PROFESSIONAL boxing in America used to be a big deal. It used to be important. It used to have a grip on the American sports consciousness the way football, baseball and basketball now do. The great heavyweights are now National Football League tight ends or National Basketball Association power forwards, and the audience that once craved the sweet science has shifted its obsession to the mixed martial arts octagon.
That?s not mine.
That was by Bryan Burwell of the St. Louie Post Dispatch in America.
And, I don?t agree.
Boxing in America has never been this good, in spite of boxers like Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Shane Mosley.
Mayweather ought to shut his mouth up or he might just suddenly succeed Mike Tyson as boxing?s baddest boy shortly?if he hasn?t yet.
And Mosley ought to retire because he is now merely being used as a stepping stone by guys wanting to make a shortcut to success.
And didn?t Mayweather just make boxing?s crowd in America another of his captive audience while toying with Miguel Cotto for a unanimous decision victory?
This, despite the fact that only very recently before that fight, Mayweather stole a win by throwing two illegal punches deemed legal by the referee, the last person to say so?
Those blows against Victor Ortiz unceremoniously sent Ortiz to dreamland, coming as it did after he kissed Mayweather on the cheeks in an extended gesture of apology after he was ruled to have intentionally head-butted Mayweather.
Yes, boxing has never been this good ?and bad?in America that the sport has, contrary to Burwell?s opinion, remained a top draw each time a fight is staged, to be staged.
Take the coming Manny Pacquiao-Timothy Bradley fight on June 10 (Manila Time).
Even as Bradley doesn?t have the stature of a Pacquiao, the fight has been consistently drawing raves because of?how many times do I have to say this??Pacquiao. With the Pacman in any card of any promoter other than Bob Arum, that program will attract fans like light to moths.
In short, put anyone in front of Pacquiao?including even the taho vendor in your neighborhood?and the cash registers will just simply keep on ringing till kingdom come.
So, never mind if Mayweather insists on being a no-show, a coward if you will, in every attempt to pit him against Pacquiao. Arum said he?s fed up with ?Floyd The Fraud.?
Listen to Arum say this time and again: ?It?s useless talking business with Mayweather because he has become boxer, manager and spokesman rolled into one.?
Indeed, you can?t be boxer and manager at the same time. Even the best pilot in the world has a co-pilot, the driver in the Safari Rally a navigator. Even Corona, himself the Chief Justice already, has a Cuevas to represent him in court.
And so, to state the obvious, even the legends of the sport before Mayweather had managers of their own to represent them: Louis, Marciano, Liston, Patterson, Foreman, Frazier, Leonard, Hagler, Hearns, Duran and, yes, our very own Elorde, not to mention the greatest of them all, Ali.
Burwell also wrote: ?The powers-that-be in boxing have repeatedly failed to do great things for the sport. Instead of building it up, promoting it and taking all the right steps to elevate boxing, men like Mayweather and Arum allow greedy self-interest to be their guiding force.?
What?s he saying, man?
Arum greedy like Mayweather?
If Arum has been greedy all this time, how come Pacquiao has turned from near-pauper to billionaire?
If Arum has been greedy all this time, how come Pacquiao hasn?t kicked him out since he shacked up with the American in 2006?
If there should be one that should fit the tag Mr. Greedy to a T, no question Mayweather wins it hands-down.
This is not to defend Arum. I don?t know him from Adam. I?ve seen him the first time in Manila when he helped stage the ?Thrilla in Manila? on October 1, 1975. But I have yet to shake his hand.
Boxing in America used to be a big deal as Burwell said it?
He is right.
But for him to say next that boxing in America is not big deal anymore, that?s gobbledygook, plain and simple.
Because of Pacquiao, boxing in America is very much alive. How explain the fact that Pacquiao?s fights are always held in Las Vegas in the first place?
So that to be more precise, man, boxing in America is very much alive because boxing in the whole wide, world is also very much alive?and kicking.
The reason? Manny Pacquiao. Plain and simple.
