Are We Finally Getting It Right in Boxing?

By Jake Donovan

From the moment the paid attendance for Saturday night's boxing event at the Staples Center in Los Angeles was announced, the forthcoming responses were so predictable that you could've finished everyone's sentences for them.
 
"Who said boxing's dead?"
 
Every time an arena boasts far more people than empty chairs, everyone in the industry immediately bursts into self-congratulatory mode. All it takes is one healthy arena, and suddenly boxing is back in the forefront as far as our beat writers are concerned.

Throw in a memorable bout – or at least an end result fit for the time capsule – and the inevitable comparisons are made to every other sport in proclaiming that nothing beats a night at the fights.
 
Make no mistake; there was plenty of cause for celebration before, during and after Shane Mosley’s stunning 9th round knockout of Antonio Margarito in Saturday’s welterweight battle.

Sports fans – not just boxing fans – are still talking about the early frontrunner for Upset of the Year.

The promotion is the standard for the way it ought to be in boxing. Bob Arum and Richard Schaefer deserve major props for taking this fight out of the casinos, and truly bringing the event to the people, and at an affordable price for all.

Where boxing’s problem lies, however, is that Saturday’s event is unique to the way business has been previously done. When events like Mosley-Margarito become the standard and not the exception, then we can begin to say that boxing is all the way back.

For now, we’re still less than two months removed from the way boxing has been for far too long. After enjoying a very strong finish to 2007 and even better start to ‘08, the year seriously sputtered down the stretch.

Its biggest event, Manny Pacquiao’s eighth-round stoppage of Oscar de la Hoya last December, helped juke the year-end PPV stats to give the appearance that ’08 wasn’t a total disaster in that regard. But the truth was that the sport, while not dead, was seriously in need of resuscitation.

Almost four weeks into the New Year, the networks – and more importantly, the promoters and fighters – have responded with a vengeance.  There have been three active weekends (Friday or Saturday) of boxing, and plenty to talk about on each weekend.

So while the sport clearly isn’t anywhere near its glory days, the momentary positive shift does beg the question: Is boxing finally getting it right?

With the exception of perhaps one upcoming telecast between now and April, gone are the days when HBO house fighters are afforded dunkers.

Undefeated welterweight Andre Berto was taken off of his Gerber Stage Two diet and given by far the toughest test of his career in his January 19 scrap with Luis Collazo. It wasn’t a tough fight by accident; the common belief going in was that Berto would be tested in this fight more than at any other point in his young career.

What few expected to come about was a 12-round war that would lead the early charge for the Fight of the Year race.

Pre-fight talks of Mosley-Margarito naturally dominated the headlines throughout Fight Week, but there was still plenty of banter surrounding the “other” welterweight fight. The most common debate surrounded the ending, a controversial decision win for Berto, who fell behind early and needed a strong finish in order to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat.

Some fans wondered aloud how Berto would match up with whomever would be the last man standing in last weekend’s battle. Others pined for a rematch, preferrably in a more favorable location, perhaps in New York City, the originally rumored location for the fight.

The point is that people were still talking. Much like last Saturday’s end result will serve as the main topic of conversation around plenty of water coolers. At least until boxing’s next big moment.

Given the upcoming schedule, there’s a good chance that Mosley-Margarito talk will be replaced very soon. February is loaded with fights hitting four separate markets.

Showtime Championship Boxing makes its 2009 debut with as good of a grudge match as there is to be found in the sport. Reigning multi-belted super flyweight titlist Vic Darchinyan, coming off of a Fighter of the Year worthy campaign in ’08, defends his titles and honor against longtime rival and former lineal junior flyweight king Jorge Arce. The conference call (scheduled for Wednesday) should prove to be worth the price of admission, never mind when they throw down for real ten days later.

Perhaps it’s best that the fight came with a three year wait. At any other point, it probably gets dumped in a casino, either on the Vegas strip, or at the Chumash Casino, which has served as the home away for home for many a Shobox and HBO Boxing After Dark event in recent years.

But with the casino towns featuring little more than tumbleweed these days, this fight actually lands in a real neighborhood – Anaheim, California to be exact, less than an hour from Armenian-heavy Glendale (CA), where Darchinyan is now based.

Three weeks later, HBO offers the lineal lightweight championship between Juan Manuel Marquez and former three-belt titlist Juan Diaz, in the challenger’s’ hometown of Houston, Texas.

Coming off of the worst performance – and to date, the lone loss – of his career, Diaz was still able to enjoy a homecoming of more than 15,000 at the Toyota Center for his 12 round points win over Michael Katsidis last September. If they loved him when he was down…

Needless to say, a sellout is already expected.

One week prior, promoter Bob Arum continues to show why he’s still far and away the best in the business at what he does.

Sure, there are several complaints surrounding his split-site independent pay-per-view, which features Miguel Cotto and Kelly Pavlik in bouts they are both heavily favored to win. Just don’t tell that to the fans who are flocking to the ticket windows in droves to attend either event.

Cotto returns to the arena that confirmed his superstar status, Madison Square Garden, when he faces unheralded British welterweight Michael Jennings. The lion’s share of the PPV telecast will take place at the Garden, before the telecast magically switches over to the Chevrolet Centre in Youngstown, OH. It is there where the town’s favorite son, Kelly Pavlik, will put his lineal middleweight title on the line against Marco Antonio Rubio.

In both fights, the evening is less about what’s at stake than how well both Cotto and Pavlik can rebound from the first defeat of their respective careers. Cotto returns for the first time since conceding to Margarito in eleven rounds last July, while the evening will be Pavlik’s first fight since his virtual shutout loss in a catchweight bout with Bernard Hopkins last October.

Much like Diaz and the homecoming reception to which he received last September following the setback to Nate Campbell, it says a lot of both Cotto and Pavlik that both still boast the types of rabid fan bases that live and die by their every breath. The Chevrolet Centre is already claiming its best ever crowd, while Madison Square Garden figures to boast a non-papered crowd of at least 10,000.

The one weekend in February where hometown crowd doesn’t figure to factor into any of the evening’s results is HBO’s next edition of Boxing After Dark, February 14. It’s only fitting, since the card didn’t even have a home until a week or two ago, when Don King was finally able to land the Bank Atlantic Center in Sunrise, FL for the outstanding tripleheader offered on a day normally reserved for lovers.

A brief overview of the evening: undefeated flame throwing junior middleweight prospect-turned-contender Alfredo Angulo steps up in class when he faces former welterweight king Ricardo Mayorga; Nate Campbell ends an 11-month hiatus with a dangerous defense of his lightweight belts against 6’0” Ali Funeka of South Africa; and Sergio Martinez, originally scheduled to face undefeated but untested (and severely overrated) Joe Greene, now gets a tougher assignment in former welterweight titlist Kermit Cintron, who not only takes the fight on short notice, but also moves up in weight to do so.

Recently added to the schedule was Tomasz Adamek’s first defense of his lineal cruiserweight title, scheduled for February 27 against Johnathon Banks. Adamek won the crown in a 12-round war against Steve Cunningham at the Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey last December.

Those who attended the event insisted it was an evening nearly unrivaled in terms of atmosphere. Now based out of North New Jersey, Adamek brought with him a rabid Polish-American fan base that plans to fill the very same arena when he defends against the undefeated Banks.

This upcoming weekend is a rare Saturday that doesn’t boast a major card. But ESPN steps up in a big way with its telecast this Friday, when they travel to fight-friendly Montreal for Herman Ngoudjo’s junior welterweight scrap with Juan Urango. There’s yet to be a televised card from that corner of the world that hasn’t produced a raucous crowd, and this weekend figures to be more of the same, of course in a very good way.

Of course, come Monday morning, most if not all of the sports talk will center around the NFL’s Super Bowl, for better or for worse. Even with a less than desirable matchup - unless of course you’re from Pittsburgh (Steelers) or Phoenix (Arizona Cardinals) – it’s the main subject of every sports telecast.

It’s a reminder of how far sports like American football have soared in the nation’s culture, and how far boxing has slid down the same food chain. That’s why it remains inappropriate to bang our chests and proclaim that the sport is as healthy as it’s ever been, because it simply isn’t true.

But what is true is that for the first time in a long time, those in charge seemed to have finally learned from their past mistakes. With so much to look forward to every weekend throughout the first quarter and in more places than just your nearest casino town, we can begin to say that boxing is once again finally getting it right.

Jake Donovan is a member of the Boxing Writers Association of America and the Tennessee Boxing Advisory Board. Comments/questions can be submitted to JakeNDaBox@gmail.com.