Ironically, greedy and unscrupulous boxing promoters have long been both largely responsible for boxers being known to the public as well as keeping boxers unknown.

Historically, most boxers come from humble backgrounds and lack education. Boxing promoters have taken advantage of them for decades by taking on the role of father figures and confidants. Most boxers that were taken advantage of were under the perception that they were employees of their promoters, when it fact it was the other way around.

Towards the late 1990s, fighters started realizing that their promoters were not their bosses and more recently many fighters started their own promotional companies and began to promote themselves.

In spite of this development in the boxers’ sense of independence, there are still boxing promoters out there with this idea that they must have some type of paternalistic prepotency over “their” fighters.

After Vic Darchinyan's 11th-round TKO of Jorge Arce for the unified superflyweight title, Darchinyan was asked by Showtime sportscaster Jim Gray if he would like to have a rematch with the only guy to have beaten him, Nonito Donaire.

Donaire is the current flyweight champion and is undefeated. He dominated and knocked out Darchinyan with one punch back in July 2007. Donaire seemed comfortable with Darchinyan’s southpaw style and knocked him out with a counter left hook.

Darchinyan has since rebounded greatly from that defeat, showing the mettle of a true champion as he left the flyweight division and knocked out the best fighters in the superflyweight division in Cristian Mijares and Arce.

When asked by Gray about a rematch with Donaire, Darchinyan responded that he wanted a rematch just like a true champion would.

As Darchinyan was stating his desire for a rematch, the obese beer-bellied Shaw butted into the conversation and said, “Not a chance, you don’t reward disloyal people and boxers.” At that point, Gray butted in and said, “How about giving the fans what they want?”

At that point, Shaw stuttered and then rambled on about how he would let Darchinyan fight some other fighters not even in his weight class. Shaw is apparently “hurt” over the fact that Donaire opted not to use him anymore as a promoter.

You’ll notice that I did not say that Donaire “left” Shaw, because this would seem to indicate that Donaire had once belonged to him. That is something that greedy, power-hungry promoters like Shaw need to understand. They don’t own boxers. They are contracted by boxers to do a job.

It is not Donaire’s responsibility to be “loyal” to Shaw or any other promoter. It is Donaire’s responsibility to fight and it is Shaw’s responsibility to get fights for his client and promote his client to the boxing world.

After Donaire’s destruction of Darchinyan in 2007, Shaw failed to promote Donaire to Donaire’s liking and was subsequently let go.

Gray hit the nail on the head with his question to Shaw. The fans don’t care about Shaw having his feelings hurt and all of this crybaby stuff about Donaire not being loyal to him. The fans want to see fights.

It’s because of paternalistic and greedy promoters like Shaw that can’t separate professionalism from personal issues that many dream fights remained dream fights. Because of nonsense like this, fighters like Donaire get blacklisted in a sense, and there is no clamor to see them fight since many fans are barely aware of their existence.

So, let me get this straight. Boxing is no longer on network television largely because of greedy promoters. Because of this, you need to pay for cable television if you want to watch boxing, unlike any other popular sport.

Second, because of greedy promoters, having cable is not enough and we must also invest in pay-per-view in order to see one significant fight that many times turns out to not be that significant.

Third, now because of greedy promoters, fans can’t see certain fights or fighters if it turns out that a promoter feels sad or hurt because one of the fighters involved left him for another promoter.

With all of the money that fans are plunking down in cable and pay-per-views, Shaw and others like him should be professional for a change and give them what they want instead of making them pay for his hurt feelings over some nonsense.