Real Boxing fans are some of the most loyal, passionate, and educated people you’ll ever find in all of sports. Where else can you find fans that go the extra mile to do their research and find news and information on the internet, and pay $50 occasionally just to watch a big fight? View slideshow: Round-by-round Compubox scores for Pacuiao-Bradley and sights and scenes
Boxers, on the other hand, are some of the most hardworking and genuinely nice people you can ever find. From Manny Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather, Jr., down to regular club show fighters, boxers, surprisingly despite the brutal nature of their craft, are the most approachable and fan-friendly athletes around.
Unfortunately, it?s also the fans and boxers who are the biggest victims when it comes to the crooked and corrupt world of boxing. And the problem is, there?s too many senile people running the sport. Advertisement
From promoters, sanctioning body heads, down to officials and judges, boxing is full of tired, washed-up, time-to-go types, who are looking out for their own agendas, feathering their own nests, and protecting their own conflicts of interest, rather than cleaning up and furthering the sport into the future.
Take for example this boxing judge Duane Ford’s stance in defending his scorecards for Pacquiao-Bradley by saying he felt Pacquiao clearly won the first six rounds, and even admitted his judging was influenced by old fight he used to judge. “What I saw on the fourth round is that Pacquiao clearly won that. He hurt Bradley. But the Manny Pacquiao that I judged in the past would have finished him. He let him off the hook,? Ford said on Jim Lampley’s Fight Game show on HBO. If HBO unofficial ringside judge Harold Lederman consider’s Ford “the dean” of boxing judges, and says he is as solid as they come, what does that say about the rest? Ford might have been the guru of boxing judging some years back, but based on his interviews I’ve heard after his controversial scorecard, and his reasoning that quite honestly confused more that it enlightened, it’s obvious that Lederman was talking about somebody else.
Boxing is hardly even catering to the next generation. As franchises like the NFL, NBA, and even the UFC and WWE make a concerted effort in infusing new blood and selling their brand to a generation of new fans, boxing is stuck in it?s old ways and turning people off with their controversial judging, corruption, and these days, even issues with doping.
Even the boxing media filled with ancient elitist types who are stuck in the 70?s and 80?s, during the sport?s Golden Ages, drag the sport down with their exhausted and tired rhetoric and attitude toward new the breed of fighters and fan bases that shape the sport. You see a lot of bias, and less fact; selling and propaganda, rather than news reporting. And the list goes on.
The culture of boxing has to change, if it intends to survive and thrive in the future. Fans don?t get the fights they deserve, and fighters get screwed off fights and decisions they earned.
In light of Manny Pacquiao’s controversial split-decision loss to Timothy Bradley Senator John McCain, and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid?s proposed a legislation that would create the United States Boxing Commission to help regain the public’s trust with boxing. This is a welcome step toward the right direction, but on a more fundamental note, it?s also time for senile people to be excused from the sport, and replaced with competent young blood that will push the sport forward into the future.
