With the New Year upon us, I can’t help but write a column that looks forward to boxing in 2007. I figure I can approach this in one of two ways. I can write about the things I want to see. Or I can write about the things that I don’t want to see. I think I will indulge my reformist impulse and do the latter. I hope I don’t sound too much like a nag.
No More De La Hoya Posse – I understand that De La Hoya is a promoter and that he carries a lot of weight in boxing and that he has perhaps the biggest name in the sport. But I’m getting tired of seeing Barrera, Mosley, Hopkins, and De La Hoya, standing around and crowing about their fighter having just won. I especially felt this way after De La Hoya nemesis Fernando Vargas was knocked out by Shane Mosley. If there is one thing sadder than seeing a shot fighter taking a beating it is seeing his rivals gloating. I say Vargas should’ve had his time in the ring with his vanquisher Mosley without hearing the loud hollers of De La Hoya, who did not throw any punches but only promoted the show. After all, boxing is not wrestling. Or is it? This leads to my next suggestion.
No More Wacky Ring Entrances – Cory Spinks comes into the ring popping and rapping; Floyd Mayweather is carried into the ring wearing body armor; WBC featherweight champion Rodolfo Lopez wears remainders from the Mayweather collection for his fight against In Jin Chi. Enough already. When I sit around watching these circuses with boxing and non-boxing fans alike, not one person thinks the gaudily dressed boxer is doing anything cool. Instead, they are laughing at him. And if boxers don’t believe that this kind of costuming has consequences, remember, Prince Naseem Hamed was stripped by the Queen of his MBE because he once entered a ring on a magic carpet.
No More Jones – When Roy Jones fought Prince Ajamu, fans saw Jones dominate a second class light heavyweight. What they also saw was an ex-champion retreating to the ropes far too often for his own good. Roy Jones, almost 38 and with fading reflexes, is too old to compete against top fighters. Maybe he can survive against Antonio Tarver who has mental lapses in the ring when his opponent is hurt or against Bernard Hopkins, who is too old to sustain a damaging attack. But against young guys like Tomasz Adamek, Paul Briggs, and Zsolt Erdei, Jones will get hurt. If he doesn’t call an end to his career, we will see him do more imitations of the late-Ali. Back to the ropes, absorbing shots to his ribs, his arms, and his head. And those of us who admired him in his prime will cringe with every landed blow.
No More Rocky Movies – Rocky Balboa wasn’t all that bad, but I do hope it marks the end of the franchise. The fact that there isn’t a number next to the title suggests as much. Or maybe Rocky is too punchy to count past five. Anyway, this one had a nice ending. I always loved the curmudgeon Paulie, the Han Solo of fight movies. Where Han was cryogenically frozen in The Empire Strikes Back, Paulie’s brain was pickled in booze and cynicism, I guess.
No More Criticism of HBO for Announcing Fight Results – I think people who complain about HBO commentator Larry Merchant’s announcing fight results on rival Showtime are dead wrong. Merchant’s scoop gives fight fans the excuse to watch the Showtime card live and to tape the HBO package (which is usually made up of showcase fights anyway). Back in the day, I used to love HBO boxing because I thought and still do think Jim Lampley brings a real aura to any sports event, making it seem important. But to prevent Merchant from ruining the second half of a fight fan’s evening, many have switched over to Showtime and now tape HBO. As a result, I have discovered that Showtime usually puts on more competitive fights and have rediscovered that Al Bernstein is maybe the best boxing commentator around (alongside Teddy Atlas of ESPN). So I say to HBO, keep the results coming. Boxing fans will thank you.
No More Calling Linear Titles a Myth – Some fans and even some boxing media have said linear titles are a myth. The reasoning usually runs that the best fighter is sometimes not the linear titlist. This is a valid point, but I’m of the mindset that no system is perfect and the only system boxing has to keep the proliferation of titles, titlists, and weight classes from destroying any semblance of order is to respect the linear titles. The recent welterweight title shuffle – from Zudah to Baldomir to Mayweather – emphasizes this point. Zudah, the linear titlist and unified champion of the division, lost to Baldomir. Consequently, Baldomir became the linear titlist but Judah kept a belt because Baldomir couldn’t pay a sanctioning fee or two. Then Floyd Mayweather challenged Judah for his belt and insisted that if he won he would be the welterweight champion. When Mayweather was reminded of Baldomir, he said that since he was the best boxer pound-per-pound he had to be champion of the welterweights. When he took Baldomir apart, he won the linear title and in my mind only then became champion.
This background leads to the following point: boxing needs linear titlists to avoid the kind of confusion created by the Judah, Mayweather, and Baldomir triangle. Without a linear champion, with the proliferation of belts, the casual boxing fan won’t know who the champion is. Granted, at times, the best fighter in the world won’t be champion because the linear titlist won’t give him a shot. But time usually works these injustices out: Marvin Hagler was frozen out for years but eventually got his shot; Sonny Liston was denied for years but eventually got his shot.
A larger point should be remembered too. Boxing and its rules for linear superiority are bigger than any one fighter. If they aren’t, if the linear champion’s claims are tossed aside for the skills of a better fighter, then it’s the same situation as saying Barack Obama is the true President of the USA because he scores higher than George Bush in the opinion polls. Or Al Gore saying he’s President because he received a higher percentage of the vote back in 2000. Neither of these assertions would be valid because Al Gore’s claim and Obama’s popularity are not equal to the laws that make the President. It’s the same with the linear champion. That’s why Mayweather’s better skills didn’t trump Baldomir’s linear title until Mayweather beat the champion in the ring.
No More Gatti and Morales – Arturo Gatti and Erik Morales were two exciting fighters to watch when they were at their peak and even when they lost something. One of them is a shoe-in for the Hall of Fame; the other is a fifty-fifty proposition. Like most boxers, both suffered severe beatings in their last couple of matches: Gatti against Mayweather and Baldomir; Morales against Pacquiao twice. Now there’s talk that both want to fight in a farewell matches. I’m no boxer, but I feel that if a fighter is going into a match just for a payday and for nothing beyond it, he will not be in the best of shape and actually has a good chance of getting hurt. I imagine these fights will happen, though and like any money hungry promoter HBO will air them. I just hope the network has the sense to serve up a couple of tomato cans for them. I just don’t need to see either of them in fights anymore. They have shown enough of themselves already.
No More Open Scoring – At the Chi-Lopez WBC featherweight fight, open scoring was exciting only because Lopez started out ahead and every four rounds the hometown crowd would hear how the Korean Chi was closing the gap. If we are not watching a close fight, open scoring makes things boring, though. Anyone who saw the Jermain Taylor – Kasim Ouma fight knows what I’m talking about. This fight lost all excitement when the lopsided scores in favor of Taylor were announced after the fourth and the eighth. I would’ve preferred closed scoring that night. Then I would’ve sat a little bit closer to the edge of my seat as I watched the sparkplug from Uganda edge ever closer to Taylor on the scorecards. Open scoring did not give me that.
No More Divided Heavyweight Title – This is a no-brainer, but I hope heavyweight unification gets done this year. Of course, with Don King holding the career of the giant Valuev, who is creeping ever closer to Marciano’s undefeated record, I don’t see it happening this year. So, it might be up to the rest of the titlists – Klitschko, Briggs, and Maskaev – to settle it among themselves to force a fight with Valuev. That should take care of the rest of the decade.
