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Friday, May 4, 2007
One fight can’t stop boxing’s decline
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jeff Schultz
In boxing, there is a tendency with every criminal decision, or criminal arrest, or rankings that seem so obviously criminal, to say: “There’s another black eye for the sport.”
This ignores evidence that boxing ran out of eyes to blacken several years ago.
Tonight in Las Vegas, Floyd Mayweather will fight Oscar De La Hoya in an event that might set gate and pay-per-view records, even though most watching will have no idea what title the two are fighting for or even who the champion is. (Answers: WBC super welterweight, which is owned by De La Hoya, even though Mayweather is favored).
Only in boxing could such a centerpiece event perfectly illustrate a sport’s identity crisis. But identifying corpses often can be problematic.
Boxing, the sport of King and everything below, has been lying prone on the examination table for at least a decade. Every year or two, it shakes for a few seconds when a promoter slaps electronic paddles on its chest with a pay-per-view card and yells, “Clear!” But then it slumps back to its normal state.
Some have billed Mayweather-De La Hoya as an event that can save boxing. It can’t. Think of long lines at a going-out-of-business sale.
“One fight won’t make a difference,” said Don Turner, 68, the former longtime trainer who worked with Evander Holyfield, among others. “Except for a few fights here and there, the talent just isn’t there anymore. The teaching isn’t there. Guys don’t want to listen.
“You think a 20-year-old wants to listen to what I’ve got to say? They say, ‘Don’t listen to him, he’s old school.’ All anybody cares about is getting paid. Nobody’s developing fighters.
“The only reason mixed martial arts has even gotten off the ground was because the buffoons in boxing have made a mockery out of the sport.”
De La Hoya is knocking on the door of retirement. Granted, that’s almost a sport by itself in boxing (witness the resident Holyfield). But because De La Hoya is one of the few with crossover appeal, tonight’s fight likely will be the final major promotion for some time.
Boxing’s problems are not new. They just generate. There is no single governing body, like the NFL or Major League Baseball. The sport is run by a bunch of independent contractors (promoters, cable-television executives, casino executives) who care only about marquee events, not developing a sport. Imagine a commissioner worried only about having a World Series on pay-per-view every few years, without a concern or blueprint to heal a sport.
There are too many sanctioning bodies (four generally recognized: WBC, WBA, IBF, WBO) and weight classes (17, including flyweight, junior flyweight and mini flyweight, separated by seven pounds). This isn’t done to give more boxers opportunities to win titles, as sanctioning bodies would suggest. It’s done to create more title fights, which lead to more mandated sanctioning fees.
Boxers who don’t play along don’t get title shots. Or get ranked.
We scream about too much government oversight. Boxing screams for government oversight.
All of this has filtered down to the amateur level. Olympic boxing used to be embraced. Now it’s off the networks’ radar. For most athletes, boxing’s now a last resort.
And you wonder why Turner has a headache. Now he runs a gym in North Carolina, far from the Las Vegas strip, where he helped train Holyfield for consecutive wins over Mike Tyson. He said he would train another pro, “but only if the situation was right.” He has been worn out by the sport’s mismanagement, the resulting decline and increasing health risks.
“In the old days guys used six-ounce gloves and fought 200 times and still stood upright,” he said. “Today they use 12-ounce gloves, fight 30 times and sound like they have marbles in their head.”
At times he sounds like the old guy on the porch, but old guys can be right.
Turner likes Mayweather big tonight. He says this fight is selling “only because of the perception that De La Hoya is still The Golden Boy. People don’t know any better.”
Tonight, two boxers and a promoter will get rich, and then we’ll wait a few years for it to happen again. There will be no coat tails for boxing to jump on.
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A tip of the derby to personal faves
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Furman Bisher
Well, perhaps it’s not the “Best of the Kentucky Derbies” I have seen, but let’s call them the “Most Memorable” of all those since my first in 1950.
They are chosen for reasons that don’t necessarily relate to the classics. See, I was a holdout when it came to Secretariat, for which I took a lot of guff. I picked Sham. He was the winner over the long haul, a star in the breeding shed where Secretariat wasn’t.
That said, here’s the list as we approach post time:
CANONERO II, 1971
In the press box, as the horses came down the stretch, the cry went up, “Who the hell is that?” Canonero II was a “field” horse, deemed not worthy of carrying an individual number and lumped into a wagering succotash. Poor fellow, he had been flown in from Venezuela, held in quarantine in Miami for a week, then worked unnoticed. Mainly because none of his connections spoke English, there were no interviews before and very few after he won. He was no fluke. He won the Preakness and set a race record.
By the time he got to Belmont, he was tired and finished fourth. But what a great blue-collar horse.
THUNDER GULCH, 1995
Forgive me if I go bragging a little here. He was one of two horses in D. Wayne Lukas’ stable, but Lukas walked about wearing a Timber Country cap. No doubt about his choice between the two. The Louisville paper polled 30 sportswriters and only one picked Thunder Gulch — (ahem). Mainly, it was his sire that moved me, for Gulch (below) had been a great runner. Not only that, but he paid about $60 for a $2 winning ticket, and money can turn your head.
DARK STAR, 1953
Now, the other side of the coin. My car had been rescued from a ditch on Friday with the help of a small man from the barn area. I thanked him, and he said, “Just be sure to bet my horse tomorrow.” His name was Hank Moreno. The horse’s name was Dark Star, one of the longest shots in the field. I choked. Moreno got his horse on the lead down the stretch and never gave it up. He paid a bundle, none to this unworthy wretch.
FORWARD PASS, 1968
Dancer’s Image won the actual race, but Forward Pass later was ruled the winner. Dancer’s Image is the only winner of a classic major whose number has ever been taken down, far as I know. He was traveling under the influence of some illegal juice, and none of owner Peter Fuller’s legal sparring could make a dent in the decision. Nevertheless, winning tickets on Dancer’s Image were honored before his sin had been made public, and somewhere I still have a $50 win ticket on Forward Pass. Churchill Downs owes me.
MIDDLEGROUND, 1950
A fellow should never pass over his first winner and first Kentucky Derby. Two weeks into a new job in Atlanta, dispatched to cover the great “Run for the Roses,” also the first thoroughbred race I’d ever covered. I remembered Middleground had won the Hopeful at Saratoga the year before, then, as now, one of the superior tests for 2-year-olds. Armed with all that knowledge, I picked him to win, bet $2 on him, and in that one instant became a horse authority. It was six years before I picked another winner. Needles, 1956.
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