by David P. Greisman

The flow of information is a beast that cannot be tamed. Not in politics. Not in business. And not in boxing.

Not in this era of 24-hour news cycles and hyperconnectivity.

For every state secret, there is a muckraking reporter who finds a source that wants nothing more than to talk about it. For every scandal thought to be under wraps or sought to be swept under the rug, there are countless newspapers, television stations, websites and blogs asking questions, and there are countless employees, mistresses and accusers who will come forward with answers.

For every case in which someone finally comes forward to tell the truth, there are those who will wonder whether that truth is the whole truth, or whether there is a conspiracy that could unfold with just a little prying.

Even before Andre Dirrell withdrew from Showtime’s “Super Six” super-middleweight tournament, there were questions about his scheduled fight with Andre Ward. There are even more questions now that Dirrell has pulled out of the tournament due to what are said to be neurological issues.

The first questions were asked six months ago, following Dirrell’s victory via disqualification over Arthur Abraham. They intensified as the date for Dirrell’s bout with Ward approached. They remain even though Dirrell will not fight Ward and even though Dirrell’s team has explained why that is so.

They remain because of the beast that is the flow of information. They remain because the involved parties sought to control what people knew. In doing so, they fed the beast, which rampaged forth through gossip and speculation. What little information was released did little to quell the questions and calm the conversations.

Instead, that information fanned the flames. Meanwhile, those who were being badgered to tell the truth still pursed their lips and did their best to withstand the heat.

“Where will the fight happen?” people asked.

The answers didn’t provide an answer.

“I can guarantee you one thing: You will not see Andre Dirrell fighting in Oakland,” Dirrell’s promoter, Gary Shaw, told Rick Reeno of BoxingScene.com back in April. Oakland is Ward’s hometown, the city where he fought his first two tournament bouts. Dirrell is from Flint, Mich., about an hour outside of Detroit.

Responded Dan Goossen, who promotes Ward: “If Gary wants the fight in Detroit, all he has to do is make an offer.”

Sept. 25 neared. And got closer. And closer still. And still there was no location for the fight. And the fighters weren’t in training camp. And nobody was saying why.

“When will it happen?” people asked.

Again, the people who should’ve had the answers didn’t.

“I’m still working on the site with Dirrell’s team,” Goossen told Lem Satterfield of AOL Fanhouse and BoxingScene in mid-August. “Sept. 25 is the date we’ve targeted, but obviously, as the days go on, the harder it is to look at that date.”

Dirrell touched on the topic on Twitter in early September. The bout, he said, is “just postponed as I know, not off,” he wrote. “Just have to get a few things in order, is all.”

Showtime then sent legal letters to both promoters, Satterfield reported, writing that both fighters either needed to face each other on Sept. 25 or, if that were not going to happen, on one of two dates in early October.

And then, in late September – on the day before Ward and Dirrell were to have fought – Showtime announced that Ward vs. Dirrell (and Carl Froch vs. Arthur Abraham) would take place on Nov. 27. In the days before this Sept. 24 announcement, Showtime had continued to advertise Ward-Dirrell for Sept. 25.

There had been speculation that, due to Mikkel Kessler dropping out of the competition (citing an eye condition that requires rest), the tournament would skip over the third round of “Group Stage” fights, taking those third-round pairings and making them the de facto semifinals.

Allan Green, who had stepped in to replace Jermain Taylor as of the second round of Group Stage bouts, would not be in the tournament anymore but would be given a fight on Showtime, the speculation said. (Taylor dropped out after getting knocked out by Arthur Abraham and has not fought since.)

By skipping over a round of fights, however, the fighters would get one less paycheck. The Sept. 24 announcement cemented that the third round of the Group Stage would go on as planned. Five days later, Showtime announced that Allan Green’s third round opponent would be former light-heavyweight champion Glen Johnson, who was stepping in to replace Kessler.

October arrived. There was still no location announced for Ward-Dirrell.

“Will it happen?” people asked.

Goossen, on Oct. 1, told Dan Rafael of ESPN.com that there were two possible sites for Ward-Dirrell and that a decision was forthcoming.

Six days later, the fight was off.

“Why isn’t it happening?” people asked.

The answers depended on whom the questions went to.

According to Dan Rafael, who interviewed Dirrell’s uncle/trainer, Leon Lawson: Dirrell had lingering headaches and dizziness from the punch Abraham had landed on him back in March, a punch thrown while Dirrell was down on one knee, knocking him unconscious. A neurologist said Dirrell wasn’t fit to fight. And the initial postponement of Ward-Dirrell wasn’t because the friends and former Olympic teammates didn’t want to fight each other, but rather because of “promoter issues and the site,” Lawson said.

Lawson said much of the same to Kevin Iole of Yahoo! Sports. Iole also spoke with Gary Shaw, who said he didn’t know of Dirrell’s neurological issues until the day before it was announced that Dirrell was dropping out of the tournament.

Meanwhile on the other side of the spectrum was Chris Mannix of Sports Illustrated, who said that there was more to the story than the story that was being told.

“Funny how this injury is just coming up now,” Mannix wrote on Twitter the day Dirrell dropped out. “Dirrell, along with most members of the [Super Six], have completely overvalued themselves. They want more money than they originally agreed to and have blown up the tournament.”

And Steve Kim of MaxBoxing.com wrote of a “well-informed source” who spoke of the situation as one in which “there was never a single legitimate attempt to ever have this fight come to fruition … and that the ever-influential adviser Al Haymon (who reps Dirrell) and Goossen (who shares a cozy relationship with Haymon because of their associations with Paul Williams and Chris Arreola) worked in concert together in this instance.”

Kim also recalled the Dirrell back injury that delayed his bout with Abraham, an injury “which many insiders believe was just an attempt to move the fight from Southern California (which has a sizable Armenian population) to a friendlier locale.” Dirrell-Abraham was in Detroit.

Those with on-the-record sources wrote of a legitimate injury. Those with anonymous sources wrote of a larger conspiracy.

Rafael had answers for those skeptics. His answers, as is fitting with this entire saga, came in the form of questions.

“Why would you make up a head injury of all injuries?” Rafael wrote. “Even if he comes back fine and it was all fake, you’re giving every commission a reason to look at you more closely. What would be the point of that?”

Many wonder why Dirrell’s neurological problem was only publicly revealed some six months after the punch that caused it. One possible reason is that Dirrell was waiting to see whether the problem would get better and he was buying time instead of dropping out of the tournament.

The issue at hand is that when secrets are being kept – and everyone involved with Ward-Dirrell, from the network to the promoters to the fighters, has been evasive when it came to the truth and sparing with what little they did say – people are conditioned to believe that something is being hidden.

When Ken Hershman, who heads up Showtime Sports, tells Steve Kim that he “never really got an explanation” as to why Ward-Dirrell never happened in September, people will ask questions and come up with their own answers, as they have done with every vague statement from promoters and network executives.

Lost, meanwhile, amid all of the rumors and speculation, is that if Dirrell’s team is telling the truth, then Dirrell has suffered a very serious head injury that he has not been able to recover from after more than six months.

Lost amid all of the talk of conspiracies is that Dirrell isn’t just done with the tournament, but that he could be done boxing, too, if his health doesn’t improve.

For all of the discussions and accusations concerning what really happened with the Ward-Dirrell fight, the only truth that truly matters is what happens with Dirrell himself.

That is one question that must be answered in due time.

The 10 Count will return next week.

David P. Greisman is a member of the Boxing Writers Association of America. His weekly column, “Fighting Words,” appears every Monday on BoxingScene.com.

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