Having at times been accused of being a Pactard (overambitious Pacquiao supporter) when it comes to the tone of articles about Manny and to some about Floyd, today hopefully those concerns will be answered.
Until injury and subsequent illness sidetracked my dreams, I was never outside a boxing gym for three decades. In one manner or another boxing was my life?s ambition and remains the sole interest I have after Barry Bonds, Sammy Sosa, Mark McGwire ruined my obsession with baseball.
Old enough to remember the days when champions of the ring stood before a national audience with a polite, professional demeanor and they encouraged all the world to love their sport, not just the 18-35 male only age group.
Ali changed boxing for the world, yet ?The Greatest? stood on a podium challenging the establishment that was unfair, a war in Vietnam that was wrong, and a bias in America that was worse. I stood beside Muhammad Ali because boxing was a sport , Ali was a sportsman , Vietnam was not about winning and being a warrior, Vietnam was about death, our young men?s wasted lives, as well as their own.
Disproportionately, the deaths of young disadvantaged Americans of all races that could not evade a draft.
Ali inspired me to get into and stay in the gym, ?Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee? was in the mouths of every young fighter for decades, whether they could or not, those words inspired them. While Ali?s life was not one of complete sainthood, as Manny Pacquiao?s is not as well, like the percentage we use in our sport for knockouts in a career, these fighters have percentages in their favor when it comes to life and the return to the people that gave them the money to get their riches.
Ali inspired lawmakers here to make rules for a sport that most often had none!
Then Ray Mancini?s fateful day changed boxing forever, the war against my beloved sport that raged in the papers and in the actions of parents that pulled their children from the canvas because the American Medical Associations condemned us all without thought.
Strong in my mind are the children I?ve lost back to the streets, talented, intelligent, athletes that couldn?t wait for school, boxing, or growth to give them the money in their pocket that they desired immediately. Some no longer breathe God?s sweet air here on earth, and I miss their smiles, laughter, and connection in my life. They are lost due to a brutal world that many were not suited too, to begin with, but attracted them with illegal riches, controlled by much harder men than they could find instructing them in a gym or promoting a boxing event.
New York was the boxing mecca of the world when Iron Mike held the heavyweight title, you could not walk the streets of Manhattan without hearing his name, a ride in a taxi produced volumes from cabbies about Mike?s last fight, and all of them seemed to have a one-time given him a lift. The old men outside the OTB?s would compare constantly Tyson with the champions of their times. It was boxing at its best until the morning after Buster Douglas stopped him, and then you could hear a pin drop. It devastated a city, but not as much as Tyson devastated Boxing when he went to prison for a crime that hit the beliefs of every moral American.
Once again the airways were filled with condemnation of our sport, it was run by crooks or thugs, and it was the home of immoral athletes that belong in a prison and not on national TV. These were the concerns I faced, trying to keep young people in a gym, keep my sport alive as the participants dwindled.
Then everyone who wanted to train wanted to be Floyd Mayweather Jr. they aspired to be the next ?Pretty Boy?.
Young people don?t understand the sacrifice and hard work that it takes to be a Floyd Mayweather Jr. or a Manny Pacquiao, they see the gold, the glamour, the persona and believe it is inherent in everyone, when it is not, it is a commitment to a difficult sport that only a few can physically attain and when they can?t attain it in the ring they seek the means to attain it quickly in other ways, there is no patience in youth.
Floyd Mayweather Jr. is a talented, gifted boxer that may remain undefeated in his career but his past behavior has lasting effect for young athletes that may lack role models in their life.
One young man asked me once why I insisted he was already a better person than a fighter he aspired to be, I told him because he already had a better worldly record than the fighter.
?You young man, have never been arrested, never spent a day in jail, and never struck a woman to my knowledge. You?re already a champion in the fight of life, and I aim to keep it that way.?
We each have a responsibility, to our sport, to our beliefs, to our own individual legacy. Journalists don?t see that what they write has influence over young people?s lives, but I?m not a journalist, I?m a boxing writer with responsibility over what I write and not to a seat ringside. Never restricted by some journalistic creed but restricted by a moral code and that code is to build my sport around athletes that inspire.
Athletes like Calvin Shakir, who parleyed a boxing career into a business, Absolute Exterminating Services in Georgia to support his family and a gentleman that I was proud to manage and assist for a short time, but who I proudly consider friend and an influence in my life, and I thank him this day for his service to America.
Boxing like America is a land of second chances, and those second chances should never be squandered or abused. All in humanity deserve a second chance, but third, fourths and fifths are not to be expected by any of us.
When I write about Floyd, I think about not what is, but about what could have been, not only for his personal wealth but for the sport of boxing, for the young of America, and for the citizens of our country. I pray for what could still be, because Floyd has the talent as a man to inspire and change the face of boxing here in America, he has the intestinal fortitude to use his equity in the sport for more than just personal fame and records. His call for drug testing in his fights is just one small example of his potential to effect boxing for the good of the sport.
We as fans should never support those that would cheat and promote drug use to become chemical champions in any sport.
Do I write like a Pactard, yes, guilty as charged, I?m also a Klitschko nut, an Andre Ward follower, a Stevie Forbes fan, a Alex Saucedo follower, and the list goes on, of the athletes and adults that inspire me to write, to hang a photo, to dream the dream, still, that boxing will once again be seen as mainstream instead of fringe, but I?m old, I still wear a suit and tie to fights, weigh ins, and press conferences. I believe that boxing is the sport of champions, in and out of the ring, and deserves that respect from me, when it?s earned it.
Champions are not just on the canvas, in the record books, or made of styles and skills, but on the outside, in the arena of the world where their actions mold the minds of the young. Daily!
