Boxing's darkside part 1

Boxing's Dark Side: No Credentials Necessary

Part 1.

New England boxing is off to it's best start in many years, so why would we be doing a story on the dark side of the sport? Because we're measuring it against boxing's past, everything is relative here. It's still not as popular as football, baseball, basketball, tennis, horse racing, squash, square dancing or golf, and the crowds are measly compared to those sports and about 3 dozen others. It's not that people aren't interested in boxing. You can check with the movie theaters and academy awards, and they'll tell you that boxing seems to be the most interesting sport to the public. But that doesn't mean they want to be around it, they'd rather watch from afar...and in moderation. Those same academy members and movie ticket takers will tell you that Goodfellas and The Godfather did extraordinarily well at the box office too, but it's doubtful that the Ravenite Social Club in Little Italy saw a huge increase in it's crowd. Rubbing shoulders with the fat guy in the seat next to you at the movies is a little different than going into the club to rub shoulders with John Gotti. Much of the reason for the sparse crowds is that people simply don't know that a boxing event is being held. More so though, is that when the choice is between a boxing event that involves nobody recognizable (pretty much all boxers) and a popular sport that people and their friends know about..it doesn't seem to be much of a choice at all.

The lack of regulations is the rhetoric that is being screamed from most corners, and it clearly is the ultimate problem. We'd be remiss, however, to imply that a federal or national commission would be helpful. The very people that are lobbying for this, are often doing so with self serving agendas. That means that the corruption would most likely just be placed in a more secretive place, and the public could here about all the wonderful things being done to improve the sport. Those people would make quite a bit of money, but there wouldn't be any new fans, and the fighters wouldn't be making more money. To say that we're excited to see John McCain speaking out on the need for a national boxing commission should make us apprehensive, and it does. The individuals that are lobbying for the spot as top dog of that commission though, they are endorsing him wholeheartedly.....a politician. We're in too deep to fool ourselves into thinking that boxing is going to change, for precedent has been set, right or wrong. Promoters are not interested in the popularity of the sport in general, they're only interested in the popularity of their shows. That's fine, it is afterall, their business. Shouldn't their shows be getting more people interested in the sport, if they're so entertaining? We hear the promoters telling us how exciting their shows were, and how packed the small arenas were, but if that's the case, why aren't we seeing an increase in it's popularity? Why are we seeing an obvious decrease?

You may be wondering where the "dark side of boxing" fits into this. The dark side of boxing covers all sides. It's a sport that people are intrigued by, and it's success on the silver screen proves that. But it isn't until people get a little closer, or know someone that got a little closer, that they realize one surprising fact about boxing..NO CREDENTIALS NECESSARY!!!! It doesn't matter if you've been in a coma for 20 years, you can still pick up a towel and throw it over your shoulder and walk into a gym. You're now a trainer. You can pick up a notebook, and then put a pencil in your ear and go to a boxing show. You're now a scribe. Walk into a gym with a button down shirt, offer some uneducated career advice to a 22 year old hitting the heavy bag. You are a manager. That stuff may seem harmless enough, but what it does is depreciate the value of the sport. It's one thing for the boxers to finish their bout and go out and mingle with the crowd, it's another for your uncle Joey...who you know has no idea about boxing, to be advising one of those fighters on how to defend against the left uppercut. Or your old friend Franky from school. He got decent grades and was picked on a lot, but he always watched sports and liked to comment during the games. His 8th grade english teacher may have even given him rave reviews on a paper he wrote about baseball. Franky couldn't get near Fenway though, so he headed on over to a fight card and became a "boxing writer". If we didn't have the rule NO CREDENTIAL NECESSARY, Franky would have a pair of tongs in his back pocket during fight cards, not a notebook. The boxing writers are the ones who could help the sport, if they've developed any loyal readers over the years. They could write captivating pieces that would get readers interested in the game a little more. Unfortunately, rather than upping their game and bettering their writing skills and creativity, many of them opt to put blame elsewhere. That gives us a dark forecast. The blame game doesn't belong in the fight game. When a boxer steps in the ring, everyone else leaves before the bell rings. They have to make a choice at that point, as to how they'll do business. There is nobody else to blame if things don't go right inside the ropes. Everybody else is outside the ring, and there are many peers to dump responsibility on out there.

We've spoken with some of the most respected people in the sport, as well as some of the lower ranking members of the boxing fraternity. The pattern that developed was an obvious one, with the more respected members being more humble and laid back and the low end guys being overly eager to prove their self worth. Psychologically speaking, it'd seem many of the lower ranking non participants may have been subject to ridicule in their childhoods. When they found that boxing had a NO CREDENTIALS NECESSARY policy, their dreams had come true. The dark side of boxing is the side that has allowed a haven for these types of people to operate in a way that gives a therapeutic massage to their egos. We are not geek bashers here, we like the geek. We need the geek's help though. Boxing needs to grow, not become Lambda Lambda Lambda, and just having them fit in. The public doesn't want to hear a geek's opinion on the mechanics of Jaidon Codrington's jab. We should have surely learned by now that the NFL's "chalktalk" shows don't work in boxing. It doesn't do the sport any good to ignore that fact and pretend that people are indeed interested in the supposed "technical" stuff, it's not true. The public wants to be entertained, and if they're not, we'll be kept on the dark side.

 

well even the watered down version is going to be about 5 pages this story is 20 chapters long.....sorry