th-ish), not only was football out of the picture, but so was a second Big Four sport, as the National Basketball Association entered their lockout.
Not one, but two Big Four sports were out of contention. Hockey was in off-season, and baseball started to enter the dog days of summer where minds can wander again until the All-Star Game. And what did boxing do about it?
Not a damn thing.
Let?s remove the boxing writers and the die-hard fight-lovers, because they, the troopers, can talk boxing on any given day. Let?s also take out the boxers, as their job is (wait for it) to box. Training and boxing is their requirement. That in and of itself could be a whole other Oprah show. Of the people left, what got done? Bumpkus.
And it was there. It was right there for the taking. Waiting to be had. Need proof that the mainstream sports media? We started paying attention to soccer.
Let me repeat that: Americans started paying attention to soccer.
Soccer, for those readers who aren?t familiar with the sport (Americans), is the game where a ball is kicked (FOOTBALL!!! No, wait, there?s more.) back and forth with the intent of kicking it into a goal net defended by the other team. The team who does this the most is the winner, and is generally a task that America, by and large, sucks at. Granted, in the past few years, America has improved in soccer from ?suck? to ?alright, I guess.? But while the world plays soccer (futbol) more than any other sport in the world, American mainstream sports media still considered it a ?fringe sport.?
Yet here we were, paying attention to soccer during the NFL lockout not once, but twice: Once when the U.S. men went up against Mexico in California (really? We took them on in the most played sport in their country?) for the Gold Cup in June, and again when the U.S. Women took on Japan for the World Cup in Germany in July. Had everything been running status quo, these stories would be buried under trade speculation and ramping up for pre-season (American) football.
