Boxing is teeming with fake news.
If you’re a boxing newbie or bandwagoner, you probably get your regular fix of boxing tidbits and developments from one of the many YouTube channels or Facebook pages.
Nowadays, the Internet is a rich source of information for boxing news.
That is, if you know where to look and get your details from.
Sadly, content creators are mainly targeting the naive and the uninitiated, and of course, the bandwagoner, all of whom have a shallow understanding of boxing.
An increasing number of YouTube channels have been regularly posting insane titles with even crazier content.
What’s troubling is many of these channels or pages generate a whopping number of likes, views and shares even if the videos and photos are not original but owned by somebody else.
I should know.
Several months ago, I began posting on YouTube and I had an exclusive (one-on-one) interview with Manny Pacquiao over at his Forbes Park home in the run-up to his August fight in Las Vegas.
Soon after it appeared on YouTube, a number of local boxing channels copied my videos, screen-grabbed them and began posting them on their own platforms as though it was their own.
Since that episode, I have grown cold on posting content for fear of being robbed again.
I was told later by somebody who is knowledgeable about vlogging that my material was something vloggers drool about.
Anyway, lately I have seen a tremendous amount of posts that were clearly sensationalized and utterly untrue in relation to the exploits of World Boxing Organization (WBO) bantamweight king John Riel Casimero in Dubai.
Since most of these content creators don’t have access to the right people given that they are not media representatives with connections, they end up being unable to decipher what is fact from fiction.
Instead, they draw their own conclusions and wind up posing false titles to generate clicks.
In fact, these so-called vloggers are partly to blame for the mess Casimero is in right now.
Because they have been successful in engaging Casimero in live chats and influencing their blind and moronic followers to idolize the flashy fighter, the world bantamweight champion faltered in his buildup for the Paul Butler defense in Dubai.
A few days ago, Casimero was all over on social media, accepting a challenge to face off with a local YouTuber, probably thinking that guy was one of the extremely bankable Paul brothers.
Good thing, the “fight” didn’t push through because the WBO would have been forced to take the title away.
Indeed, something’s terribly not right over at Casimero’s corner for him to even attempt to fight a YouTuber who is obviously using Casimero’s immense global branding to help him boost his own stock.
No wonder, there are those who have been constantly advising Casimero to think straight.
Apparently, Casimero has been devoured by his lofty social media standing that he feels he can do no wrong.
He was kinda lucky the WBO didn’t strip him off the title for the Dubai debacle.
Casimero should have known right there and then that the WBO’s decision not to strip him had a deeper meaning.
He needs to shape up and limit his vlogging ways to a minimum.
If he doesn’t do that, his career is going to take a big hit given the number of clowns around him.
