It turns out that the demise of boxing was greatly exaggerated. The UFC and MMA didn’t run it out of business, and after a period of time where it seemed that the sport had stagnated – if not gone backwards – it staged a series of events that garnered the attention of the mainstream media.
The De La Hoya-Mayweather bout in May, dubbed ‘The World Awaits’, was perhaps the most hyped event since the circus that was Lewis-Tyson hit Memphis back in 2002. And it produced boffo box office numbers, procuring over 2 million pay-per-view buys and a record-setting gate in the state of Nevada. Mayweather, who ascended to super-stardom in 2007, was involved in another huge pay-per-view extravaganza to end the year against Ricky Hatton that may have exceeded a million buys.
Meanwhile, Miguel Cotto stamped himself as a true ticket seller by playing to big crowds at the legendary Madison Square Garden in New York. With victories over Zab Judah and Shane Mosley, he is now a consensus pound-for-pound entrant.
Kelly Pavlik, armed with seemingly all of Youngstown, Ohio at his side, would dethrone middleweight champion Jermain Taylor in late September with a pulsating seventh round knockout in Atlantic City, New Jersey. Not only was a new champion crowned, but a fighter who had been resonating with less and less people (as his credibility waned) was replaced by a fighter who has captured the hearts and minds of everyone in the Midwest.
Across the pond, the European boxing market remained bullish, and was highlighted by the overflow crowd of well over 50,000 that fit inside the Millennium Stadium in Wales to see the super middleweight showdown between Joe Calzaghe and Mikkel Kessler.
Top Rank, in perhaps one of its most productive years ever, in addition to the success they had with Cotto and Pavlik, took their show out on the road (and out of the casinos) by staging highly successful shows in locales such as Chicago and San Antonio. Bob Arum proves that there are still real promoters in existence in a landscape filled with booking agents and poseurs.
HBO, after several dismal years, bounced back strongly in the second half of 2007 with telecasts featuring Paul Williams-Antonio Margarito, Pavlik-Taylor, Juan Diaz-Julio Diaz and Calzaghe-Kessler.
And finally, Top Rank and Golden Boy Promotions, which had waged a cold war of epic proportions in the prior years, would finally come to a detente which allowed bouts such as Cotto-Shane Mosley to take place. With this peace treaty, everybody wins.
So going into 2008 how does boxing keep its mojo?
It’s pretty simple, keep doing more of the same, but do it better and with more imagination.
Already it seems as though the New Year has some great events lined up, from the rematch featuring Pavlik and Taylor, to the long awaited return bout between Pacquiao and Juan Manuel Marquez, which are already locked into Las Vegas casinos.
Boxing will always have a presence in the casinos, whether it’s the large resorts in Las Vegas or Atlantic City, or the small Indian-owned properties on reservations. That’s an immutable law of the boxing business. But for boxing to go to the next level, it has to be more accessible to the public it counts on to support it. Want to know why boxing has had a difficult time cultivating new fans? Just look at the first 20 rows of casino-comped tickets at a big fight. It looks like a mausoleum sometimes, and the truth is that most boxing fans couldn’t afford those tickets anyway. But the point is, many older boxing fans grew up going to fights on a regular basis. I’m not so sure that’s the case anymore.
Arum says that if Pavlik should down Taylor in February, then his next title defense will come in June at the Cleveland Browns Stadium, where he believes that with properly priced tickets, a crowd of over 40,000 can be expected.
This is what boxing needs. Not just another big fight, but a big event, one that would get coverage from media outlets that have ignored boxing for years. It would be very difficult for any sports editor to justify not covering an event that draws that kind of crowd in an NFL facility. And one of the reasons why many papers have stopped covering boxing is that it’s simply too expensive nowadays to send their writers on three, four day junkets out to the desert with these trumped up ‘media rates’ that long ago stopped being a bargain.
De La Hoya and Golden Boy have made a lot of noise about having his next fight in an outdoor venue (Of course, he’s talked a lot before and hasn’t delivered). Rumors are that a potential bout between Calzaghe and Bernard Hopkins could take place at the historic Yankee Stadium (the site of many championship bouts in the past).
Let’s hope so, as attractive fights are great, but not at the cost of continually alienating the core fans who are on the outside looking in.
Then you have the networks, who play such an integral role in the game. The bottom line is this: without their license fees, most, if not all, ‘promoters’ would cease to exist. Which is okay, because the business has changed from 50 years ago. But with that power and influence, they are in a position to dictate what they want on their airwaves. They shouldn’t be stuck with a card because they are obligated to any fighter, promoter or adviser.
The reality is, they (being the fighters, promoters and advisers) need them, not the other way around – unless of course you’re De La Hoya.
It’s very simple; the second-half surge of HBO was fueled in large part because they are starting to get out of the business of exclusive, multi-fight contracts with boxers. Hopefully that’s a trend that will continue.
Also, all networks need to get out of giving predetermined dates to the above-mentioned trio. Hey, it’s pretty simple, no date should be handed out where the A-side is filled out but with no opponents on the opposite ledger. Want to do a ‘house’ show? Do it on your own dime. Networks should be in the business of making the best fights/shows, not subsidizing anyone else’s business.
And then you have the promoters. In short, the game needs more of them. Let me correct myself, there are plenty of guys who call themselves promoters but are nothing more than television packagers, casino brokers and/or booking agents. What Arum and his company do is promoting in its truest form. You may not like him or his tactics, that’s fine. But when it’s all said and done, he’s the only guy really promoting in this country as of now at the big-time level. They spend more on their shows inside the arena to spruce up their presentation than most do advertising their show, period. There are many guys at the second and third tier that are true ‘promoters’ (and they should be lauded), but the reality is that at the top rung, we don’t have enough of the real article.
Until then, we’ll see too many fights held in the same stale environments (i.e. – casinos like the Foxwoods) with lukewarm audiences.
And that is soooo 2006.
FEBRUARY 2ND
OK, so what’s the latest with that HBO ‘Championship Boxing’ telecast? Nobody seems to really know and nobody really wants to say anything. As of now, Paul Williams, Chris Arreola and Andre Ward do not have confirmed opponents.
While Carlos Quintana has been mentioned for a while as Williams? foe, the newest name I’ve heard for Arreola is Monte Barrett.
Yeah, that was my reaction too.
DYNAMIC DUO
I don’t know how many of you actually subscribed to this past weekend?s pay-per-view from Cancun (I’m guessing it did a bit less than De La Hoya-Mayweather) but it went pretty much as expected, with WBC featherweight champion Jorge Linares icing Gamaliel Diaz in the eighth round with a brutal right hand pivot shot that left Diaz unconscious on the canvas for a few minutes. And then WBA jr. lightweight champ Edwin Valero would dispatch of Zaid Zavaleta (aka ZZ Bottom) in three.
I’d love to see Linares in there with Orlando Salido, who looked really strong on last Friday night?s Telefutura. He’s got all the tools; he just needs seasoning. As for Valero, I don’t know what to really think; it’s like watching someone hit 60 home runs in Triple-A. You know he has power, but you wonder how those in the upper echelon would exploit the holes in his swing.
R.I.P.
Boxing lost two fine men this past week in referee Chuck Hassett and historian Hank Kaplan.
Hassett was a fine referee and someone I got to know a bit during my travels in boxing. He was a very fine referee but an even better person.
As for Kaplan, I never actually met the man, but I know many folks that have dealt with him and needed his assistance in the past – nobody ever had a bad thing to say about him after their experience. I’ll say this, the term ‘expert’ is like the superlative ‘great’; it’s tossed around way too freely nowadays, but Kaplan truly was a boxing expert whose knowledge was invaluable
Both men will be missed.
FINAL FLURRIES
Robert Hawkins has been tabbed to face Dominick Guinn on the 2008 season premiere of Friday Night Fights on ESPN2 (that actually begins on December 28th)….Lightweight Miguel Huerta is putting on a pretty good run recently, stopping Daniel Alicea this Friday night on Telefutura….OK, I can admit when I’m wrong, the Houston Texans made the right choice in selecting Mario Williams over Reggie Bush. Not only is he turning into a premier pass rusher, he might be a better inside runner than Bush, too…Who’s the bigger pariah in Atlanta, Michael Vick or Bobby Petrino?….Zahir Raheem makes his return on the January 4th edition of ‘FNF’ on the Deuce when he faces Ricardo Dominguez. I know, I can’t wait either….The January 11th edition of ‘FNF’ features Jean Pascal facing Omar Pittman and Edison Miranda taking on David Banks….. Anyone else get the feeling that De La Hoya-Mayweather II is inevitable? Think about it, it does half the numbers it did in May, and it still does over a million pay-per-view buys….I have to say that the Miami Northwestern Bulls are the most talented high school football team I have ever seen. How good? Even Larry Coker could have coached it to a championship….Oh, wait, so Barry Bonds wasn’t the only guy using steroids or HGH?!?! Ya don’t say. But I guess the kid gloves are now off regarding Roger Clemens….Speaking of which, Mark McGwire, where is he? He’s tougher to locate than Osama Bin Laden…..
