I?m not sure if Oscar De La Hoya knows Lindsey Graham.
But as the hoopla and mayhem emanated from the Floyd Mayweather-Conor McGregor press tour last week, I began thinking of the two men in the same sad-sack context.
Graham, for those unaware, is a multi-term Republican senator from South Carolina who began a brief U.S. presidential campaign on the first day of summer in 2015.
But his genial southern manner was quickly lost amid the GOP noise machine, and by the time the unprecedented sound-bite road show reached the Sunshine Summit in Orlando that November, his candidacy was the textbook political definition of ?on its last legs.?
I was covering the event during a past life as an employee of the subsequently-declared ?fake news media,? and was charged to stake out the Rosen Shingle Creek Hotel ballroom and live tweet highlights of each White House wannabe?s address to the gathered Florida faithful.
Graham followed more microphone-friendly senators Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz to the stage that morning, and I actually recall feeling sorry for the guy as he tried to articulate his moderate, inclusive ideas while three-quarters of the people in the room headed to the hallway for coffee.
It was like a guidance counselor following the quarterback?s speech at high school graduation.
The chasm was even more evident later in the day, when Donald Trump supporters took their seats bearing ?thunderstick? noisemakers that they pressed loudly into action whenever their man touted the merits of a fully-funded border wall or chastised eventual general election foe Hillary Clinton.
Graham, the conversation having passed him by for titillation, was gone before Christmas.
I probably wouldn?t have voted for him anyway, but I still felt bad.
Fast-forward to last week?s four-stop media circus that covered 5,437 miles and included nearly as many chest thumps and humanity insensitive rants.
Though there?s not a mainstream journalist who?d suggest the Aug. 26 spectacle is a better boxing product than the Golden Boy-packaged middleweight bout three Saturdays later, it was difficult to find one not swept up as the celebration of combat sports-tinged hate speech kicked off in Los Angeles.
Several weeks after penning a Facebook letter that deemed the Mayweather-McGregor get-together a black eye from which the sport ?might not ever recover,? De La Hoya himself might have heard the din at his promotional company?s Wilshire Boulevard headquarters a mile away.
And outside the Staples Center, rumor has it the Golden Boy?s statue wept, too. Because by the time the insult fete left Los Angeles and headed east, it was a challenge to determine which well-known writer had most agilely transitioned from labeling the event a ?mismatch? to getting on Twitter to declare the press conference ?epic? and post a picture of their press credential.
Not to mention the headlines on every sports page, the highlights on every 6 p.m. sports report and the rants ? pro, con or otherwise ? on every radio sports show for the rest of the week, which no doubt means there are now casual fans who think Triple-G is on Sesame Street and Canelo is a Spanish cereal? yet they know who Conor and Floyd are.
And while it?s true that the press tour ultimately went off the rails enough to bring star-struck writers back into the ?this was a disgrace? fold, it?s no less true that Leonard Ellerbe was right on point when he said the entertainment value was what mattered to the rank and file who?ll buy the pay per view in record-breaking numbers next month.
Because, for those unaware, the new realities are clear:
Fights used to be about matchups. Politics used to be about substance.
But now that we?ve created an age where a guy can grab women by the crotch and become president, is it really a shock that a guy in an expletive-tailored suit can get people to drop $100 to watch him make his pro debut against another guy ? who?s done time for domestic battery ? with a 49-0 record?
If it is, it shouldn?t be. We?ve brought it on ourselves.
And if it isn?t, well? don?t be expecting a Christmas card from Lindsey Graham.
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This week?s title-fight schedule:
SUNDAY IBF mini flyweight title ? Tokyo, Japan Jose Argumedo (champion/No. 4 IWBR) vs. Hiroto Kyoguchi (No. 9 IBF/No. 15 IWBR) Argumedo (20-3-1, 12 KO): Fourth title defense; Second fight in Japan (1-0, 0 KO) Kyoguchi (7-0, 6 KO): First title fight; Third fight scheduled for 12 rounds (2-0, 1 KO) Fitzbitz says: It seems Japanese fighters with single-digit bouts are all the rage when it comes to winning titles, so I?ll follow along and suggest Argumedo?s days are numbered. Kyoguchi by decision
WBA light flyweight title ? Tokyo, Japan Ryoichi Taguchi (champion/No. 10 IWBR) vs. Robert Barrera (No. 1 WBA/No. 20 IWBR) Taguchi (25-2-2, 11 KO): Sixth title defense; Never lost a scheduled 12-round fight (5-0-1, 3 KO) Barrera (18-1, 12 KO): First title fight; One opponent with more than three straight wins (0-1, 0 KO) Fitzbitz says: Barrera has a gaudy record at first glance, but it pales quickly upon closer inspection and he doesn?t figure to present a significant challenge to the homestanding champ?s reign. Taguchi by decision
Last week’s picks: 5-0 (WIN: Selby, Eubank, Corrales, Niyomtrong, Berchelt) 2017 picks record: 52-17 (75.3 percent) Overall picks record: 874-291 (75.0 percent)
NOTE: Fights previewed are only those involving a sanctioning body’s full-fledged title-holder ? no interim, diamond, silver, etc. Fights for WBA “world championships” are only included if no “super champion” exists in the weight class.
