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 Can Boxing Finally Catch Up to the Future?
By Cliff Rold (March 26, 2008)
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Boxing had always been so good at getting its product to the people by exploiting the latest new ‘thing.’ The original moving pictures of the late 19th century quickly gave way to a lucrative fight film business, Johnson-Jeffries riots be damned. The advent of radio brought Dempsey, Armstrong, and Louis into living rooms in rapid stream of conscience. Television’s small screens made Marciano and Robinson larger than life and closed circuit expanded the live crowd worldwide. Boxing on cable was so successful that HBO and Showtime all but bought the sport, and derivative technologies like pay-per-view have made many a millionaire.
Then along came the internet.
Yeah.
The internet has been a great way to expand coverage of the sport, but there’s been little of the sport itself. Sure, the occasional fight pops up online. The problem is, not trying too hard, they can probably all be counted with some toes to spare. Maxboxing has ventured into the field, both with live bouts and older ones that spotlight upcoming prospects. Frank Warren, the British promoter, posted 2007’s wild Lightweight brawl between Michael Katsidis and Graham Earl when word of mouth fueled grass roots demand from the hardcore faithful. The best, and most consistent, boxing online has come through YouTube, which means the fans have taken more responsibility for the game online, and for free, than those who live off of it.
That’s not good enough.
Closing in on the end of the first internet generation, there’s no denying boxing on the World Wide Web could be, and should already have been, so much more.
HBO, Showtime and ESPN at least provide some clips for the curious. Most of the promoters don’t. Golden Boy Promotions, Gary Shaw Promotions, and Top Rank, three of America’s most vibrant promotional entities, have approximately 100 fighters listed under contract on their various sites; there’s not an archived fight in sight for any of them. Don King Productions provides a limited set of clips and commercials.
This Thursday night, DKP takes it a step further. At the new www.donkingtv.com, fans can log on to catch a doubleheader featuring junior welterweight prospect Devon “The Great” Alexander (14-0, 8 KOs) and headlined by former world welterweight champion and current IBF junior middleweight titlist Cory Spinks (36-4, 11 KOs) versus veteran Verno Phillips (41-10-1, 21 KO).
No, it’s not a scintillating event, but it’s a step in the right direction. It’s also exactly the kind of card the internet should have been exploited for, en masse, long ago.
How so?
With top dollar dates much harder to come by than in years past, a fighter like Spinks isn’t much in demand. Put kindly, his style isn’t for everyone. He’s a slick southpaw who wins with his legs and brings little pain in his punches. Unless a star brings him to scratch, the HBO’s and Showtime’s aren’t going out of their way to pony up any. That may be part of the reason Spinks had has three bouts in the last two years. What’s baffling is that, unlike so many cuties, Spinks sells.
In his hometown of St. Louis, Spinks has been remarkably big business. His rematch with Zab Judah in 2005 brought in over 20,000 paid at the gate. His bout in 2006 with Roman Karmazin did in the neighborhood of 15,000. Spinks needs TV to make the best dollars, but he doesn’t need it to be valuable. Rather than sit on the shelf collecting rust and dust, the internet allows for Spinks to multiply what will already be his local raucous audience.
This is a model many more name, but not name-brand, fighters in similar situations could be taking advantage of. The internet is the perfect tool to keep them active and keep them in at least the eye of ardent boxing fans. Want to push the cause of a fighter as ducked? Get him online and winning, rather than offline, withering, and often whining. It’s not rocket science.
The other feature of Thursday’s card that marks an example of how the net should be used is the position of Alexander. Alexander is a solid prospect, a potential future champion coming of age at a moment when the junior welterweight division is teetering on the wide open. Ricky Hatton isn’t likely to stay near the top much longer; Junior Witter is aging.
How many people have seen Alexander though? Maybe they caught him on the undercard of Roy Jones-Felix Trinidad, but in another era he might have been one of “Tomorrow’s Champions.” America saw guys like Bobby Cyz come of age, almost from the professional cradle, on network TV. While the hope for a return to that outlet springs eternal, the internet’s utility in creating buzz for new stars is virtually untapped.
Almost by accident, Katsidis’s net presence after the Earl fight, and what people made out in bloody, pixilated glory increased his stock. His next fight was on U.S. TV and last weekend he was one half, albeit the losing half, of one hell of a battle for the world lightweight title.
Imagine how much buzz could be generated for a promising young fighter that folks literally saw growing up while they clicked between chat rooms, day trades, message boards and porn. Imagine if his early bouts were not only available live but also archived and catalogued online, an opportunity for his best displays to be replayed at the rate that the whispers traveled. If used correctly, watching a solid card through an Ethernet cable could become the norm rather than the exception, meaning more cards, more locales, and more chances for fighters to either stay sharp, develop, or both.
That would be exceptional for boxing.
Alexander: Returning to this Thursday, the 21-year old Alexander is beginning to make real progress in his professional career. Like Spinks, he’s a resident of St. Louis and, with a more exciting style, could become an even bigger hometown hero over time.
After facing the requisite record, and confidence, builders of the well-regarded prospect through his first thirteen bouts, Alexander took a sizable step up in February by decisioning former 140 lb. alphabelt titlist Demarcus Corley. He showed solid speed in the bout, if a lack of consistent combination punching.
Alexander saw room to grow from the Corley bout. “I don’t feel I was at my best. I could have done way better. (Corley) was a veteran and it was my first twelve rounds.” Alexander also saw tactical adjustments that could smooth his transition as he begins the move towards serious contention. “I got to start being more patient. In twelve rounders, you gotta’ be patient…in the earlier rounds, set up my shots, turn them over more and not be overanxious. I’ll be okay.”
This Thursday he faces his second tested veteran in a row in 33-year old Panamanian Miguel Callist (24-6-1, 17 KOs). Callist is past his best, but he won’t be an easy out. His chin isn’t the most reliable, but only one week ago Irish middleweight Andy Lee was considered a heavy favorite over a Contender series alum, Brian Vera, who had been viciously knocked out on the show.
Those prognostications turned left.
Alexander sees titles and dollar signs in his future; getting through Callist is a must on that road. The 5’7 southpaw feels like his young and growing body will be able to make junior welterweight long enough to chase his dreams there. “I can stay at 140 as long as I can. I feel comfortable at 140. I feel strong and healthy. I’m ready to unify the division, move up in the rankings, and hopefully be at a world title by the end of the year, beginning of 2009.”
They’re lofty plans and he’s not concerned with whether it starts with one of the division’s titlists or world champion, Ricky Hatton. “I leave it up to my promoter and manager. I’ll take it one fight at a time and whoever they put me in the ring with, I’ll train hard for them and put on a spectacular performance.”
As his career is built, he knows that building the fan loyalty and ticket sales Spinks has in their mutual hometown is important. The undercard slot at the Scottrade Center in the Lou this Thursday is significant in that respect. “It’ll be a pleasure for me to come back to St. Louis and fight for another title (he currently holds a WBC regional belt). It’ll be great for me to come back to St. Louis and show them they have a new champion on their hands.”
Alexander also recognizes the advantage of youth with the Oscar’s, Shane’s and Bernard’s getting closer to their ends. “I feel I can be the next star in Boxing. They’re looking for a new star and I feel I can be a contender for that. I’m just ready. I’m excited to be here and I’m ready to show the world that “The Great” is coming and I can be here for a long time.”
Switching gears…
All of the Above: I have to disagree a bit with HBO’s Max Kellerman and Bob Papa in their assertion, with the die on a great era all but cast, that it was ultimately Juan Manuel Marquez who emerged as the best of the four-way Feathweight-ish rivalry between he, Manny Pacquiao, Marco Antonio Barrera and Erik Morales.
Last time checked, Manny went 6-1-1 with three stops in his turn against those foes, Marquez 1-1-1, and Barrera and Morales both 2-4. While I concur that the cards could have gone to Marquez in both bouts with Pacquiao, they did not. And they did not in part because Marquez couldn’t stop a career long trend of hitting the deck in his biggest fights.
But records, knockdowns, and knockouts alone don’t tell the whole story. A case can easily be made for or against any of these four as the best in class. Morales’s losses to Pacquiao came late in his career and after an anemic performance against Zahir Raheem that spoke to his imminent fall. Before that fall, he faced the stiffest competition pool of any of them. Beyond the thrillogies with Barrera and Pacquiao were wars with Daniel Zaragoza, Junior Jones, In Jin Chi, Wayne McCullough, Jesus Chavez, Carlos Hernandez, Paulie Ayala…and that’s a sample. That he and Barrera started their runs years before Marquez and Pacquiao joined them in the upper echelon says a lot of his staying power.
Barrera as well was a gem. His dissection of Naseem Hamed, rivalry with Jones, brutal battle with Kennedy McKinney some twelve years ago, and narrow superiority over Morales can’t be discounted. Yes, he lost to Marquez while both were in their 30s, but in a competitive bout when he had less left in the tank than his opponent. It was close enough to leave in doubt how a prime face-off would have finished.
It is romantic to regard Marquez highly because of the word “if.” Fighters who don’t get their shots, or get them late and almost make the most of them, are easily embraced. Was Marquez every bit as good as his best contemporaries? Of course. Was he better? To say so with conviction is to watch fights in the mind’s eye that didn’t happen. It also assumes that had he been in the same youthful wars as Barrera, or faced the same stream of raw bad asses that Morales did, he would have held up just as long. It assumes too much. It’s like the Charley Burley-Sugar Ray Robinson argument. Could Burley have beaten Robinson? Strong maybe. Was he probably as good as Robinson? Yes. But when we talk about the greatest of all-time, what Robinson did with the opportunities he received outweighs what Burley might have done with the opportunities he didn’t.
Finally there is Manny. Where he rates in the weight classes of the other three can be argued against (because he arrived later to the dance) or for (because he was so successful). In a pound-for-pound sense, he rates the best of the bunch considering his unprecedented rise from world flyweight to world featherweight to currently world junior lightweight champion.
The point? There really isn’t a best in class of these four and arguments ad infinitum won’t change that. This was and is a special crew where the only fair answer is all of the above, and the biggest winners were the fans.
We Want Cotto: On February 26 over at BoxingScene, I took a look at the Floyd Mayweather foray into pro wrestling. Now just a few days a way from the spectacle of Wrestlemania, and on the occasion of my first trip onto the pages of Maxboxing, this seemed an appropriate reprint.
Love it or hate, there’s no denying that the spectacle of professional wrestling has long had its place in popular culture. Over the last 20-plus years, the WW(F)E’s Wrestlemania has been the center of that universe. Boxing was there at its inaugural outing, with Muhammad Ali serving as an ‘enforcer’ referee for the ‘titanic’ tag match pitting the team of Rowdy Roddy Piper and Mr. Wonderful Paul Orndorff against the combined force that was Hulk Hogan and Mr. T.
And, yeah, I’m one of the ones who always loved wrestling. Feel free to pity the fool.
It should come as no surprise then that I have no problem with world welterweight champion Floyd Mayweather’s planned participation in the genre. Good for him; given the opportunity, making reportedly excellent money to do something that looks purely like fun isn’t a bad thing.
That doesn’t mean boxing fans have to follow the script; in fact, if they take a cue from the behavior of wrestling fans, and send the right cues to incite them as well, boxing fans could make Mayweather’s “Wrestlemania” moment less than the fun he’d hoped.
Imagine the scene.
Orlando, Florida…
The 70,000 seat Citrus Bowl…
Mayweather “versus” Paul Wight (The Big Show)…
And a giant chant breaks out in the crowd to screw the whole scene up. It’s a simple chant too.
“We Want Cotto” (clap-clap-clapclapclap)
Loyal readers know that last week I proposed, in anticipation of Oscar De La Hoya-Stevie Forbes, a similar idea. Don’t worry loyal readers; you need not choose between “Go Stevie Go” and “We Want Cotto.” They’re the same really, meaning the same thing as pertains to the September potential for Mayweather Beats De La Hoya II.
Is such a chant possible?
It wouldn’t take much. Wrestling fans like to chant stuff. Having attended an event or two (including the original showdown between Mike Tyson and Stone Cold Steve Austin…Oh Hell Yeah!), I’ve seen chants that most in an audience couldn’t possibly understand spread like contagion. Wrestling crowds are an interactive bunch and no one likes to be left out.
This Wrestlemania crowd is unique in its location, a real benefit for this call to arms. Florida has a large Latino population; Cuban boxing fans and Cotto’s countrymen from Puerto Rico abound, and certainly they’ll have their share of Wrestlemania tickets. They’ll be joined by enough individuals who know boxing to make this work.
Everyone, even the bulk, of the anticipated Citrus Bowl crowd likely doesn’t know who Cotto is, but it’s not a stretch to imagine that they could catch the fever. If “We Want Cotto” busts loose, by the end of the night you’ll have non-boxing fans watching at home on pay-per-view, and people in the crowd, wanting to know what “We Want Cotto” means. That’s a good thing for boxing.
Chants alone won’t speed up the road to the most meaningful, and possibly best, current fight in the welterweight division, Mayweather-Cotto. But be certain, this is about generating momentum for what could be a truly great, pick’em fight.
Boxing’s hardcore base bears some responsibility in generating buzz for such a fight. Typically, they do a great job. This is a chance for the boxing fans in the Wrestlemania crowd to make a big, flashy, public impact on that front.
We all live in the real world and common sense says there’s no way around Mayweather’s fall plans. However, if boxing fans want to see Mayweather-Cotto sooner rather than later after September’s checks are cashed, building a buzz outside their ranks never hurts.
Hey Citrus Bowl, whatcha’ gonna’ do if “We Want Cotto” runs wild on you?
I’d love to find out.
Cliff’s Notes…
The other reason to tune in to Wrestlemania is that it looks like the last bout in the career of wrestling’s Greatest of All Time: Ric Flair. As a kid, my buddies and I dreamt of being the Four Horsemen. I wonder sometimes if we still do…Does anyone else think that Cristian Mijares-Nonito Donaire is a Fight of the Year waiting to happen? And did anyone who knows my work think I’d do my first column at Max and not mention the little guys…If Joel Casamayor faces anyone other than Jose Armando Santa Cruz, Nate Campbell or Manny Pacquiao next, you’ve got to wonder what Golden Boy means by the best fighting the best…Are you watching HBO’s John Adams? You should be. It’s no John From Cincinnati…ESPN2’s Kasim Ouma-Cornelius Bundrage this Friday could be a hell of a fun fight. Given the month boxing is having, could it be anything less? I don’t know what’s in the water, but let’s bottle it up
Cliff Rold is a member of the Ring Magazine Ratings Advisory Panel and the Boxing Writers Association of America. He can be reached at roldboxing@hotmail.com.
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