When I spoke to esteemed boxing scribe Thomas Hauser a few months back the topic of discussion was Manny Pacquiao?s WBO welterweight title defense against bruising Ghanaian Joshua Clottey. After a proposed Pacquiao bout with Floyd Mayweather fell apart the Filipino icon turned his attention to the former champion Clottey and despite slightly having the feeling of a parting gift it was still a bout worthy of attention.
Hauser broke down the fight from all angles while going into depth particularly about the contest taking place at the Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, Texas. It was obvious in hearing him speak that Hauser was excited about breaking the mold of yet another big fight in Las Vegas and was intrigued by the thought of experiencing something new in Texas. Having Pacquiao-Clottey inside of the massive complex was a definite change of pace and that sometimes that is exactly what a sport like boxing needs to keep pace.
Fast forward to the present and Hauser could be found on much more familiar grounds as he reflectively spoke from the media room of the MGM Grand in Nevada as he counted down the hours to this weekend’s Floyd Mayweather-Shane Mosley tussle. For Hauser this is old hat, as he estimates he has covered roughly fifteen meaningful bouts in the Vegas Valley over the past ten or so years. In that time the New York native has gotten to see many different sides of the sport but concedes that he has never been one to fall prey to the temptations that the city has to offer.
?Well there are two separate parts,? Hauser says when speaking of Las Vegas. ?One is how the events are run and two is the city. Obviously Vegas runs very well. Everything is under one roof and it?s really very easy to get around. You come from your room and you go to the media center and you go to the arena. Everything is right together and that is very easy. I don?t really have a Las Vegas experience as such because I?m not a gambler. I have been here plenty of times but I have never put a quarter in the slot machines because that is just not my thing. When I was a kid I played some poker and I will bet occasionally on sports events but I?m not a gambler so I?m not really into the Vegas scene. For my purposes if you have the same set up as the media center it could be in any other city in the world and it would be the same thing for me.?
Hauser notes that the first Vegas bout he likely covered was the November 2000 heavyweight title fight between champion Lennox Lewis and challenger David Tua at the Mandalay Bay. While that fight was far from scintillating Hauser claims that years later his emotions nearly boiled over when one of the living legends of the sport defended his belts against a young up and comer at the MGM Grand in the summer of 2005.
?I?d say the fights that I was the most emotionally involved with were Jermain Taylor?s first fight with Bernard Hopkins,? Hauser notes. ?I was very, very emotionally invested in that fight and I was very much emotionally invested in Lennox Lewis vs. Mike Tyson. Those are probably the two where I felt my heart racing the most once the fight began. You always have a rooting interest when you go to a fight, so do the TV commentators. I mean there might be an occasional fight where I go to where I don?t care but being honest when we go to a fight we are rooting for one guy or another but we just try not to let that seep into our writing. Or if we feel it strongly enough we will say it. Those were two fights. For those two fights I had the feeling that who won or lost that fight would really impact me on a more personal level.?
Getting personal is certainly a key part of Hauser?s job and he constantly finds himself interacting with the tight-knit community of the boxing world. During fight week Hauser often finds himself around the all too familiar faces of the media and seems to see the good and bad in it all.
?You come into the media center and you see people you like and people you don?t like,? Hauser reveals. ?They are all part of the scene and you try to gravitate towards the people you like but the profession also requires that you sit and talk to people you don?t. What I?ve always said that some of the best people I have ever met in my life are in boxing and some of the worst people I have ever met in my life are in boxing but it?s never boring.?
They say that boxing is the theatre of the unexpected and that just as easily applies to all of the developments outside of the ring as much as inside the squared circle. Hauser reveals that when he comes to cover an event with an open mind that things will typically face into place for him whether he expects it or not.
?What I love about coming to the fights is that if you are really on your toes you never know what you are going to get,? he says. ?I find that I get my best stuff away form the scheduled events. I remember coming to the Naseem Hamed fight, where he fought Marco Antonio Barrera, and I had nothing to do on the day of the fight. Usually that?s a pretty slow day and I was just walking around the casino floor. I ran into Naseem Hamed and he was walking to the arena with a couple of his people to practice his ring entrance.?
At the time Hamed was an undefeated star with a 35-0 record with 30 knockouts. The Yorkshire fighter had captured the imagination of the public with his outlandish personality and crippling power inside of the ring. Hamed was looking to make a splash with his Vegas debut and Hauser was able to see first hand just how important his ring entrance was to his overall persona and image as a world class superstar.
?I don?t know if you remember that fight,? Hauser asks. ?But he flow down on the trapeze from the top so I spent an hour and a half with Naseem going to the top of the arena and watching him practice coming down on the trapeze and coming back up again and it was a great, great part of an article. I have the luxury because I am not writing for a major newspaper where you have to write a certain column a certain way. I might come to a fight with a certain idea of what I am going to do but it could change radically depending on what happens.?
During Wednesday?s final press conference inside of the casino Team Mayweather and Team Mosley put on their best faces while answering questions about the fight itself as well as their own personal careers. It was standard stuff for the most part but through chance Hauser would end up linking up with Mayweather one on one just moments later.
?I was chatting with Leonard Ellerbe and we were walking back to where Floyd had just finished a private shoot for some TV show,? Hauser says. ?Floyd finished up the shoot and I asked him if I could ask him a question and he said ?sure? and we wound up, just the two of us, talking for at least an hour an a half on a more personal level than I have certainly ever talked to him before. I got great, great stuff. If I had tried to schedule and hour and a half alone with Floyd they would have laughed at me. Yet it just happened that way. I?ve never understood why people come out here and just sit in their room and watch CNN. If I am not doing anything either I will just be here or I will wander around the floor.?
Earlier this year Hauser and I disected Mayweather’s career as a whole and the veteran scribe seemed frustrated with the undefeated fighter’s lack of credible opponents in recent years. A showdown with Mosley certainly will give us some of the answers we are looking for from Mayweather and in closing Hauser seems to feel that there is more danger connected to this bout than people are acknowledging.
?Floyd has a lot more to lose and a lot less to gain in this fight than Shane does. Floyd should make a lot of money from this fight but most people expect Floyd to win. If Floyd wins people will say ?Yeah he won again? and that Shane has already lost five times and it happened again and Shane is old anyways. If Shane wins it elevates him enormously in people?s eyes and it means that it is a lot harder for Floyd to tell people he is the greatest fighter of all time.?
