This Business of Boxing

(Photo by Ethan Miller/Getty Images)

        Feliz Columbus day fans. As a history major I don’t have a lot of positive things to say about Mr. Columbus reign as a conqueror and as a mobile calculating oppressor, however, as a pragmatist I have the fore sight and the social grace to keep my raging opinions to myself. At least as it pertains to history. Now boxing as we all know my friends is a different story. I had a message in my inbox after my last piece asking why I don’t write more often and calling in to question my complete commitment to boxing scribedom. I have all sorts of answers for that question but in the meantime I will appease my friend Rick and attempt to sort out things in and around boxing that are taxing my good nature. When my informational space ship last docked we examined the worlds top fighters and the everlasting drama that surrounds them and their handlers.  I have been focusing a lot on providing you fans with detailed rankings and such so as an intermission of sorts I am simply going to do a little first and ten (first take style) concerning the water cooler topics of the day (boxing only of course). I have taken a collection of questions collected in my inbox and perhaps collectively we answer these questions. Keep those tray tables up and those seat belts on

  What do we make of the JML/CC/Gamboa situation? What fight will happen first and why is there so much indecision coming out of JML camp

This is an emerging debacle that Robert Arum (more on him later) really is not enjoying at the moment. JML about a year ago was an albatross in the 122-pound division. No comers or takers anywhere in site. The future looked so bright, so fruitful, and so limitless. Then Arum shot himself in the foot and he has no one to blame but himself. For reasons that escape me Arum began promoting JML the way he promotes JCC jr. Headlining him on a Latin fury PPV cards against any mandatory that we can find and count the Puerto Rican money that comes in. He has taken a true primed pound for pound fighter and turned him into a house fighter. As the public began to grow restless with Arum’s in house machinations a hot tall young champion of Cuban descent emerged with two 122 pound alphabet titles and mouth that Clay could admire. CC in all his glory began to speak the boxing publics mind

1.     “When he going to fight a real fighter?”

2.     “How many Latin fury PPV can this dude headline before he steps up in class”

The list goes on and on and as CC accusations and rants grew the light began to shine more and more on the handpicked nature of JML campaign as a top-level fighter. As if this was not enough to upset the Top Rank apple tide, recently inked Gamboa was elevated to a full titleholder even though he had not defeated Chris John (more on that later). No matter my feelings on how his title came to be the bottom line speaks loudest. He is an official world titleholder without the interim tag. He is also undefeated and would be relatively cheap to compensate at this point in his career. Conventional wisdom would push arum to protect his assets for another couple of months and try and make the fight with CC therefore not assuming in house risk. If Gamboa and JML tangle it is written in stone that one of his undefeated fighters will lose that undefeated marketability. It’s all about the market place ladies so lets just plan on a nice crisp 122-pound unification in the first quarter of 2010

What do you make of Thomas Hauser’s assertions about HBO budget problems and that Boxing after dark will be discontinued at the current rate we are traveling?

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