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“The Standing Eight Count”
Beating My Dead Horse
By Dave Wilcox
On May 1st, 2010, Floyd Mayweather Jr. put on a dominating
performance as he defeated Sugar Shane Mosley over 12 rounds
at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas. It was a signature
performance for Mayweather, who has always been criticized
for being quite selective with his opponents. Outside of one
large right hand from Sugar Shane in the second round,
“Money” had no trouble with the aged future hall of famer.
May 1st, 2010 was also the last time that your friendly
scribe purchased a Pay Per-View boxing event.
The only fight that makes sense in this crazy sport is Floyd
Mayweather vs. Manny Pacquiao, and the greedy promoters and
contestants just refuse to make it. I will not bore my
readers with all the details of this stupid fiasco, but will
say that I feel all involved share the blame for not getting
the signatures on the dotted line.
I am so fed up with the sport I love and have loved for 35
years. The damn thing can’t stay out of the way of itself.
As I watched the excitement surrounding an MMA event this
past Saturday night featuring Brock Lesner, being reported
on every local television station and on the front page of
every newspaper, I just continue to scratch my head and
wonder what the hell happened.
I am 42 years old and my heyday of watching boxing was the
early and mid 1980’s. What a time to be a boxing fan it was.
Every single weekend and sometimes even on both Saturday and
Sunday, we would have good, competitive fights featuring top
ranked fighters on FREE television. The local NBC and CBS
channels had boxing on the air and of course ABC’s Wide
World of Sports featured Boxing as a mainstay of their
programming. Not only competitive fights, but freaking title
fights were on my 24” Sylvania with rabbit ears and tin
foil.
The life of a Boxing fan was a good one back in those days.
I’m not sure what happened to be honest. I know the ratings
for Boxing were always solid on regular television, so the
promoters are lying to you when they say otherwise. The
bottom line is that the promoters started realizing they can
make more money with a pay per-view model and by showcasing
their fighters on the cable networks. To get to this point,
the promoters started feeding networks bad matchups and
eventually the sponsorships starting backing out and regular
television lost interest in Boxing.
In the short term, moving away from the exposure and
familiarity of television didn’t show noticeable damage to
my beloved Boxing. I think now with the MMA making its mark
with the younger generations and actually promoting itself,
the deficiencies of Boxing are starting to show its ugly
head and it’s to a point of possible no return
If we really think about it, outside of Manny Pacquiao and
Floyd Mayweather, the mainstream sports fan does not have
any idea who any of our quality fighters are. I challenge
you to go ask “Joe” in the lunch room at work tomorrow what
he thinks of Carl Froch’s chances against Arthur Abraham.
You will get that same confused look you do when you ask
your teenager if he turned in his homework on time.
It’s a damn shame, because fighters like that are exciting
to watch and have personality, but nobody knows about them,
outside of idiots like us.
I really started thinking about this deeply a few months
back when a friend invited me and the family over to their
house to watch an MMA pay per-view and have a barbeque. I
normally avoid “man-wrestling” like the plague, but the dude
bbq’s a mean steak, he was paying for the show and what the
hell, James Toney was to make his MMA debut against Randy
Couture. I figured if ridiculed by my Boxing buddies, I
could claim I was doing research on Toney.
The crowd at the house consisted of five adults and five
kids. The kids were all between the ages of 13-18 years old.
I don’t know about you, but those were prime Boxing watching
years for me back in the days of yore. When I was thirteen,
I watched Sugar Ray Leonard come from behind to beat Tommy
Hearns in their classic first matchup at Caesar’s Palace in
September of 1981. When I was eighteen years old in 1986, I
watched “Iron” Mike Tyson knock Trevor Berbick down three
times with one punch and the great Marvelous Marvin Hagler
turn back the gallant effort of a young John “The Beast”
Mugabi. These were great times for me that have made an
impact on me forever.
While sitting around eating snacks, drinking a couple cold
ones and listening to the conversation between the kids, it
became quite obvious to me that these kids knew everything
about the MMA fighters and the sport itself. They were
breaking down fights and fighters, just like we do with
Boxing. They even spoke of how they get their gloves on and
go in the back yard to match-up and wrestle around.
Immediately my mind shifted back to 1976 when my dad bought
me my first set of Boxing gloves. After seeing the original
Rocky movie, I was hooked on Boxing and the old man bought
me gloves just to shut me up. Upon receiving those gloves, I
immediately challenged every second-grader on the block to
sparring sessions and we all continued to mess with friends
in the back yard until our teenage years. It made me think
to myself, “kids haven’t changed, they have just changed
sports.”
After listening and watching for a while, I had to chime in
and ask, “Hey guys, who is your favorite boxer?” Every
single one of them replied, “We don’t watch Boxing, it’s too
boring.” Everyone except one kid, that is. My son is
brainwashed and will watch boxing with me on occasion, so I
turned to him with further questions. When I asked him about
all his friends at school and what the consensus was on
Boxing vs. MMA, he said it was unanimous with everyone he
knew that MMA was “tight” and “bomb” while the sport I love
carries zero interest within his group. During this
conversation, my son also started talking about holds,
moves, fights and fighters from MMA. As my jaw dropped, I
asked, “How do you know so much about the MMA?” His reply,
“Dad, everyone at school loves MMA, we talk about it all the
time”
Is Boxing really boring to the kids? Or do they just not
know the sport because the only crap they have access to
watch are horrible matchups and one-sided sets ups?
I worry for our sport. There is nothing more beautiful to me
than a good championship Boxing match, but I’m afraid the
love of boxing that so many of us grew up with is in the
rear view mirror for this generation of young people.
As a child, so many of my memories revolved around Sugar
Ray’s speed, Marvelous Marvin’s dominance or a Tommy Hearn’s
right hand.
I think this generation of young people will remember Randy
Couture’s speed, Royce Gracie’s dominance and Chuck
Liddell’s right hand.
It saddens me to think about it.
Let’s get back to the topic of Pay Per-View. I’ve been told
by younger Boxing media friends that I’m just an old goat
who can’t accept the fact that PPV is the future of the
sport. They are probably correct, but I don’t care. I’m sick
and freaking tired of getting 200.00 cable bills for crap
fights. It get’s worse, not only do we have the privilege of
watching the $60.00 dollar Pay Per-Views, but now we can
watch horrific shows for $10.00 on the internet. Are you
kidding me? It makes me laugh when I think about what has
happened over the past few years with the boxing media. On
one hand, I should love the internet, because without it, I
wouldn’t have the opportunity to cover live fights, write
about Boxing or be part of a national Boxing radio show.
Having said that, I would give it all up right now to be
able to turn on my television today and watch NBC ringside
with Marv Albert and Ferdie Pacheco or CBS Sports Saturday
with Tim Ryan and Gil Clancy and watch a free and
competitive fight.
On May 1st, 2010, I purchased my last Pay Per- View Boxing
event. Not even my wife thinks I can stay strong, but I’m so
disgusted with the sport right now, that I’m feeling
confident that I will stay true to my PPV boycott.
Think about it, do you really want to see a cheater get a
five million dollar pay day in Texas?
Shame on you Manny Pacquiao, shame on you Bob Arum and shame
on you boxing!
Have a good time in Texas, I won’t be watching.
Keep punching
*Dave Wilcox serves as the West Coast Coordinator and
Correspondent for the “Talkin Boxing with Billy C. Radio
Show. The show runs LIVE five days a week and for two hours
a day. We have 38 AM and FM radio stations that run the
show. If you can’t find it in your local radio, go to
www.talkinboxing.com and sign up for the podcast. You
can also listen live for free by going to
www.BillyCBoxing.com from 5:30-7:30 EST, Monday-Friday.
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