Boxing News : Allan Scotto

Peter Manfredo Jr. and “The Contender”
By Allan Scotto (May 10, 2005) Photo © NBC

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Ah, the boxing elite. If they were dying of thirst in the desert, and you gave them water, they wouldn’t thank you. They’d tell you it wasn’t cold enough.

What a strange bunch they are. Like old cops who have heard it all, they are somewhat embittered and cynical, keepers of the sacred word……. humbug.

After many years of drought that saw boxing disappear from prime time television, NBC decided to plunk down a few gazillion dollars to make boxing the focus of a prime time reality show called “The Contender.”

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Fantastic! Right?

Not necessarily.

With much harrumphing, the whining about “Contender” began almost immediately. Self-ordained boxing purists spouted forth great wisdom from “Mount High.”

“It doesn’t reflect ‘real’ boxing.”

“We think the challenges are stupid.”

“We don’t like the music.”

“Sugar Ray Leonard said Toyota too many times.”

“Waaah, Waaah, Waaah, Harrumph!”

Sorry to shout, but did we happen to mention that BOXING IS BACK ON PRIME TIME TELEVISION?

And it’s pulling five to six million households a week!

NBC thinks the ratings are low, and they are dragging their heels on a second season commitment, but that’s because they don’t understand the impact their show is having on the sport.

ESPN recently held their first pay-per-view card on April 23rd. They are said to have pulled 150,000 buys. At last check, the Mariachi band was still playing, and the champagne was still flowing.

Give ESPN an average of three people per household, and there were 450,000 people watching boxing that night, which is an extremely respectable number for a first time foray into pay-per-view boxing.

If you use the same formula with “The Contender,” there are between fifteen and eighteen million people watching boxing every week.

When’s the last time that happened?

I’ll take “never” for a thousand, Alex.

NBC has planted a seed that has taken root. People are excited about boxing again. High school kids, people in the office, the guys in the gym. Everywhere you go, someone mentions the show.

And it’s true; by network standards the ratings are low. But NBC has been there before. The first season of Seinfeld had dismal ratings, but NBC stuck with the show, and it became one of the biggest hits ever. Hopefully they’ll stick with “Contender” as well.

Of the sixteen fighters to appear on the show, one of the most likeable is Peter Manfredo Jr. Manfredo, now one of the final four, came to the show with a record of 21- 0, and was eliminated in the first week after losing to Alfonso Gomez. The remaining fighters voted to bring Manfredo back to the show after Jeff Fraza came down with chicken pox and was disqualified.

Put to the test again in his first week back, Manfredo clearly beat Miguel Espino, prompting Jesse Brinkley, also in the final four after his stunning come from behind knockout of Anthony Bonsante, to say, “We let a lion back in.”

Asked why he felt he lost to Gomez, Manfredo said, “I don’t like to use excuses, but I had to lose ten pounds the day before the fight and I was drained.”

“When we first got there,” Manfredo explained, “we were in a hotel for a week for photo shoots, interviews, stuff like that. I’m the type of guy that looks at food and gains weight. I have to train hard to stay in shape and make weight, and we weren’t training that whole week. On the show, the weigh-in happens just a few hours before the fight. So I had to drop the weight and then fight right away. I had no legs, and I couldn’t find my rhythm. I was out of shape.”

Manfredo is also used to fighting ten or twelve rounds, and he found it somewhat difficult to drop back down to five.

When asked what “The Contender” has meant to his career, Manfredo says, “It's like a surreal, unbelievable experience. Just going from the average boxer, trying to make it, to still being the same boxer, but just being on live TV, you've made it. I come home, and you're a local hero to people, and people look up to you. It's just unbelievable. People see me on the street and say, ‘Hey you’re on that show! Gimme some love.’ There’s a lot of high fives and stuff like that. It’s just been great. It really has. How many people in life get up and go to work and wish they could see how a celebrity lives? I got to experience that. Like when we were walking through the casino with Sly and Ray, there were bodyguards keepin’ people away, and we were with them, so you kind of get to feel what its like.”

Many of the fighters on the show, win or lose, will experience similar notoriety on the streets, and in the boxing world as well. They’ll get fights they could never have gotten before. There is already talk of Ishe Smith fighting “Sugar” Shane Mosley. Prior to “The Contender,” Smith wasn’t even a blip on that radar screen.

Of course, the big debate has been whether “The Contender” is good or bad for boxing. Maybe Peter Manfredo Sr. best answered that question when contacted at the gym where he trains his son.

Asked if there was time to do an interview with Peter, Manfredo Sr. asks if you would mind holding on for a few minutes.

“Peter,” he says proudly, “is just signing some autographs.”