By Cliff Rold
I was all set this week to give the best expert analysis I could to next weekend’s excellent light heavyweight showdown between the best young fighter in the division, Chad Dawson (24-0, 16 KO, WBC titlist) of New Haven, Connecticut, and the next best young gun, Romanian-born Adrian Diaconu (24-0, 15 KO) who now fights out of Montreal.
I had lots of superlatives lined up and everything. I was going to note that it could ‘steal the night’ from the World Middleweight title showdown on HBO; how it could be ‘the best of four’ very good fights going on around the globe on September 29th. It might have been Barney Award winning stuff.
Then Adrian Diaconu went and caught a case of the owwies, an injured wrist to be exact, and that leaves me going to the Source.
Oscar De La Benzino if you will.
Benzino of course was the hip-hop entity whose aspirations to be a recording star came in conflict with a business he co-owned: Source Magazine. Since boxing fans tend to skew older, a little explanation is in order. Source was at one time the most important piece of hip-hop journalism on the planet, an actual institution of its field. Its credibility and stature was such that a five-mic (five-star) rating from the publication meant that a particular album was true genius.
All of that stature came crashing down early in this decade when insinuations that Benzino, who was a non-public partner of the magazine for years before being publicly exposed, was pulling strings behind the scenes to influence ratings and get his and his protégé’s products over. Benzino and his partner, Dave Mays, were eventually forced out of the publication which still lingers on today.
This matters today only because an older institution in an older industry has a very public conflict of interest.
Oscar De la Hoya, active fighter and active promoter, now owns Ring Magazine through a subsidiary of his primary promotional company. Read that again carefully: the sports most powerful presence owns its oldest journalistic temple.
All cutesy nicknaming comments aside though, this isn’t going down the way the Source’s business did. From day one of the acquisition last week, it’s been known to the world who owns Ring. Ultimately, that may be what saves Ring from going down the same road as the Source.
To say eyebrows have been raised is an understatement. Writers Bernard Fernandez, Dan Rafael, Eric Raskin, Michael Swann and even promoter Frank Warren have all weighed in on the purchase both pro and con. Steve Kim already has pondered whether the magazine should be renamed ‘the Golden Bible.’ The prevailing wind seems to be ‘let it play out before it is condemned.’
That willingness to give it a shot, even with an obvious conflict of interest, largely boils down to one man: Nigel Collins.
Collins is the editor-in-chief of Ring, a man well-regarded by just about everyone who comes in contact with him. Actually, it might be everyone because I’ve never heard anyone talk him down in my few years around the sport. Not once.
That doesn’t mean even Nigel can single-handedly get around the issues that arise from this purchase. My immediate concerns with this purchase center less on what the editors and writers of Ring do and more on how the magazine’s increasingly accepted titles are treated by Golden Boy Promotions.
Oscar noted in an interview with Rafael at ESPN that this could be a way of doing battle with the sanctioning bodies. For most who love boxing, that’s a great thing. Every dollar shaved from those cancers of the sport is like a pugilistic jolt of chemotherapy. However, it’s only great if fighters under Oscar’s Golden Boy Promotions (GBP) label, especially those who hold Ring titles, do what the sanctioning bodies occasionally do now: enforce the notion that the most deserving contenders get title shots.
That’s going to be critical because Oscar, his team and his fighters are all very likely to turn up the volume sooner than later on the merit of Ring’s belts. They had already begun to do so over the summer at a time when this deal was being worked out. If there is a conflict of interest editorially because of ownership, so to must it be recognized that every time a fighter holds up their Ring belt in the days to come, that’s a penny in GBP’s pocket.
It’s less than skeptical to note that this gives GBP a double-dipping incentive to have their fighters chase those belts.
There’s another possibility as well, possibly positive. The old hats in the boxing promotional world, men like Bob Arum and Don King, both 75, continue to age and aren’t long for this sport or, in real terms, this world. Oscar is already in position to be the strongest promoter of boxing in the United States. As came up in conversation with an associate in the industry this week, Oscar could very well be slowly putting the pieces in place to be boxing’s Dana White, the hugely successful owner of the UFC. In other words, Oscar could be, and who knows if he is or not, maneuvering to give boxing in the U.S. market and beyond the things it has needed for decades…
Consolidation.
Cohesiveness.
Corporate Sponsors.
It is that hope that Nigel Collins could be approaching this deal with. I had the chance to toss some Q&A back and forth with Nigel this week about the acquisition, particularly the chances that conflict exists on the GBP side as much as the Ring’s. “I think promoting The Ring Championship Policy will be a good thing for the sport in general, not just Golden Boy,” stated Collins. “Let's not forget that The Ring launched its new championship policy in 2002, so the criteria for when a title changes hands and the process for filling vacancies were already established way before Golden Boy became involved. As long as The Ring doesn't deviate from what it’s been doing, boxing will benefit. Moreover, the fighters will have more money in their pockets because they won't have to shell out so-called sanctioning fees.”
Collins of course has also not forgotten the lessons of the John Ort scandal in 1977. As recapped by Bernard Fernandez at Maxboxing last week:
For most of its 85-year existence, The Ring has been boxing’s most prominent publication. But that is not to say it hasn’t had its dark times. Perhaps the biggest stain on the magazine is the ill-fated United States Boxing Championships, a tournament designed to establish an American champion in every weight class. The ambitious project, which had the backing of The Ring, was launched in 1977 with much hoopla, at a press conference attended by promoter Don King, Muhammad Ali and Roone Arledge, president of ABC Sports.
But the tournament, four months and five elimination rounds after its dramatic introduction, went awry when charges were leveled that King-promoted fighters had received preferential treatment and were fast-tracked to USBC titles.
King and ABC denied any favoritism, and cards were televised over several more weekends, before the spotlight shifted to The Ring. When ABC officials learned that the fighters’ records listed in The Ring had been embellished (under editor John Ort) to establish their eligibility in the King-promoted tournament, ABC pulled out, tainting the careers of, among others, then-Ring editor Nat Loubet.
I asked Collins how large the past looms. “While all of the people involved in that sad episode have been gone from The Ring for more than a quarter of a century, we must never forget the harm that was done and make sure it never happens again. Throughout my two terms as editor-in-chief, I've been extremely vigilant in safeguarding the reputation of The Ring and there hasn't even been a whisper of scandal. And believe you me, I'm not about to let my guard down now (that) the spotlight is on us.”
There are other questions for the Ring as well. A frequent criticism for much of the last decade has been the lack of web presence for the publication. Collins noted that “the previous owner's business model was not originally geared toward a web presence.”
That doesn’t mean there won’t be one in the future. “It's too early to establish a timetable, but I'm positive The Ring's web presence will grow. I'm confident that ultimately it will, like the magazine, be the best in boxing.”
That web presence will mean more than the continued publication of the magazine. Unlike any other boxing vessel, Ring has a brand name that establishes them right away and will allow them to build their web base rapidly. That base will be full of on-line fans who take their boxing very serious and that base will be the first to hold Ring’s feet to the fire over perceived ethical failings.
Nigel Collins and Ring Magazine have a tough road in front of them. They worked very hard to rebuild the notion that boxing’s true champions, as they did in the days of the legendary Nat Fleischer, should have a Ring Magazine championship belt around their waist. Under the shadow of the Golden Boy, the road could certainly get tougher.
Cliff’s Notes…
My Take: For now, I’ll keep my ultimate opinion on Ring being owned by GBP to myself for another day…
Dawson Still On: Dawson will still be fighting next Saturday on Showtime, against replacement opponent Epifanio Mendoza (28-4, 24 KO) of Colombia. It’s an interesting choice. Mendoza isn’t a top-tier foe, but he is a spoiler of the first degree, having laid first round knockout losses on then-surefire prospects Tokunbo Olajide and Rubin Williams. I don’t think we’ll see that here, but it’s better than no fight at all…
GREAT Boxing: For those of you who love boxing for its history and characters, and live in the greater Washington, DC area, the Mary Pickford Theatre at the Library of Congress is hosting a week of classic fights and fight films on the big screen. Ali, Louis, Marciano, Dempsey, and Robinson share the bill with Bogart and Kubrick. Can’t beat that. Here’s information on this excellent opportunity to explore the greatness of boxing in many forms: http://www.loc.gov/rr/mopic/pickford/pickford-current.html Scroll to the bottom of the page...wow!
Seven: Days until I can write about important fights that are happening THAT week.
43: Days until the best fight in boxing…Calzaghe-Kessler is closer every day. So too is the chance that it shatters the record for indoor boxing attendance. I got my BritRail passes in the mail Tuesday.
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