My First Freelance Boxing Piece

Eastside Boxing, one of the more popular boxing-exclusive websites out there -- by my math, it's in the top five -- has graciously agreed to publish one of my items. It should look familiar, since they ran this post as-is. The headline, I guess, still made sense to them. At any rate, here it is: http://www.eastsideboxing.com/news.php?p=12503&more=1

I'm Flattered, Really, But Word Is,They're Fakes

A number of people I've managed to lure into reading my meager boxing musings have approached me for my thoughts on the photos circulating on the web that depict a cross-dressing Oscar De La Hoya. On one level, I didn't quite know what to say to them, or anyone, really. I didn't want to get into the politics of cross-dressing. I had no evidence the pictures were authentic. And even if I could've overcome those obstacles, what unique insights might I have into boxing's sole remaining superstar enjoying the fishnets? That it was a bad strategic move, given that rabid Mexican boxing fans already frowned at De La Hoya for his perceived deficit of machismo? That it was somehow related to, or practice for, his bet with Sugar Ray Leonard, which I wrote about here? I'd opted merely to send a couple people the link to what I'd written about De La Hoya wearing a dress for his bet. That post, in and of itself, contained a link to a previous post discussing the issue of De La Hoya wearing a dress.

(It occurs to me I've devoted a strange amount of space on my blog so far to De La Hoya dressing as a woman. As I write, this phenomenon is only becoming more pronounced.)

It turns out I was wise not to post until now. De La Hoya's agent tells Radar the pictures are phony. I believe him. Until I see definitive proof otherwise. But, really, when I look at them -- and I only looked at one or two before I felt like I'd gotten the gist -- the angles on his head and other potential indicators of fakeness suggest to me, a purely amateur judge of fake photos, that they are, indeed, lies.

So: I trust that sates everyone's curiosity. For now. In the meantime, thanks for thinking of me. I swear to do you justice when next you throw me a promising lead.

And I won't post a suspected fake picture of De La Hoya in drag after this sentence.

Due to High Expectations, Seven Punch Combo Is Providing Needles for Your Balloons

Robbed of the ability to make predictions on a handful of big fights that were recently postponed, and feeling the anxiety all boxing fans are feeling these days that more postponements could tarnish the outstanding fall and winter lineup of exciting matches, I decided to turn my predictive powers (such as they are) to possible future postponements.

This is not intended to be some totally flippant exercise. Partially flippant, maybe, but there's reason for partial seriousness about this, too. In August, the season ahead raised expectations of fight fans, including myself, to unrealistic heights. Those expectations have been punctured by the delay of three major, or at least meaningful, bouts: Vargas-Mayorga, Klitschko-McCline and Marquez-Juarez. Two have been moved to other dates, with Marquez-Juarez landing on free Showtime, a blessing in disguise since I wasn't planning on buying it for $44.95 on HBO PPV as originally scheduled. Klitschko-McCline is gone for good, with Vitali and Jameel, respectively, heading their separate ways.

But perhaps they need a little extra puncturing, these expectations. I've always found myself better off with low expectations exceeded, rather than high expectations diminished. After they graduated from cult favorites to one-hit wonders in the 1990s, my favorite music group, the Flaming Lips, churned out a quick EP entitled "Due to High Expectations, the Flaming Lips are Providing Needles for Your Balloons." A few years later, they delivered an all-time great album, "The Soft Bulletin." I'm rooting for things to go the way of the Flaming Lips -- expectations exceeded -- but since a number of these stellar fights ahead stand a decent (or greater) chance of postponement, I hereby provide needles for your balloons.

Joe Calzaghe-Mikkel Kessler
Nov. 3
Super middleweight (168 lbs.)
Risk factors: There may not be a more brittle fighter than Calzaghe. It's amazing that someone who can take such blows in the ring, and deliver them with hands that are serially broken, is so prone to match-canceling injuries.
Chances of postponement: Slightly worse than even. To the point that one writer -- I can't remember whom -- was recently pining for Calzaghe to be hermetically sealed until November. But Joe has been more stable of late, so maybe hermetic sealing is a step too far.

Jermain Taylor-Kelly Pavlik
Sept. 29
Middleweight (160 lbs.)
Risk factors: Both men are tall middleweights -- Taylor stands at 6'1" and Pavlik tops 6'2" -- who have complained they suffer tremendously trying to chop themselves down to 160. The weight problem is such that they almost had this one at super-middleweight. If this fight is postponed, it would be disenchanting, since it's the first truly big fight of the season.
Chances of postponement: Minor, but significant. Reports out of the camps that both guys on track to make weight by next Saturday are positive. But Fernando Vargas was bragging about how good he felt trying to get down to his proper weight just days before he postponed his battle with Ricardo Mayorga.

Fernando Vargas-Ricardo Mayorga
Nov. 23
Between middleweight and super middleweight (162 lbs.)
Risk factors: That it's already been postponed once ain't good. Vargas turned up anemic along the way to losing about 100 lbs. Mayorga isn't a model of reliability himself, since he almost bailed out of his fight with Oscar De La Hoya at the last minute last year.
Chances of postponement: Awfully likely, although a second postponement would probably equal cancellation. Is anyone making sure Fernando isn't blimping out right now? I wouldn't be surprised if he still looks like Eddie Murphy in a fat suit come late October.

Roy Jones, Jr.-Felix Trinidad
Jan. 26
Between super middleweight and light heavyweight (175 lbs.)
Risk factors: Jones is erratic as hell. He's constantly pulling out of proposed fights, even eschewing big paydays.
Chances of postponement: Meh. Jones needs this payday more than any other, since he's on the downside of his career. I doubt he'll risk it, but I don't count out the possibility.

Humberto Soto-Joan Guzman
Nov. 13
Junior lightweight (130 lbs.)
Risk factors: Soto decided, against the advice of everyone, to take a tune-up fight this past weekend, jeopardizing this bout if he lost or even if he endured a deep cut that wouldn't heal in time.
Chances of postponement: Soto-Guzman looks safe. Humberto won his weekend tune-up easily, and reports are that he was hardly scratched. Joan, don't get any bright ideas for your own tune-up.

Juan Manuel Marquez-Rocky Juarez
Nov. 3
Junior lightweight (130 lbs.)
Risk factors: This fight appears cursed. First, Jorge Barrios dropped out with injuries, promoting Juarez to his replacement. Then, Marquez developed an infection on his fist. Seriously, how does that happen? Hasn't anyone in Marquez' camp heard of Neosporin?
Chances of postponement: Depends on your level of superstition. I'm going to say I think this one's had enough misfortune and is going to happen.

Sultan Ibragimov-Evander Holyfield
Oct. 13
Heavyweight (200 lbs. +)
Risk factors: Holyfield's already a replacement for the fishily-injured-then-training-a-couple-weeks-later Ruslan Chagaev, so it, too, has a track record. Holyfield has worked through his endless health problems, from heart conditions to damaged shoulders to freaking hepatitis, for chrissakes, but his history and advanced age are cause for hand-wringing.
Chances of postponement: Not very likely. Ibragimov needs to beat Holyfield in the highest-profile bout of his career to capture the public's imagination, and Holyfield's on something of a holy mission to become a five-time heavyweight champ.

Oleg Maskaev-Sam Peter
Oct 6
Heavyweight (200 lbs. +)
Risk factors: Maskaev and his handlers did virtually everything they could not to take this fight, and conventional wisdom is that they're worried the aging Maskaev is going to get splattered in a high-risk, low-reward battle that could end his marketability just as it had reached its improbable peak.
Chances of postponement: Low. Peter's team played hardball to force this match to happen. Anyone think that if it's postponed any other word besides "lawsuit" is the first to pop into the Peter crew's mind?

Vitali Klitschko-anyone
No date
Heavyweight (200 lbs. +)
Risk factors: The last few years of Vitali's career are marked by fight postponements, cancellations, retirements and un-retirements. That he's returned to training already after screwing up his back may bode well, but I rate...
Chances of postponement: ...at almost certain. Too bad, too. Vitali has always been the more passionate of the formidable Klitschko brother duo, but his big brother Vladimir is just not as fragile. Sorry to say it, but Vitali is an old gray mare in boxing years, and maybe worse, because he just can't climb into the ring anymore come fight night.

Kid Rock-Tommy Lee
No date
No weight limit set
Risk factors: For one, the fight just hasn't been set yet. For another, proposals to put feuding rock stars into the boxing ring have traditionally gone nowhere. Remember Axl Rose-Vince Neil?
Chances of postponement: I don't think this fight is going to happen. I hear tell the little one they had at the Video Music Awards wasn't much to watch anyway.

Miguel Cotto-Shane Mosley; Floyd Mayweather-Ricky Hatton; Jean-Marc Mormeck-David Haye; Juan Diaz-Julio Diaz; Manny Pacquiao-Marco Antonio Barrera
Assorted dates
Assorted weight classes
Risk factors: Thankfully, not very many. All of these guys are pros who have little history or delaying or canceling bouts, even when they've had injuries or weight problems. Could Juan Diaz, college student/boxer, oversleep studying for a test the next week? Could Ricky "Fatton" spend too much time in the pubs? Could Shane Mosley injure his tooth again, the one he wiggled after KOing Vargas as he explained why he couldn't fight Mayweather in the fall? Could Floyd strain an achilles doing the foxtrot on "Dancing With The Stars?" Maybe, but I doubt it. No, I think all these big, exciting fights are pretty close to a sure thing.
Chances that I'll wuss out and end on a positive note: Already did.

What If The "Bible Of Boxing" Was Owned By A Promoter?

Answer: It is now, per the good discussion with Dammrod in the comments section of yesterday's post. Golden Boy Promotions has purchased Ring Magazine and the affiliate boxing pubs that, together, constitute the biggest print journalism outlets in the sport.

But what does it mean?

Ring's sterling reputation was tarnished severely only once, interestingly enough when promoter Don King paid to have the magazine's highly-respected rankings of fighters manipulated to his advantage. So, in one sense, it's good that this time, the whole thing is out in the open. And Oscar De La Hoya's Golden Boy Promotions is taking steps to build a wall between its promotional operations and the magazine so as to maintain its editorial independence. This, too, is a good thing. And so far, in its short and very prosperous rise to power, Golden Boy has avoided getting caught up in any major promotional scandals, save that wacky incident in the airport this year where De La Hoya himself showed up to greet Filipino boxing sensation Manny Pacquiao with a suitcase full of cash in hopes of stealing him away from a rival promoter.

But all of that is cold comfort. As a journalist by trade, it's hard to imagine a worse owner for the industry's leading magazine than perhaps the industry's leading promoter. As I said to Dammrod: "It'd be like if Lockheed Martin owned Defense News, or if Sallie Mae owned the Chronicle of Higher Education." It is my sincerest hope that Golden Boy lives up to its promise to be a more ethical kind of boxing promoter, but power tends to corrupt, and promotional companies, for all the good they do, have quite frequently been a negative force on the sport, at points practically ruining it. Too often, they rob their fighters. Too often, they've shown they'll do anything to get ahead, even if it means breaking the law. When they get too flush with their own riches, they turn into bullies and end up dominating whole networks, shutting out fighters who don't play by their rules and pushing bad fights that only serve the promoter's own interests and not those of the boxing viewing public. Boxing journalists must, must, must serve as a check on those tendencies.

Can they, I wonder, if they are wholly paid for by the very people they are meant to check? I can't imagine how. In journalism generally, corporate ownership has not led to the type of scandals many feared when the trend began, although there have been a shameful handful. I can only say that none of this is ideal, and watch closely, as all fans of the sport must, to ensure that the people watching out for wrongdoing don't get involved in wrongdoing themselves. The Ring, by virtue of its history, has earned my trust until it loses it, but right now, I am looking at the magazine with a very skeptical eye.

















The cover to the first issue of The Ring. The logo's hardly changed. But now that it's changed hands, and those hands are a boxing promoter's, can the magazine ever be the same?

A Tribute To The Gatekeeper

Boxing, sometimes called "the hardest game," is filled from top to bottom with unfathomably difficult jobs in the ring. I don't mean the cutmen and trainers and other folk whose work sometimes goes unheralded. I mean the unofficial "jobs" of various boxers. From the bottom -- the guys who make their money as cannon fodder to help better boxers build their records -- to the top -- the guys who win a championship and only fight the very best -- there isn't really an easy one in the lot.

Fulgencio Zuniga's defeat of Victor Oganov in a super-middleweight (168 lbs.) battle on Showtime Sept. 2, which I only recently witnessed in replay via On-Demand, has me brimming with admiration for the boxing job known as "gatekeeper." These are the guys who make their living being a particularly stern test for up-and-coming young fighters, often just before they get a big title shot. Gatekeepers are usually ranked in the top 10 of some of the organizations that hand out belts, but not always. Zuniga, like other gatekeepers, shares a number of characteristics with his gatekeeping peers. He is tough as nails. He has a quirky, difficult style. He is not amazingly gifted, but he has enough talent and savvy to give anyone a rough night (as he did most notably against a personal favorite of mine, Kelly Pavlik).

Lost in Zuniga's defeat of Oganov was just how much of Oganov's loss had to do with Zuniga. The broadcast team acknowledged it throughout, but most of the press on the fight focused on how bad Oganov looked. Justly, sure. The Russian had been heralded as a potentially major sensation, with a 26-0 record that was composed entirely on knockouts. In the fight, though, he looked amateurish. He demonstrated some power, but just as many of his blows were delivered like slaps and would threaten no one. Oganov mostly stood around in front of Zuniga doing nothing while Zuniga hit him without fear of getting hit back. It's understandable that the story of the fight was the puncturing of Oganov's balloon. But Zuniga worked his ass off for that win. Even after a first round knockdown, Zuniga never stopped pressuring Oganov, kept moving at odd angles to prevent Oganov from attacking him, and by the ninth, Zuniga knocked him out for a win that took guts, intelligence and plenty of effort.

That gatekeepers routinely fight the best up-and-comers despite their lack of world-class ability, knowing going in that they are there to lose, shows a kind of bravery that is rarely recognized. Of course, some of them may not have a choice. They're not good enough to fight for a title, usually, and that means their biggest purses are going to come against some phenom. More often than not, they do lose. And they take a terrible beating in the process.

The ones who at least do well will find themselves on TV again, soon to test another young, strong guy on his way to stardom. But sometimes they win, like Zuniga did. And when they do it frequently enough, they do sometimes graduate to the job of "contender." I'll be rooting for Zuniga to do just that.




















Fulgencio's win had to do other Zunigas, such as Daphne, proud. I know it did me, and I think it did boxing.

Dresses, Egomania, Ripoffs And Knuckleheads

Upon my return from a work trip, I find boxing still in its late summer doldrums prior to its outstanding fights just around the corner. And so, random thoughts...

• A brief bit of bragging: The Ring's William Dettloff, a writer whose work I admire, recently penned an item on Ricardo Mayorga as boxing's ultimate villain. That would be the same topic of a blog entry by yours truly not so very long ago. I can't claim that Dettloff saw my piece, but if I was ahead of such a tremendous fight scribe by that much, maybe I'm getting the hang of this thing. I still recommend his piece, because it makes many different points than mine, all of them thoughtful.
  
• A brief bit of self-deprecation to compensate: I struck out on yet another fight prediction, picking Kendall Holt to defeat Ricardo Torres. But it seems what I underestimated was not Holt, but Torres' home-court advantage in Colombia. The 11th round stoppage by the referee, which I'd read about but only just now viewed, was very questionable. Holt was ahead on two of the three scorecards when Torres dropped him. Holt was undoubtedly hurt, but was on his feet, was trying to hold, and was even throwing a punch when the referee stepped in to call it off and give the win to Torres. Things had become extremely chaotic after Torres knocked down Holt, with fans showering the ring in beer, and Holt, slipping on his feet, may have looked more hurt than he was because of it -- not to mention that it's up to the referee to make sure the mat is not dangerous to the fighters. There better be a rematch of what looks and sounded like a solid rumble up to that point, and it better not be in Colombia. Let me know what you think of the stoppage, captured here.
  
• There's something very disturbing and simultaneously crafty about the bet between Sugar Ray Leonard and Oscar De La Hoya that will result in one or both of them playing ring card girl in the final fight of next weekend. The gist is that two fighters from Leonard's "Contender" TV show will take on two fighters from De Le Hoya's Golden Boy Promotions. If Contender fighters go 2-0, De La Hoya ascends to ring card girl duties for the headlining fight between Juan Manuel Marquez and Rocky Juarez, and Leonard will do the same if Golden Boy fighters go 2-0. In the event of a tie, both will do the ring card girl thing. I wonder what happens in the event of draws or no contests, but I do not wonder what either man looks like in a bikini or dress or whatever. According to USA Today, this has generated interest in what was otherwise a decent but not must-buy pay-per-view event. I can't for the life of me imagine why, although the main event and the scrap pitting Sergio Mora against Kassim Ouma could both be nice. But as I've said before in the aforementioned blog entry on Mayorga's antics, I don't much care what generates interest in boxing, so long as interest is generated, and therefore I commend both men for putting their masculinity on the line for their sport. And maybe if Leonard wins the bet, Mayorga finally gets to see De La Hoya in that "Golden Girl" dress he taunted him with last year.
• I find myself torn over the strange impulse I have to watch Zab Judah fight a nobody tonight in the final Friday Night Fights of the season on ESPN. I'd previously only watched Judah in hopes that someone would hit him so hard he'd do that funny dance he does when he gets clocked but good. That's because Judah is one of my least favorite kind of athletes, the gifted knucklehead. Now that he's on a three-fight losing streak, I should have no interest in him whatsoever, but Judah's got to be the most marketable guy in boxing on a three-fight losing streak. He finally showed some guts in his grueling loss to Miguel Cotto this year. And at his best, he's always been a captivating talent. Plus, Cotto and Shane Mosley are going to be in the studio to hype their superfight on Nov. 10. On the other hand, IFC is airing all the new chapters of R. Kelly's "Trapped In A Closet" at around the time Judah will be paving the way to another big welterweight (147 lbs.) fight. Or it'll be around the time he's getting clocked and looking silly as he flops around like a fish out of water, something you can't discount happening when Judah's in against a nobody.

And then, Judah did what has since become best known as the chicken dance, to be viewed here, although I have compared it to both a fish and funny puppet flopping around, and others have called it the rubberman dance.

Reflections On Mike Tyson

I've spent several hours this afternoon viewing "Fallen Champ: Mike Tyson," a documentary produced in 1993, two years after Tyson raped a beauty queen named Desiree Washington. It's a remarkable piece of work for a great many reasons. For instance, the numerous off-key defenses of his actions with Ms. Washington are shocking. On one hand, two of his bodyguards say, respectively, "'People say we touch women's asses. Well, people want to be touched," and "We get accused of reaching out and grabbing women. But if I grab you, that means you're close enough for me to reach you, and that says a lot"; on the other hand, there are the ministers, among them Louis Farrakhan, mocking the idea that Ms. Washington might not have wanted to be forced into sex. In the audience, Don King laughs along at this bit of unhilarity. Such scenes illustrate perfectly one of the central premises of the film, the notion that Mike Tyson was a troubled youth who, when positive role models were supplanted by destructive ones, became dangerous to himself and others outside the ring. (Even with good role models, Tyson was fragile. The first half of the documentary contains amazing footage of Mike at 15. In on scene, following a quick knockout of his opponent at the Junior Olympics, he had to be coaxed back into the building for the next fight by trainer Teddy Atlas. Tyson was outside crying for what appears to be no reason.)

This insight into Tyson, about influences and his fragility, is not original, although the film adds tremendous depth and contour to it. What I found most compelling were two insights contradictory to conventional wisdom, one of which I have long subscribed to and the other of which I had never heard uttered.

The first is a challenge to the orthodoxy on Tyson that I was glad to see someone else besides myself espouse. The traditional line of thinking goes that as soon as anyone stood up to him without fear -- Buster Douglas originally, then Evander Holyfield and others -- Tyson was revealed as a sub-par heavyweight who thrived on intimidation. The bully theory is kind of accurate; the look of terror in his opponents' eyes was at times palpable, and can't have been conducive to victory. But that, along with the sheer power he was blessed with, was only part of what made Tyson great. In reality, Tyson was once a skilled boxing technician who gobbled up fight footage like candy and tied his legendary power to ring intelligence, compounding the threat he posed. By the time Tyson faced Douglas, his boxing technique had long faded. Watch early Tyson, even Tyson from the start of his heavyweight reign, and compare him to the fighter who stepped into the ring in Japan. He was a different boxer. Douglas hit him at will. Early Tyson got hit cleanly only on rare occasions, because of his constant, almost manic head movement. Early Tyson was a ferocious body puncher who also set up his biggest punches with a jab. By the Douglas fight, he swung for the home run almost exclusively and neglected the body, ignoring the old boxing maxim that "if you kill the body, the head will die." Although the documentary does not make some of those points explicitly, it features the first experts I've ever heard making the point that it was more than a bad divorce with Robin Givens and a brave Douglas that did Tyson in that night -- it was rust on his skills that accumulated then culminated in one of the greatest upsets in sports history. Tyson, always a small heavyweight at about 5'10", would have had trouble with the tall Douglas anyway, even if he had maintained that excellent technique, and if his unbeaten reign had survived Holyfield in this hypothetical world (I think it would have), then Lennox Lewis (at least, a seasoned Lewis) probably beats Tyson. Too bad we never got to see if I'm right.

The second revealing point the documentary made to me -- more a question it raised than an argument, per se -- is that Cus D'Amato, the trainer and father figure to Tyson credited with turning him from an armed robber into a semi-dignified champion, may not have been the saintly influence he is thought to have been. Certainly, Cus deserves a great deal of credit. But numerous examples in the film suggest D'Amato's willingness to let Tyson get away with indiscretions may have been too generous. When Tyson threatened a teacher with violence, he was not severely punished by D'Amato. Teddy Atlas said of this incident that it established in Tyson's mind that there were no repercussions for treating people with disrespect. When Tyson sexually propositioned a much younger girl, Atlas took matters into his own hands, apparently threatening Tyson at gunpoint, apparently in part because Atlas was close to the girl in some way. Atlas probably went too far. But rather than work out the differences and righting both wrongs, Cus kicked Atlas to the curb and stood by Tyson. D'Amato died in 1985, shaking Tyson right to his core. It no doubt was one key element of him becoming a "Fallen Champ." But it is clearer to me now than it was before that had Cus lived a few more years, it would not have stopped Tyson from doing something that would have landed him in jail eventually. And that makes all those hypotheticals about what "might have been if" so much more distant, to my lament.




















Too bad this version of Mike was never to return.