By George Kimball NEW YORK --- Boxing history is littered with the carcasses of guys with more money than brains who, having watched their intellectual inferiors accumulate cash, decided that if it was that easy for some dope to get rich out of boxing, then they themselves might as well get even richer. Whether they were financiers who fancied themselves possessed of the Midas touch (see Trump, Donald), consortiums of local banks (see Shelby, Montana), despotic third-world dictators (Mobutu Sese Seko), or embezzlers in search of a creative outlet for their ill-gotten cash (Ross Fields, a/k/a Harold Smith), since the earliest days of the sport they have shared a common experience: When the box office receipts were counted they were left holding an empty paper bag as the real boxing guys got out of town with all the dough. A word to the wise here (not that Bob Arum doesn't know it already): Don't count on Jerry Jones being one of them. Arum, in New York Wednesday to announce the Manny Pacquiao-Joshua Clottey fight at Cowboys Stadium, called the March 13 site "the greatest venue ever to host a boxing event," and then went on to sing its praises in terms we hadn't heard in fifty years since another generation of Texans described the Astrodome. On the other hand, when Arum described Jones as his "partner" and suggested that Jones might revolutionize boxing -- or at least the marketing of boxing -- in the immediate future, he may not have been far off he mark. I found myself reflecting on a conversation in a bar at Caesars Palace a few days before the 1987 Ray Leonard-Marvin Hagler fight. Leonard's lawyer/advisor Mike Trainer had brought Jim Troy, the NHL goon-turned-WWF marketing guru, on board in a consulting role to Team Leonard, and Troy had in turn introduced Trainer to his boss. "Bob Arum and Don King and the rest of them had better pray that Vince McMahon doesn't get interested in boxing," Trainer said that night, "because if he ever did, he might put them all out of business." Vince McMahon never did. But Jerry Jones has been thinking about it for the past quarter-century. *** Madison Square Garden might be the Mecca of Boxing, but even stuffed to capacity it can only accommodate half of the 40,000 Arum and Jones anticipate to pass through the gates at Cowboys Stadium come March 13. On the other hand, the 5,000-capacity WaMu Theatre was just about the right size for the press conference. The wording on the schedule -- "lunch will be served at 11 am, with the news conference beginning promptly at noon" -- pretty much guaranteed a substantial early crowd. Press conference veterans knew they could spend a leisurely hour gorging themselves on the usual Madison Square Garden fare (pausing only to throw an extra wrap or two into the briefcase while nobody was looking) before Pacquiao and Clottey even showed up. The first sign that this might not be business as usual came around quarter past 11, when the first Debbie approached a table filled with masticating boxing writers, placed a full-color glossy photo of the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders in front of one, and asked him if he'd like her to autograph it. The expression on the guy's face was the look of a man who'd just been offered a free lap dance. Similar occurrences took place around the Garden's WaMu Theatre as other Debbies worked the room in this campaign to win the hearts and, uh, minds of the media. Batting her eyes, one Debbie even told a grizzled fight writer she hoped she'd see him in Dallas when he came for the March 13 fight. "Boy," he sighed as Debbie Three moved on to the next table. "Getting these cheerleaders here was a great idea!" Yeah, but with the Cowboys out of the playoffs and Tiger Woods in rehab, it wasn't as if they'd have been real busy that day anway. Promoter Bob Arum revealed that the initial plan had called for four Debbies to fly to New York. At the Texas stop on Tuesday it emerged that another of the Cowboy cheerleaders was of Filipino extraction. Invited to join the the Pacquiao-Clottey traveling entourage, Debbie Five raced home to pack an extra thong and was shortly on her way to the Big Apple. ***** "Jerry Jones is one of the shrewdest men I've ever met," says Arum of his new partner. "He told me that even before he bought the Cowboys he'd learned that the most important number in the NFL is nine. If you can maintain eight solid allies you control nine votes. And since the rules require a 75% approval to do anything, they'll never be able to go against your wishes." The extension of this logic is that a guy with nine votes and five Debbies at his disposal could make for a truly formidable ally -- and an even more dangerous enemy. Jones bought the keys to the last-place Cowboys in 1989. The new owner promptly fired the iconic Tom Landry, the only coach America's Team had ever known, replacing him with his lifelong friend and former college teammate Jimmy Johnson. Four years and two Super Bowl titles later, he fired Johnson and replaced him with Barry Switzer. By ownership standards he his considered meddlesome to a Steinbrennerian degree, but justifies his extraordinary involvement by pointing out that he is also the Cowboys' General Manager, having appointed himself to that position. Article too long so juts read it at the site where science is sweet
