Decked out mansion in Las Vegas, Floyd Mayweather, boxing?s biggest draw is beating his chest and declaring, ?I told y?all!?
The very sport that was ordained by every fair-weather fight fan and would be expert to over take the Sweet Science as the new mainstream gold standard of the fighting arts finds itself embroiled in a scandal that makes it look nothing like the evolution of pugilism it?s been touted to be.
One by one by one they fail. Jon ?Bones? Jones, the Chosen One, the would-be future of Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) has tested positive for cocaine. Veteran Nick Diaz test positive for marijuana, and none other than Anderson ?The Spider? Silva test positive for anabolic steroids. Even Major League Baseball bothered to give us time to breathe between scandals. When combatants within the same contest are shown to be playing dirty, it is clear that MMA has a serious problem; and its biggest name, its sport?s standard, the UFC, clearly is in desperate need of a higher degree of ethics.
I can only imagine that somewhere in his decked out mansion in Las Vegas, boxing?s biggest draw is beating his chest and declaring, ?I told y?all!? If the biggest names in the UFC are being caught, one can only imagine how rampant this issue actually is. Someone had to know. In fact, that someone was none other than George St. Pierre, who famously stepped away from the sport because of his very vocal concerns regarding what seems to be an epidemic in MMA. Like boxing?s Floyd Mayweather, St. Pierre called for far more stringent, even Olympic style drug testing to be incepted in his sport?even offering to pay for it.
Boxing, we are told before every major pay-per-view event, needs to be saved. No matter how ridiculous that statement is, as its been repeated for a number of decades now, it is somehow regurgitated to conjure some sense of frantic urgency within those of us who hold the sport in such high esteem. Somehow, since the emergence of the UFC it has been common speak among would-be insiders that ?it is only a matter of time before we bid farewell to boxing.? Even the likes of Max Kellerman, among others, has taken it upon himself to act as a defender of Mix Martial Arts, the UFC in particular when some of boxing?s very own have called it anything but legitimate.
Boxing has its flaws, and one might argue this may be the pot calling the kettle black, but those flaws are hardly the sins of its participants. As we carefully consider the despicable events of late within the UFC, those within the boxing community who have routinely dismissed Mix Martial Arts as an illegitimate farce might very well be right.
