ESPN...get a clue or get out of the sport completely!

[scap]

In the past few weeks Boxing fans have been treated too some really good high profile matches. KT quick ko of Sharmba Mitchel and obviously Erik Morales v. MAB were both awesome! Yet this week for a few days what did ESPN do? The bottom line that reports scores and maybe once every other month has a boxing tid bit in it ( the tid bits usually are of Mike Tyson). Well they kept running over and over...How the Rid**** Bowe v. Ricky Craven fight was off because of injury. What the ****! Who cares! There was never mwention of KT, there was no bottom line about the super trilogy that was about too take place...again what the ****! Instead they post **** about Rid**** Bowe. If ESPN and others is not going to cover the best of the best then they should cover nothing at all, period! Now novice boxing fans that see that are going to come up to us cult members and talk about how bad boxing is because Rid**** Bowe is still a contender.
I live in Seattle and we have a sports station that is really good, however none of the hosts cover boxing at all, they are afraid of it because there knowledge is so weak. Bert Sugar comes on every Thursday and he does nothing to promote the sport that he so call loves so much. When he is interviewed he is always at some fight venue...yet nothing on the fight that he is there to cover, Dave Mahler who is the host just asks him about old times when he was a kid watching Joe Dimaggio or some **** like that, never boxing. I shouldn't say never...at the end of every half hour segment with Sugar Mahler always say "so whats going on in Boxing... whats Mike Tyson up too?" Burt berates Tyson and says all sorts of bad stuff about him....then Mahler says "whats up with Delahoya?" Sugar syas something like he needs to stick to singing songs with his wife and stay out of the ring." Overall point is many are failing to truly shed the proper light on this great sport, imagine if ESPN had a preview show for all of the big fights, what if Burt Sugar could be a real ambassordor to the sport and instead of letting some uneducated sports jock steer him into 1940's baseball talk...Sugar say"No" were talking big time boxing. People are sheep and they love to follow, the problems is that even the people that are so called into boxing (ESPN, SUgar)are doing the sport a huge diservice everyone time they post Bowe v Craven etc.

I'd bee curious to hear what you all think about this and if there is more examples of the Burt Sugar/sport jock thing in your neck of the woods...this sport is every bit as great as all the others...we just don't have the poeple to artculate it(thats why I like MAx) and when those people are in a position to do something...they don't do ****!

[Neuraxis]

I agree. My local paper didn't cover the KT/Mitchell fight either.

[Mr. Ryan]

ESPN was really good in having Friday Night Fights. FNF was a great asset to boxing as it was regularly scheduled boxing cards and had expert commentators and weekly guests. It discussed the boxing world and made the boxing community more of a frequent thing than a once a month thing. But ESPN never really payed much attention to the sport as it has in recent years become a cult sport that focused on the hispanic market. Everyone wants to be like Mike, just not Tyson. We are dealing with a big issue in why boxing doesn't get the attention I feel it deserves: The superstars of boxing are household names, just not in your house. I believe that in 2002, boxing was behind Track and Field as far as endorsement profits. Its a dying sport in the mainstream world.

[scap]

FNF is great but mainstream espn does not cover boxing. it is a dying sport because no one promotes it...I have tons of friends who have become huge fight fans in recent years who had no clue about all of the great fighters in the sport. Again people are like sheep, if ESPN and others report it and make it important then they will follow, if they report **** like Rid**** bowe then they will be forced to make up their mind about the sport based off of that.

FNF's are great but lets face it, that for the most part is b and c level fighters, very rarely do you see an A guy on and if he is an A guy chances are he is young and is not clearly legit yet. My point here is that try to get a regular fan into football by having him watch the CFL or the world league. Try to get a guy to watch baseball by showing him AA or AAA ball....it won't happen-casual fans are not going to get passionate about the sport watching b and c level guys they have to be exposed to the best!

[The Fix]

i like fnf, while they may not have high profile fights atleast they are televising boxing regularly.i also like the guests they have now that max is gone.seeing interviews of some of the best boxers on the planet is awsome and espn provides that with thier guests.

[Explosivo]

My local sports station is actullay pretty good about boxing. The guys who are during the day in the middle of the week actually go to Mandalay Bay for every big fight. They were just there a couple weeks ago and they had both Shane and Winky on. They also have Rich Morotta, who as you may know does boxing for Fox Sports, who does a boxing show every Saturday morning. He has all kinds of guests on. I listened on morning and he had Diego Corrales as a guest host. The station I am talking about is based in L.A, where boxing may be more of a priority than other cities.

As for ESPN, I think they could do a better job too.

[rsl]

FNF is great but mainstream espn does not cover boxing. it is a dying sport because no one promotes it...I have tons of friends who have become huge fight fans in recent years who had no clue about all of the great fighters in the sport. Again people are like sheep, if ESPN and others report it and make it important then they will follow, if they report **** like Rid**** bowe then they will be forced to make up their mind about the sport based off of that.

FNF's are great but lets face it, that for the most part is b and c level fighters, very rarely do you see an A guy on and if he is an A guy chances are he is young and is not clearly legit yet. My point here is that try to get a regular fan into football by having him watch the CFL or the world league. Try to get a guy to watch baseball by showing him AA or AAA ball....it won't happen-casual fans are not going to get passionate about the sport watching b and c level guys they have to be exposed to the best!

Good post, nobody would wanna watch "semi-pro" athletes have a go at it(just look at what happened w/ the XFL). ESPN should make some changes in the way they produce their FNF's, I have an idea and I think FNF has done this from time to time. Maybe instead of showing an undercard which has "D - rated" fighters and then the main event , why not show some classic fights that's in their library as an appetizer(as a fan I'd rather watch an old classic battle than watch a bunch of bums) and then show the main event and they should just do this on a weekly basis. Screw showing the undercard fight, but again it goes back to rival networks and promoters, I'm pretty sure if ESPN could get a hold of better matches they'd put it on.

[rsl]

In the past few weeks Boxing fans have been treated too some really good high profile matches. KT quick ko of Sharmba Mitchel and obviously Erik Morales v. MAB were both awesome! Yet this week for a few days what did ESPN do? The bottom line that reports scores and maybe once every other month has a boxing tid bit in it ( the tid bits usually are of Mike Tyson). Well they kept running over and over...How the Rid**** Bowe v. Ricky Craven fight was off because of injury. What the ****! Who cares! There was never mwention of KT, there was no bottom line about the super trilogy that was about too take place...again what the ****! Instead they post **** about Rid**** Bowe. If ESPN and others is not going to cover the best of the best then they should cover nothing at all, period! Now novice boxing fans that see that are going to come up to us cult members and talk about how bad boxing is because Rid**** Bowe is still a contender.
I live in Seattle and we have a sports station that is really good, however none of the hosts cover boxing at all, they are afraid of it because there knowledge is so weak. Bert Sugar comes on every Thursday and he does nothing to promote the sport that he so call loves so much. When he is interviewed he is always at some fight venue...yet nothing on the fight that he is there to cover, Dave Mahler who is the host just asks him about old times when he was a kid watching Joe Dimaggio or some **** like that, never boxing. I shouldn't say never...at the end of every half hour segment with Sugar Mahler always say "so whats going on in Boxing... whats Mike Tyson up too?" Burt berates Tyson and says all sorts of bad stuff about him....then Mahler says "whats up with Delahoya?" Sugar syas something like he needs to stick to singing songs with his wife and stay out of the ring." Overall point is many are failing to truly shed the proper light on this great sport, imagine if ESPN had a preview show for all of the big fights, what if Burt Sugar could be a real ambassordor to the sport and instead of letting some uneducated sports jock steer him into 1940's baseball talk...Sugar say"No" were talking big time boxing. People are sheep and they love to follow, the problems is that even the people that are so called into boxing (ESPN, SUgar)are doing the sport a huge diservice everyone time they post Bowe v Craven etc.

I'd bee curious to hear what you all think about this and if there is more examples of the Burt Sugar/sport jock thing in your neck of the woods...this sport is every bit as great as all the others...we just don't have the poeple to artculate it(thats why I like MAx) and when those people are in a position to do something...they don't do ****!

I agree, I've had similar thoughts, I mean it seems like its been that way for some time now, where ESPN just reports the negative happenings in the boxing world. I have longed wished for this and so far Don King has been the only one that I've heard of, "planning" anything as far as furthering the popularity of boxing and some of y'all have heard of this but putting on a 24hr. boxing and other full contact sports channel on cable is way better than watching some sloppy ass street brawler from Guadalajara or "Hillbilly" Harry from Durant, Oklahoma fight. Now going back to Don King's idea of a full-contact sports channel, alot of people mock it because it's gonna be ran by DKP, but atleast it's a guy that is all about boxing, instead of f**kin' ESPN who does nothing but report about some " D -rated" fighter rob an old lady.

[MlLkMan]

HBO should have like "HBO Boxing", one channel just for boxing.

[Tyson'scolon]

Or at least a 1/2 hour weekly boxing show, similar to their "Inside the NFL".