It’s a cynical world, the boxing world, where no matter how much evidence or reason there is to believe something, people go out of their way to believe the exact opposite. So when news broke that super middleweight Andre Ward had been cut in sparring and would be postponing his Super Six finale showdown with Carl Froch, Froch’s promoter Eddie Hearn publicly insisted that he wouldn’t believe it… indefinitely, basically. Never mind Ward’s account, never mind the account of his trainer Virgil Hunter, never mind the account of his promoter Dan Goossen, never mind the account of the sparring partner Brandon Gonzalez who was sparring with Ward at the time of the “alleged” injury, never mind that anyone who wanted to get really Truther about it had the doctor’s name who stitched him up. “I don’t think it’s true because I say so, and because I say so it isn’t true,” is what it amounts to, more often than not.
Yes. There has been an element of the accursed to the Super Six. Lots of injuries, delays, etc. Some of it has been all kinds of suspicious, too, and Andre Dirrell’s expected return to ESPN this fall feeds into that. There’s so much funny business going on in boxing that people reflexively become paranoiacs. It’s not that skepticism isn’t healthy or sometimes even warranted by fishy stuff — it’s just that all this “Nuh uh, not true” even in the face of credible narratives gets old. Did you know that Manny Pacquiao is on steroids? Or that boxing adviser Al Haymon controls ringside judges, ringside doctors and even rival boxing trainers? Maybe you didn’t know that Floyd Mayweather vs. Victor Ortiz was fixed. I mean, it’s not like you can DISPROVE those things, can you? If it can’t be disproven, then it must be true! It’s why I believe our universe is ruled by malevolent pink elephants who travel by intergalactic hovercraft. Think I’m wrong? Then prove I’m wrong!
Where was I at? Oh yeah, bummer about Ward-Froch getting postponed. It just means I’ll spend Halloween in Washington, D.C. Hopefully it’ll get rescheduled for real soon, like November or December, unless it turns out this cut is just a cover story for Ward to get out of fighting Froch because Ward’s such a coward that he fought freaking annoying-ass Sakio Bika once Dirrell pulled out of their fight when he could’ve fought a chump instead. (But points to Froch for making fun of Ward’s nickname. “SOB,” not “SOG.” Pffftttttt that’s hilarious.)
