JUST TURNED 34 & I STILL DON’T KNOW S*IT ABOUT BOXING!
CAMPILLO ROBBED OF HIS LIVELIHOOD
Los Angeles, CA– While my life continues to evolve, one thing in my life stays largely the same. The overall state of boxing refuses to change, refuses to turn a leaf, and expectedly, rarely does anyone seem inclined to do anything about it’s ills. I have been on a somewhat hiatus as a boxing writer the last few months. Mainly doing work as the webmaster for RingTalk.com, I handle inquiries, post video’s, update the podcast and our poll section. Unfortunately I haven’t had much desire to write. Why? First of all I have become tired of penning negative articles. However today I feel the responsibility to address issues that currently are on my mind that I would like to share. Fortunately not all are going to be negative, however being a writer one must cover issues that aren’t always favorable or topics that generally are not all that fun, exciting or positive in nature.
BAD DECISIONS CONTINUE IN BOXING
One thing that hinders the future of the sport is it’s integrity or lack thereof. One of the biggest problems is that it’s an accepted norm that if a pugilist is fighting in an opponents home town, that he or she won’t or can’t win a close decision. Myself, I have just been so used to this notion that I as well as many fans and other boxing writers, even promoters have come to accept this. I think that accepting this is what makes it acceptable behavior. The bottom line is in any sporting event the officials should be qualified to do their job. In football, basketball, and baseball they employ their best qualified officials to work their highest profiled events. In boxing there’s little accountability to do such a thing, and judges normally escape such scrutiny because they are rarely punished when they make a mistake. This isn’t just isolated to judging, referee’s regularly make egregious errors and yet are rewarded high profile assignments in return.
A GOOD PERSON DOESN’T MAKE ONE A QUALIFIED JUDGE
From conversations I’ve had with people in this business who are much more knowledgeable than myself, is what happens in this industry is that many judges happen to be nice people who gain assignments through having the proper connections. When they mess up they aren’t necessarily doing anything corrupt. They are just incompetent people who have personal integrity. However , my belief is they just don’t understand the damage they are doing by being unqualified to judge a boxing match. Also someone may have the ability and knowledge of what to look for, but if they don’t have the attention span to sit through a 12 round boxing match and view things closely and in a concise manner they should find another line of part time work.
TOO MANY GARBAGE FIGHTS ON PAID CABLE TV
I’ve addressed this issue before, but I can’t help but be redundant. Last year I watched an unbeaten featherweight prospect and a very good one at that in Gary Russell Jr (19-0, 11KOs) fought a televised 8 round fight on HBO. I don’t need to even name his opponent because you get the picture as it was a mismatch! When was the last time you say any fighter on HBO engage in an 8 round fight? If it was two unbeaten prospects waging war maybe I could understand the logic, however this opponent was coming off a loss, and Russell is a former Olympian. I don’t need to mention who Russell’s manager is either. If you know anything about the sport you know his name. I don’t need to give the “H” in HBO further publicity.
TWITTER NOT ONLY RUINING JOURNALISM BUT BOXING AS WELL
While RingTalk.com does have a Twitter account, I rarely if ever Tweet. I use Facebook, but probably engage less than the average person (partially because I still do not own a smart phone). To me it has lowered the quality of journalism. Instead of actually properly researching a proposed event before breaking a story, it appears whats more important is breaking a story than the actual accuracy of the story itself. Thats not what bothers me the most. What really irks me is all of these boxers calling each out all the time on Twitter, saying comments about one another (sometimes in a derogatory manner) on a daily basis. When it comes to fighting however it’s all about money, or any other excuse they can think of. I understand this sport is a business and it’s politics, however I was brought up with the attitude that if you don’t have anything nice to say keep quiet. I think it’s ridiculous that every person’s thought should just be laid out for the world to see. I don’t really give a damn. To be specific, there was a tweet a couple weeks back from Floyd Mayweather about Jeremy Lin, a point guard of Asian decent for the New York Knicks. To try to paraphrase Mayweather, in essence he was stating that Lin was getting all of this recent attention for his accomplishments because he was Asian (He’s an Asian American by the way, and put up numbers that are unequaled in his first seven starts as a pro). Meanwhile he stated African American athletes do the same thing without getting the same credit. While there was some truth to what Floyd said, did he really need to broadcast his thoughts to the world via Twitter? It’s possible he likes the attention and the spotlight, however I am not sure what those comments intended to accomplish. Thats the problem. Some things are best left to be said amongst friends and family.
HAS ANYTHING POSITIVE HAPPENED IN THE LAST FEW MONTHS?
Probably the most positive thing that has happened since the turn of the calendar is the hiring of Ken Hershman as the head of HBO Sports. The former head of Showtime Sports, who spearheaded the critically acclaimed Super Six World Boxing Classic replaces HBO’s former boss Ross “The Loss” Greenberg, who resigned last year. While Greenberg is a great award winning producer of sports documentaries, he was terrible at running HBO’s boxing franchise. Hershman is expected to turn around HBO’s dwindling numbers. With the death of GoldenBoy Promotions longtime exclusive output deal with HBO which guaranteed them dates, this should create a more competitive atmosphere that should give the network better fights. This year is off to a decent start(although some of these fights were proposed before Hershman took his lead role) but if somehow HBO can get Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquaio to sit down together to legitimately negotiate a fight instead of doing it through the media and phone conversations, that would put a huge positive stamp on his approval.
-Kevin Perry