By Jake Donovan
"Sorry to bug ya… what did you think of the fight last weekend? I never heard of those guys, but I can't wait to see them again."
Prior to 2007, the aforementioned was a conversation that rarely took place on a Monday morning. While I made the most of the entertainment boxing has provided in recent years, many of the sport's best moments in recent years went largely unnoticed by anyone outside of the fraternity.
This year? As sure as I am that at least one office rat would whine every morning that they can't function without first getting their coffee fix, I also knew to anticipate the general co-worker strolling into my office nearly every Monday morning asking me about a major fight occurring the preceding Saturday.
Boxing gave sports fans plenty to talk about, particularly in the last 12 or so weeks. For a change, most of the talk was positive. In fact, it seemed boxing was the one sport unaffected by a major scandal of sorts (and no, yet another Mike Tyson arrest and brief prison stint does not qualify as a boxing scandal).
Perhaps last week's release of the Mitchell Report did little more than outline the obvious state of the game that is Major League Juiceball. But for a week, and even as my finger tips bang out this week's column, the scandal remains the talk of the town for all matters baseball. It was the hot topic anytime Barry Bonds' – owner of baseball's single-season and all-time home run records(*) – named was mentioned.
It will remain the headline story once pitchers and catchers report for spring training. And again when the first exhibition games begin. And again when the regular season begins. And most likely throughout the season, when Bud Selig's alleged "Call to action" will most likely result in a considerable across-the-board statistical drop-off, where the only stat to see an increase will be the number of formerly juiced players on the injury list, with old wounds mysteriously taking longer than "normal" to heal.
Our friends over in the wonderful world of Mixed Martial Arts also came under fire – or shall we say, under the needle. Once rumored to be the combat sport of the future, the one that would serve as the final nail in the coffin for boxing, UFC enjoyed a brilliant stretch in 2006, posting PPV numbers that did in fact put our sport to shame. In 2007, MMA brought shame only unto itself, with one major participant after another testing positive for steroids seemingly every week at one point this year.
The only thing juiced up in boxing (besides James Toney, or so said the California State Athletic Commission this past May) was its ratings and attendance. Big fights selling out arenas on a regular basis. HBO PPV posting record numbers in PPV sales and revenue. And for a change, the sports best fighter – Floyd Mayweather – also doubling as its most bankable star, with his two PPV appearances this year racking up over 3.2 million buys, adding up to more than $175 million in revenue, as well as another $32 million in gate receipts.
That's just one fighter. Miguel Cotto drew well over 38,000 in his combined two Madison Square Garden appearances, generating over 600,000 PPV sales in the process. Manny Pacquiao's rematch with Marco Antonio Barrera drew 350,000 PPV buys, and also posted an incredible 175,000 buys earlier in the year against Jorge Solis. Incredible, as independent PPV's rarely boast such numbers.
Even Showtime made its way to the black in the PPV market, fitting since their lone PPV telecast of 2007 – Ricardo Mayorga's points win over Fernando Vargas – aired on what holiday shoppers refer to as Black Friday. While official numbers were never released, the preliminary reports showed well over 300,000 buys, which would be their most successful PPV in years.
The National Hockey League would undoubtedly kill for such numbers. While the sport has remained relatively scandal-free this season (save for New York Islanders bad boy Chris Simon facing a possible 7th suspension for intentions of injuring another player last weekend), or so the NHL home page suggested Monday morning), it's become the proverbial falling tree in a vacant forest.
Fittingly, it's reaching such status as boxing enjoys a resurgence.
While boxing has its own issues, its fall from mainstream can be – and is – attributed to a number of issues. One issue the mainstream never mentions is in fact its lack of mainstream attention. Though steadily posting dismal numbers, NHL games still make the sports section and the highlight reels on a daily basis.
Some games – less than previous years, but still having the option – are available on network TV during prime time. Like Game 3 of last Year's Stanley Cup finals between the Anaheim Ducks and the Ottawa Senators, which posted the lowest rating ever in an NBC prime-time slot.
Its most ardent supporters blamed the low rating on poor network coverage – the slots split between NBC and Versus, whereas all of the games for most traditional championship series take place on one network. But in order to justify that excuse, you'd also have to grade boxing on a curve, since its last free-network appearance was over seven years ago, and is forced to make the most with very little exposure outside of the amounts HBO, Showtime and ESPN are willing to spend on advertising.
The National Basketball Association has also watched its ratings dip pretty much ever since Michael Jordan finally called it a career. This year's season was handicapped right out of the gate, still feeling the effects of the referee gambling scandal that dominated the headlines throughout the summer.
There was also Hall-of-Fame point guard and present Hall-of-Shame New York Knicks head coach Isaiah Thomas caught up in a sexual harassment suit, which was recently settled out of court. And keeping it with my dreaded Knickerbockers, a feud developing between Thomas and Brooklyn-born guard Stephon Marbury.
Across town, you have New Jersey Nets point guard (and my supposed long lost twin) Jason Kidd reportedly staging a one-day strike in efforts to either force a contract extension or an immediate trade.
The latter was the news that kicked off the 2007-08 NBA season, though on the Left Coast, with the Los Angeles openly looking to move their franchise player, Kobe Bryant.
The good has mostly outweighed the bad in the 2007 NFL season, though there hasn't been much to talk about for the sport as a whole. Once thriving thanks to parity, the league has suddenly become extremely top heavy, leading to very few close games each weekend and little reason to believe that the New England Patriots – or any other AFC team should the Pats manage to fall short of perfection in the win column – won't win the Super Bowl.
In fact, the best and worst news of the season both involves the Pats. The good news is obviously their dance with destiny – two wins shy of becoming the second team in NFL history (or at least since the merger 40+ years ago) to go unbeaten in a single season (the other team being the 1972 Miami Dolphins, who went 14-0, plus three more postseason wins to win the Super Bowl as well).
The bad news – which was accentuated throughout last weekend's rematch with the New York Jets – was their run began with an asterisk, with Spygate dominating the headlines early in the year. The Patriots were caught videotaping and stealing signals from the Jets' sideline during Week 2 of the NFL season. The Pats won – much like they've done in their 13 other games this year – but didn't escape without being disciplined. The team was fined $250,000 and loses a draft pick next year, while head coach Bill Belichek was fined another $500,000.
The biggest fine anyone in the sport received this year was the $300,000 extracted from Bernard Hopkins' following his post-weigh-in behavior prior to his July fight with Winky Wright. There were no stealing game plans from the opponent's corner. And while some referees officiated as if they did have money on the particular fight they were working, none were implicated in any gambling sting.
But where the sport can match, say the 2007 New England Patriots, is its plethora of undefeated stars. At the very top of the mountain, there's Floyd Mayweather, presently 39-0 (25 by way of) and quite possibly boasting the best shot from today's crop of retiring without a blemish on his record.
There are three more linear champions presently boasting an "0" in the L column, all of whom are either coming off of or are just one fight removed from career-best wins. There's super middleweight king Joe Calzaghe (44-0, 32KO), who just six weeks ago removed any doubt as to his Hall of Fame credentials or claim as the all time greatest 168 fighter with his thorough domination of perennial top challenger and previously unbeaten Mikkel Kessler.
Two-fisted bomber Kelly Pavlik (32-0, 29KO) is gearing up for a February rematch with Jermain Taylor, who gave up his middleweight crown and undefeated record following a brutal 7th round knockout loss this past September in what may very well have been the fight that saved boxing. Pavlik's undefeated record and title reign are hardly protected – in getting to the middleweight championship, he had to snatch another "0" in knocking off previously unbeaten murderous punching Edison Miranda.
The littlest of the sport's little big men, Ivan Calderon (30-0, 6KO) abandoned the strawweight ranks this past August to challenge one of the game's hardest hitters, pound-for-pound, in Hugo Cazares. The end result was a brilliant tutorial in Art of Boxing 101, with an 8 th round knockdown the lone hiccup in an otherwise flawless performance to capture the junior flyweight crown.
Then of course, there's the next generation of presently unbeaten superstars. Miguel Cotto ran his record to 31-0 (25KO), all while knocking off four legitimate Top 10 welterweight contenders in a span of less than 12 months. In the same division, Paul Williams (33-0, 25KO) emerged as perhaps Boxing's Most Avoided following his high-volume punch-output in outworking Antonio Margarito this past summer.
Two divisions below, Juan Diaz (33-0, 17KO) racked up two more alphabet titles in as many fights, both against Top 5 lightweights. Brought along slow, Diaz hit his stride at the perfect time, having now emerged as the face of the lightweight division while its alleged leader, Joel Casamayor, spent much of the year avoiding other top contenders before stinking out the Garden against Jose Armando Santa Cruz in one of the year's worst decisions.
Further down in weight, Joan Guzman (28-0, 17KO), while boasting a style not particularly pleasing to all, has emerged as the top threat to the junior lightweight crown, which will be decided next March, unless of course Manny Pacquiao and Juan Manuel Marquez once again manage to fight to a draw like they did in their May 2004 classic. And as evidenced last weekend, Jorge Linares (24-0, 15KO) is rapidly becoming the flavor of the month in the featherweight division.
Moving back up in ranks, not even a severely broken jaw suffered in his controversial September 2006 points win over Edison Miranda could slow down top middleweight Arthur Abraham (25-0, 20KO), who following an eight month injury-induced layoff managed to squeeze in 3 fights in a span of just over six months.
While the light heavyweight division remains in disarray, many look to Chad "Awesome" Dawson (25-0, 17KO) as its savior. The slick, unbeaten southpaw enjoyed a breakout campaign in 2007, making three appearances on Showtime Championship boxing, including his thrilling decision win over Tomasz Adamek on the eve of the Super Bowl.
Joe Calzaghe has vowed to have fought his last ever fight at 168, eyeing a mega payday with Bernard Hopkins next spring. Such news would leave plenty of room at the top. Among others taking a swing at the crown will be Lucian Bute (21-0, 17KO) who managed to live up to very high expectations with an explosive 11 th round knockout of Alejandro Berrio this past October. Bute's 2007 campaign also included a decision win over former super middleweight contender and Contender reality winner Sakio Bika on ESPN2 in June.
But boxing doesn't need perfection to identify its talent. Look at once-beaten cruiserweight king David Haye (20-1, 19KO). "Hayemaker" is one of three UK-based linear world champions (Joe Calzaghe and junior welterweight champion Ricky Hatton the other two), and also among the rapidly rising number of Brits who presently lay claim to alphabet hardware. Haye's career is every bit as flawed as his title-winning performance over Jean-Marc Mormeck, climbing off of the canvas to stop the Frenchman in seven rounds.
You have to go down at least five deep before getting to the best undefeated contender in the junior featherweight division (that would be Steve Molitor). Such is life when you campaign in the same weight class as crude but effective brawler Daniel Ponce de Leon, slick beanpole Celestino Caballero, and what's easily the sport's most thrilling present rivalry in its top contender, Rafael Marquez, and linear champion Israel Vazquez. None of whom are undefeated, in fact all watching their "0" go some time ago, but all of whom are nearly impossible to beat on any given night. Except of course when they are fighting each other – Marquez and Vazquez are tied up at one apiece, their two fights serving as perhaps 1 and 2 in this year's Fight of the Year race. Caballero dropped Ponce de Leon and survived a late rally en route to a wide points win in their battle nearly three years ago.
The heavyweight division is one step closer toward sorting out its years-long mess, but that doesn't mean it doesn't already clearly boast a division-best fighter. That man would be Wladimir Klitschko (49-3, 44KO), who returns to the states next February after an exclusive German tour in 2007. The Ukraine takes on unbeaten Sultan Ibragimov in a bout billed as a unification match, but really serving as one-half of the semi-finals, with the winner hoped to be matched up against the victor of the oft-postponed – and still homeless – heavyweight bout between Samuel Peter and Oleg Maskaev. The fight has a date (February 2), a co-feature (John Duddy-Matt Vanda) and a willing network to air it (Showtime). All it needs now, is an arena to set up the ring.
The glass-half-empty view would be, what the state of boxing is when a major heavyweight fight can't even secure a location less than two months from its scheduled date. But those who know better can point the fight as the exception and not the rule. That the sport no longer depends on the heavyweight division, or the mainstream press, or the free networks, to remain relevant. Or profitable. Or entertaining. Or alive.
We're no longer clinging to Las Vegas as its only source of big-time boxing action. The fans returned to the major cities, with New York City, Chicago and Los Angeles re-emerging as major fight towns.
Atlantic City watched its favorite son, Arturo Gatti, get beaten into retirement this summer – suffering his third loss in four fights in the process – only to once again come alive just two months later when Kelly Pavlik came to town, bringing half of Youngstown with him.
Future Hall of Famers and longtime bitter rivals Erik Morales and Marco Antonio Barrera both bid farewell in 2007, yet the 130 lb. division still remains among the deepest in the sport. One of sport's most thrilling stars in recent years, Diego "Chico" Corrales, had his life taken this past May, yet here we are just two weeks left in 2007, still trying to decide the year's best fight among at least a dozen unforgettable slugfests.
While seemingly every other sport – hell even television and the silver screen, both on pause for as long as the Writers Guild strike lasts – riddled in controversy or poor ratings in the past calendar year, boxing manages to emerge from the rubble, boasting best numbers across the board, a mere year after its eulogy was being prepared.
For the first time in a long time, stories leading off with "another black eye for…" are attributed to everyone but boxing.
"The Jake-of-All-Trades" is a member of the Boxing Writers Association of America, a licensed judge, manager and promoter, and presently serves on the Tennessee Boxing Advisory Board. His column runs every Tuesday on BoxingScene.com. Please feel free to submit any comments or questions to Jake at JakeNDaBox@gmail.com
