The day of an event for boxers is a day of rest, waiting, and thought. You eat, sleep, and basically kill time until the evening, when you need to perform at your extreme best. All the training is done, all the press conferences are over, and perhaps if you?re successful enough you run a few spots for the television crews, talk to the press a bit as you leave wherever you just ate. You?re preparing in your mind what the plan is for that evening, creating it round by round, because if you can think it, you can make it happen, your body is rested and ready now it?s all creating it in your mind?s eye.
When you?re too old to fight, sometimes you write!
Well I?m old, aged enough to remember the days before PPV, HBO, and even cable television. The days when the Saturday and Sunday morning papers were the only way to get fight results that ended after the nightly news, when Ring, Boxing Digest, and the like were littered among the dirty socks and ring gear of young boxer?s bedrooms across America.
Missing are the days when local events were on the radio Friday or Saturday nights from the Roseland Ballroom in Massachusetts, when I lay quietly awake, unbeknownst to my parents, with that one little white ear bud connected to my AM radio. That was my only connection to the boxing world besides Howard Cosell and Wide World of Sports.
Lord, how I desired to be on that card in Taunton every week, and damn, those ear buds would put you in some pain after a couple of hours!
All month, I would dissect those magazines, reading the lines over and over, taping the pictures to my wall, then I would read between those lines, trying to figure who would box whom next until finally I would even inspect and absorb the Charles Atlas ads promising to change me from a 99 pound weakling to a muscle bound freak in so short a time, just by mailing in some money.
I remember the anticipation of my birthday when I would finally be old enough to train at the Boys Club because I wanted to be Graciano, Marciano, LaMotta, or Willie Pep. Secretly, I wanted to be Ali and all my friends thought fans were nuts to adore his talent because he was a draft dodger and regrettably because they thought having an African-American hero was not so ?groovy? then.
That was when boxing was something special in the hearts and minds of young men, when the only numbers that people cared about was wins, losses, knockouts and championship rounds, when 15 was still a boxing number. A time when we really didn?t care if a fighter was undefeated or not just that he was great.
The time before PPV fights that leave you wanting, sucking your money away like an episode of the ?Dark Shadows? or for you youngsters ?Twilight?, back when instant gratification came in a bottle of Tang or wrapped in a Bazooka comic strip.
These days were the days that Bob Arum made the world take notice of a carnival rider named Evil Knievel and began to shape the world of boxing, and for that I thank him, he brought us some great fights and those Knievel lunch boxes were the bomb back then, but I was too cool to want one publicly. Hats off to Arum who continues to survive scandal, raids by the Feds, lawsuits, and the modern media frenzy. Whatever your thoughts of Arum are, he is surely a smart businessman and extreme survivor.
The announcement of purse money has always been around, but the numbers are surely not the same, not by a long shot.
This banter back and forth between Pacquiao and Mayweather Jr. about testing for steroids is ludicrous and Charles Atlas is rolling in his grave, I wonder what his ads would look like now, would they include the letters HGH or PED.
Frankly, just shut up and fight already because I don?t need instant gratification, I came up in a different time where I can be happy reading it in the paper or watching the reruns, neither one of you need my money more than I do in this economy anyway.
So, the more you two go at it, the less some may be interested and while you nitpick, others get our money and attention. Wolak and Rodriguez filled the spot I thought I had reserved for you two.
Speaking of money, I can?t believe Michael Koncz came out in an interview with Lem Satterfield of Ring TV and said that Manny Pacquiao is worth more than what he is reporting to the government of that country, to quote him ?Much More?.
Does this guy have mush for grey matter; did the cold Canadian winters freeze something in his head?
Sounded more like he was playing CYA then representing Pacquiao!
What kind of business advisor tells the world that basically his boss just lied to the government when filing his financial worth, a government that Pacquiao is a congressman in?
There is one reason alone it should be ?Former Business Advisor?.
Then he proceeds to tell us that he set up the VisonQwest connection yet he acts as if they are stupid and incompetent if they hire Castillo as a consultant, and totally misleads the public by saying Barrera sued Castillo when it was the other way around.
Jesus, this guy is a bucket of contradictions, just shut up already and sign some real talent for MP Promotions.
While thinking of Koncz in Pac-Land I just thought of a new sound bite for Wladimir Klitschko, ?You can get inside, but you might not get out?.
Mayweather and Pacquiao right now have more net worth than some states do, and they can either fight each other or someone else, as long as they either box or retire, because these guys, like all other entertainers, athletes, and musicians are just a means for us common people to enjoy a bit of our free time before we go back to our jobs that support all the entourages?, all the luxury, and all the ?business advisors? of the world.
Thanks to increasing poverty worldwide, thanks to the lure of the sweet science, there will always be another hungry boxer from Michigan, Manhattan, Manila, or Moscow.
Now all four of you can go count your money somewhere, and on your way out, please just give me back my ear bud!
