Three Blind Mice, Studio Gangstas, and the Roy Jones Dichotomy

As boxing fans, we often hear the tired cliché, “boxing is dead,” or the even drowsier, “another black-eye for boxing.”  Talking heads and pundits, many of whom have never seen a boxing match that didn’t involve Ray Leonard or Mike Tyson, shout these hackneyed statements from behind their desks or microphones every time the subject of boxing comes up. 

These comments are fairly ignorant and speak to American bias, as boxing is likely second in popularity on a global scale, trailing only soccer.

Recent happenings contribute greatly to the declining credibility and rising irrelevance of our sport.  While one could argue that some of these instances occur in fights that only die-hard boxing fans would watch, it cannot be said for the high profile fights that captured the main-stream attention during the pre-fight buildup. 

It is the latter that facilitates the more rapid decline of the sport’s image to the masses, while the former steadily erodes even the hardcore base that, historically at least, has put up with endless garbage.

While I could go on forever and a day about boxing in 2011, I will limit my focus to three topics: high-profile duds, terrible judging, and awful announcing.  Within each topic, I will stick with the most egregious examples from the past few months, while acknowledging now that there are plenty more cases we could discuss, but I refuse to beat a dead horse.

Eazy-E Would’ve Written a Song About These Studio Gangstas

The late, great, legendary rapper Eazy-E, in one of the best diss records of all time (in response to Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg), rapped this classic line:

“Just take a good look at the (expletive) and you’ll capture/ the fact that the bastard/ is simply just an actor/ who mastered the bang and the slang and the mental…”

A fan of both boxing and hip hop, I immediately viewed recent high-profile bouts involving David Haye and Shane Mosley as being worthy of this song.  Why?  Because in the pre-fight buildup, both fighters talked tough, but when fight night arrived, the tough guy attitude didn’t show up. 

“Saccharine” Shane Mosley

When Mosley fought Manny Pacquiao on May 7, his performance left a lot to be desired.  He simply did not try to win, and was content to just survive.  He practically begged Manny to not hurt him.  If you saw Mosley today, he would probably still be trying to touch Manny’s gloves or something. 

But in the buildup to the fight, we all had to listen to Mosley’s proclamations of how easily he’d beat Manny.  On Twitter, through constant re-tweets of supporters’ statements and plenty of his own, Mosley painted the picture of a confident man that was gonna shock the world.  He meant business.

Yeah, sure he did.

After the fight, Mosley admitted his lack of effort was mainly due to not wanting to get hurt.  Newsflash, Shane: this is boxing.  You might get hurt. 

This was easily the most high-profile event in boxing this year, with the most viewership, and thus the best chance to show the general public how great boxing can be.  Mosley had a responsibility to himself, the fans, and ultimately the sport, to at least give a solid effort.  He did not deliver.  As the kids say, this was an epic fail. 

David Haye’s “Toe”-tally Pathetic Excuse

I’m not prone to hyperbole, but I believe this to be a true statement:  David Haye is the ultimate studio gangsta.  Haye ran his mouth for months about the Klitschko brothers.  He signed to fight Wladimir (then backed out), and later agreed to fight Vitali, but ultimately went in another direction. 

So it was met with some skepticism when he finally agreed to fight Wladimir on July 2.  But once it became apparent that he was serious, suddenly the world was again interested in a heavyweight title fight.  Such interest had become as scarce as a thrifty democrat, so hearing the fight being discussed on ESPN’s SportsCenter and similar shows was great publicity for boxing.

Haye did his part to hype the fight as well, wearing the now-infamous tee-shirt depicting the severed heads of both Klitschko brothers, an act that clearly angered the Ukrainian duo.  At every press conference, Haye spewed relentless vitriol towards his opponent, while promising destruction in the ring.

On HBO’s “Faceoff,” hosted by Max Kellerman, Haye promised the “most brutal execution” of Wladimir, called him a robot, and continuously insulted him.  At one point, Haye even claimed that the hostility and anticipation of the fight had sexually aroused him, a rather disgusting visual for the viewers. 

Surely, after all this talk of violence and destruction, Haye would deliver and at least make a solid attempt at winning, right?

Beyond the fact that Haye threw less than 300 punches over 12 rounds, and the fact that he landed in the single digits nearly every round, he also fought with questionable integrity.  Haye flopped to the ground like a bush league soccer player every time Wladimir came within smelling distance of him.  He flopped so much that I heard even Vlade Divac was complaining about Haye’s poor acting.

But the absolute biggest disgrace was a shoeless Haye, being interviewed by Larry Merchant in the ring after the fight, explaining that the pitiful performance was due to his broken pinky toe.

That ain’t gangsta. 

New Jersey Appoints Three Blind Mice to Judge All Fights Going Forward

Questionable decisions and boxing go hand in hand.  That has always been the case, and always will be.  Whether it is from incompetence, an off night, or simple corruption, potential fans turn away in droves with each suspect decision.  The remaining fans justify terrible decisions with statements like, “it’s boxing,” or “you knew the house fighter would win that one.”

And that is just sad.  But, it happens, often, and as proof, I offer three examples from the past month.  On June 25, Matthew Macklin traveled to Germany to face hometown champion, Felix Sturm.  Any boxing fan reading this already knows the outcome of that fight, even if they didn’t see the fight or hear the result prior. 

Why?  Well, it’s no secret that it is very difficult for a foreigner to win a decision in Germany against the local champion.  Not surprisingly, Macklin got screwed and Sturm walked away with a universally derided split decision.

But that’s just boxing, right? 

On the same night, in St. Charles, Missouri, local fighter Devon Alexander fought Argentinean Lucas Matthysse.  You can most likely guess the outcome, just like you could’ve for the Macklin-Sturm bout. 

Screw jobs are not exclusive to foreign countries; quite the opposite, in fact, as American fighters often benefit from questionable decisions in their favor when fighting a foreigner on U.S. soil.  Fittingly, Alexander won a dubious split decision when most in attendance and watching on television felt Matthysse did more than enough to win.

However egregious these two verdicts were, they pale in comparison to the debacle from Atlantic City, NJ this past Saturday, July 9, on HBO.  In the main event, Paul Williams was completely dominated in virtually every round by recent Cuban defector, Erislandy Lara. 

In a fight in which it would be hard to argue that Williams won more than two rounds, the final result told a different story.

Williams was awarded an outrageous majority decision which has set the online world aflame.  Outside of Williams’ promoter and anyone else associated with him, nobody in their right mind could justify this verdict. 

The Cuban was not only cheated out of a hard earned victory, but his future earnings potential was likely irreparably harmed in the process as well.

How bad was the decision?  Bad enough that the New Jersey State Athletic Commission recently suspended all three judges indefinitely.  But it’s too little too late, as they can’t and won’t change the official result, and those viewers that were forever turned off by our sport have already made up their mind. 

Those fans don’t care that the three blind mice got suspended, nor should they.  These instances happen so frequently that you can be sure they will happen again.  I’d be willing to bet we’ll see another horrible decision before the end of August.

I guess that’s just boxing.

Roy Jones Encourages You to do as He Says, not as He Does

Awful announcing exists in every sport.  For every Al Michaels and John Madden, there exists a Joe Theismann and Paul Maguire.  Boxing is no different.  In fact, it’s far worse. 

Sure, there are quality boxing announcers; guys like Lampley, Bernstein, and Steward come to mind.  But the “expert” role has plagued HBO for years, mainly because Roy Jones, now in his second stint with the network, doesn’t deliver anything meaningful.

Aside from preaching so often that he’s referred to as “Reverend Roy” in some circles, and mentioning his own credentials too often, he has also been steadily losing credibility over the past few broadcasts.  The dichotomy between Roy Jones the announcer and Roy Jones the fighter is patently absurd. 

Case in point: during the Williams-Lara fight, he alluded to how “shot” Williams looked, how he should retire, and how dangerous it is for guys to continue fighting if they are on the downward slide.  Long term health, Jones reasoned, could be impacted by taking too many shots to the head.

Look in the mirror much, Roy? 

Williams is 29-years-old, has lost twice, and has been KO’d once.  Sure, he took plenty of clean head shots from Lara, but Lara is not a big puncher, and at no point did Williams appear to be in imminent danger, as Jones and Max Kellerman would’ve had you believe. 

Roy is 42-years-old and has lost his last three fights, two by KO.  One of those was a first round KO, after which there were reports that Jones sought medical attention for lingering balance and equilibrium issues.

The other was an absolutely brutal 10^th round KO loss that saw Jones fall flat on his face and lie motionless for multiple minutes.  He also suffered two more brutal KO losses earlier in his career.  Ironic, isn’t it?

The real reason I bring this up is not to highlight his hypocrisy, rather, it’s to point out that he’s simply a bad announcer.  Ideally, an “expert” announcer should instill in the viewer a better understanding of what’s going on in the ring than the viewer already possessed. 

Roy fails to do this, offering such sage wisdom like, "it is better to be the one punching than the one being punched."  I’ve even heard him basically state that speed, amazingly, helps punches arrive faster, or something along those lines.

I’m not sure awful announcing would turn away potential fans on its own, but combined with marginal interest, an expectation of terrible decisions, and the biggest events being total disappointments, it certainly can’t help. 

This Ain’t Rocket Science

So what can be done to stem the tide of boxing’s irrelevance in the mainstream?  It really is pretty simple.  Both the announcing and judging issues can be solved with two words: training and accountability.  Have better training available for those that wish to partake in these professions, while holding those involved more accountable for terrible performances. 

Institute performance improvement plans, and if the agreed upon milestones are not met, then you are out of a job.  Corporations do this with employees all the time, so why do boxing networks and boxing commissions not do so?

The high-profile duds are tougher to fix.  More stars need to be cultivated, which means better promoting and matchmaking is needed.  But ultimately, if the types of fights and fighters that make it onto HBO and Showtime improve, so does the whole sport. 

This means getting rid of the boring hyped up fighters that don’t entertain with action, just their words.  Get rid of fighters that are brought in to be served up as B-sides to favored fighters but offer no real competition.  Viewers don’t want to see mismatches at the supposed highest level of the sport.

Let Adrian Broner have his hair brushed off camera instead of on HBO.  Make Andre Berto fight a live body instead of Jan Zaveck.  Tell HBO that nobody in America cares about Paul McCloskey, Ryan Rhodes, Matthew Hatton, or Darren Barker, at least not on this big of a stage. 

Insist that Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. fights guys better than Ronald Hearns.  Demand that Saul Alvarez fights people that are actually in his weight class. 

Don’t pay $2M for Williams-Lara and Ramos-Shimoda, when $600K can buy you Rios-Antillon and Cintron-Molina.  Don’t put Hopkins-Dawson on PPV, when neither guy could sell-out their living room at a family reunion.  Quit trying to convince us that Devon Alexander is fun to watch.

Instead, give us more of Tavoris Cloud, Yuriorkis Gamboa, and Giovanni Segura.  Put Carl Froch in a phone booth with Lucian Bute and see who wins.  Make Alfredo Angulo get it on with James Kirkland.  Bring Marco Huck to Philly and have a rematch with Steve Cunningham.  Let’s see Nonito Donaire take on Abner Mares. 

But most importantly, someone please convince Manny and Floyd to get in the damn ring together.  Is that too much to ask?

Lee Harris co-hosts a weekly boxing radio show, In The Corner, available for free subscription at iTunes.  You can also find the show at http://inthecorner.podbean.com.  You can follow on Twitter -- @inthecornershow – and “like” the show at http://facebook.com/inthecornerboxingradio.  He can also be contacted via email at [e-mail].