As I sit here alone at my computer, you are hereby invited to my party.
I’m celebrating TigerBoxing’s 3rd Anniversary on the web.
We launched this website in September 2004 during the weekend of Spinks vs. Gonzalez and Wlad Klitschko vs. DeVarryl Williamson. That was not exactly a boxing weekend for the ages but one we will always look back to with fondness.
Cory Spinks is still around, at or near the top of the 154’s and Klitschko- in 2004, a fragile deer in the headlights- is now the premier heavyweight in the world.
TigerBoxing keeps on growing and growing thanks to you and thousands of others. We’ve grown our readership by 150% in the past three months. We thank you.
Our first anniversary in September 2005 was not celebrated at all. Based in New Orleans with Katrina hitting in late August, I was dealing with other things in early September. TigerBoxing was frozen in time on August 28, the day my family evacuated out of harm’s way.
A few weeks later when we were able to get it back up and running, we had e-mail from all over the world wishing us well. The outpouring of friends and strangers helped ease the pain of the first anniversary.
Last year was much better. It was a quiet hurricane season as the site ended our second year on the web and began our third.
This boxing media experience has been partly a geography lesson for me. For example, we are in the top 100 websites in the Northern Mariana Islands. I know what most of you are thinking. I didn’t know where the Northern Mariana Islands were located either. So I looked it up. I read some things about their country and culture. It’s a cool thing to be in someone’s top 100.
We’d like to give the boxing fans of the Northern Mariana Islands a big thank you.
I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the great boxing fans of the Philippines. Regarding their country and boxing, I’ve never seen anything like it, have you? Doesn’t it make you a little jealous?
Here in America, some of our fans will boo a fight 30 seconds in to it if someone isn’t bleeding yet. That’s shameful. Big casino arenas are mostly empty until the main event arrives. That’s a drag too.
In the Philippines, professional boxers are treated like our NFL or NBA stars. It would be great if some of the big fights involving Filipino fighters could actually take place in the Philippines. What an awesome atmosphere they would share with the world.
Boxing is also great in the United Kingdom. The crowd atmosphere in the UK is unrivaled anywhere. The mood and the singing add so much to the drama of any fight.
The good folks who think boxing is dead are way behind the curve. Boxing may have died a few years ago but we are in the midst of a Lazarus experience of Renaissance proportions.
We can debate when the rebirth actually began. My beginning is May 7, 2005 when Diego Corrales and Jose Luis Castillo each gave an epic that boxing history will never forget.
Maybe it is the perceived threat that the MMA is diminishing our sport that has shaken us awake. Matters not the why for me. Whatever it takes for boxing to continue the rebirth is fine.
It may be said by future boxing historians that boxing turned the corner in 2007. Combine what we have experienced so far this year with what is on the schedule in the next four months and we just might be in the beginning stages of the first new golden age of boxing in the new millennium.
The fact that boxing promoters are working together in unprecedented fashion is big. The truce between TOP RANK and Golden Boy is huge.
Let the demise of boxing debate continue among those who are out of the loop. Those of us in the loop know better.
Okay sermon over. Time for more shout-outs.
I want to mention and thank our great staff at TigerBoxing.
Great thanks go out to:
Matthew Sanderson, Nat Gottlieb, Kieran Mulvaney, Shawn Krest, Tim M. Smith, Tom Hogan, Ian Palmer, David Benavides, Rudy Candia, Tim Crowley, Rory Dowd, Andy De Los Reyes, Justin Hackman, Tim Hocking, Kristopher Love, Christopher Roche, Bill Scherer, Todd Thorpe, Russ Wagg, and Eddie Velez.
I also want to thank the many professionals that help us do our jobs. I’m talking about the fighters, promoters, managers, PR people in the industry and those at the networks. You all know who you are.
Special thanks to the fighters. Most fighters are excellent athletes and excellent characters. It is about them and it starts with them.
TigerBoxing has been a great ride for these three years. Because of our great readers all over the globe, we’re only getting started.
