Comments Thread For: “Fighting Words” – Shoot First, Ask Questions Later

[jtiger78]

let me ask you something. You said floyd is no psychic, but did you ever think that pacquiao is no psychic either?

You say "did floyd know pac was going to say no to the 14 days cutoff date"

but you don't say "did pac know that floyd was giong to say no to the 24 days cutoff date"

it's this kind of double-standard that people need to get over. If pac didn't want the fight, he wouldn't have wasted all that time negotiating. He wouldn't have offered a 24-day cutoff date either. He would have called it off and signed another fight much sooner and promoted it more instead of finding himself with a 7 week training camp and a poorly promoted fight. Floyd is no psychic, that's true. But pac is no psychic either.

good question but he never knew pac would have a cut off date and did floyd try to gethim to take the 10mil per pound over down to 5mil or did he just agree to make the fight? There were 5 other points i made also why u just pick one?

[Bokor Man]

this article is spot on.

[mrlopez]

nice piece, good read

[jbpanama]

Wow..That's all i have to say about that..

greatest PUNK OUT Artist EVER!!!

[-The Glove-]

There is little need for evidence, or even truth, in this society. Debate and discussion has become argument. A man merely needs speak loudest to get his point across. He then only needs to repeat his point again and again for unfounded opinion to become unchallenged fact.

Pessimism is rampant. It is becoming too common to assume the worst, shoot first, and ask questions later.

Like a rumor raging through the halls of a high school, accusations of Manny Pacquiao being on performance-enhancing drugs spread and spread until it didn’t matter that there was no evidence. Instead, armchair biologists and scientists became instant experts. Often, those who determined that Pacquiao is dirty were those who already disliked him.

Opinion is analyzing the facts to form a certain perspective. Bias is manipulating the facts so that they paint a certain picture. The most single-minded can take everything and make it mean anything. ]

All great points. All great quotes.

[-The Glove-]

well said as well in regards to atlas' comment on shane. that comment is making me start to despise the guy

The guy needs to read a book on responsible resporting.

[Mr. David]

Apologies for taking so long to get to these comments. It's been a hectic few days.

Thanks to all for reading and commenting, even if you don't agree with me. Trust me, it doesn't offend me if people disagree with my thoughts.

Now, to some of your comments:

well written but it wont stop ppl from sayin or talkin **** ppl believe what they want too believe and thats it.

That's very true. People tend to be very firm in their beliefs -- Personally, it's an accomplishment to get me to admit I'm wrong about something. But I just wanted to make an observation about the knee-jerk conclusions that often come out. I try to be patient and wait for more information on things to become available.

Like if the Washington Redskins start out 4-0, I'm happy, but I don't predict Super Bowl. I wait for the season to get deeper...

i get where this columnist is coming from, i really do, but i have two issues with what he wrote...

1) whether cintron dived through the ropes or not is one thing, but the guy lay motionless for ten minutes because he was winded. i honestly don't think this columnist has ever been winded. are we never supposed to question athletes? this is not the same as the dirrell/abraham ****, or the pacroid nonsense. people who say that cintron milked it have plain evidence to support the theory. if he was winded then get up and give the fans the fight they paid for. he was WINDED ffs! that is nothing. if you're ok you get up and get in the ring. cintron has no-one to blame for the fans doubting him but himself. im sorry mr columnist but you have that aspect of your column way wrong...

2) when you become a drug cheat, it doesnt matter how nice a guy you are, you are forever subject to scepticism. if you are a drug cheat like shane mosley you will always be questioned in this regard. he has to deal with it. im sorry mr columnist but teddy atlas is perfectly entitled to question a fighter that has corrupted the sport of boxing by taking drugs. whose side are u on here? a drug cheat, or a man who wants to clean up the sport? you seriously need to rethink this issue.

other than those two points i agree bwith what you have said. there is far too much assuming going on these days. HOWEVER, particularly with mosley, there is no assuming involved. mosley is and always will be guilty and he has to live with that. to his credit he does live with it and has shown remorse. why cant u live with it mr columnist?

as for cintron? please... the vast majority trust what their eyes told them on saturday night; there was no injury, just a guy looking for an easy night's pay. can i say for 100% certain that he was faking? yes i can, because being winded would never stop me from getting up and fighting after a ten minute break. would it stop you?

You bring up some very good points. My thoughts on them:

1) You're correct, HOW Kermit Cintron ended up out of the ring and what he acted like once he was out of the ring are two separate issues. I think a lot of people gave too much credence to the slow-motion of Cintron's dive/trip out of the ring. I keep watching in full speed, and it's so quick, I have difficulty imagining Cintron thinking: "Hm. I landed a good punch on Williams. We're clinching, I'm tripping, OH, how about I dive out of the ring?"

As per him being out of the ring, we're getting conflicting reports right now. Cintron says this. The doctor says Cintron's lying. Cintron's team says the doctor's lying.

If Cintron was ready to fight, I would've liked him to get back up, to tell the doctors telling him to lie still to shush themselves. That's the troubling thing to me. But I've seen comments, for example, that Cintron was looking for a way out of the fight, dove out, yadda yadda...

Like you said, separate things.

2) As for Mosley... Mosley got implicated once, had to testify in front of a grand jury and had his reputation tarnished. It'd take some balls or some ******ity to do it again. Doesn't mean he didn't. You're right... it's like someone cheating on their girl and then trying to tell their next girl that they're never going to cheat again. There will always be su****ion... BUT... I feel like Teddy Atlas never brought up any su****ions about Mosley in the past seven years, and only brought it up after the loss to Mayweather. That's different.

just a few with something in common, mark mcguire, barry bonds, sammy sosa ....... never officially failed a drug test ......brittany spears, george bush and the guy who wrote this..... officially idiots

Though steroids were banned from the game in the early 90s, there was actually no testing for them until the past decade. Bonds did test positive in a survey testing year... I don't recall exactly what for. He was also taking stuff that wasn't being tested for and hence wouldn't show up. That's the horse race between testers and PED manufacturers.

Sosa is said to have been on the list of more than 100 players who tested positive during that survey year. And McGwire was, at the minimum, taking andro, which was legal when it was found in his locker. He's admitted to other stuff, but see my previous note about when tests were implemented.

There are a lot more tangible things to cause su****ion in baseball players than there are in the boxers we're referring to. If we're talking Mosley, yes, it's fair to have lost trust in him forever. If we're talking Pacquiao, it's been a witch hunt. We can't be 100 percent certain he's not using. But to insist that he is?

i think the comments towards cintron where kind of unfair but he said after the fight that he was only winded then why not continue now he wants a rematch

so the fans have to pay to see what looked like it was going to be a cagey boring fight anyway so cintron can get another healthy paycheck

i think it should have been ruled a N/C but rules are rules and he lost the fight

as for the atlas comments i think they were warranted alot of people were probably thinking that same thing but didn't have the balls to say it

See above response about Mosley and Atlas not saying anything for the past seven years.

Well, well, well...all of a sudden we are being accused of being pessimists, false accusers, and idiots. I have one question - what else are we supposed to do? We are intelligent people, with valid questions and su****ions! What is wrong about questioning a fighter's heart? Or his decision making ability??? Should we not have questioned Valero and "observances" about him?? Look at what happened there. Period. We have the unfortunate position to observe, question, and make assumptions. We do not have the privilege to ask Mr. Cintron himself whether he intentionally threw himself out of the ring do we? So should we stay quiet until we can ask him? I agree that we arent physicists, but please Mr. Boxing Writer, do you really know us? Do you know me? Let's not make assumptions shall we? Or judgements about our intelligence for that matter. We may never know the truth about cintron, mosley, or tyson's quirky ring tactics - oh wait, let's turn our cheek and not ask questions....uh, I dont think so. As fans of boxing, we deserve to pursue the truth. We may never find it, and honestly Mr. Boxing Writer, you may never find it either. But at least, the truth, in whatever shape or form it comes, is all we have to try to hold on high this sport we love. We cannot sit back and withhold questions about something that appears inconsistent, unstable, and/or su****ious. To give people the benefit of the doubt is foolish in this sport. Unfortunately in boxing, its characters haven't been the most honest and pure. Here is another name for you: Louis Resto. We aren't being pessimistic, dumb, or simple...we are simply wary of that which we've seen before. There's nothing wrong or bad about that.

What do Valero and Resto have to do with this? Resto was caught after the act, with evidence. Valero was caught after the act, with confession.

I'm talking about people taking a look at things as if they were the Warren Commission or JFK conspiracy theorists looking at the Zapruder film... or even acting like Joe McCarthy looking for evidence of communist ties... they twist and insist and twist and insist when there really isn't enough solid to reach a firm conclusion.

People can think what they want to think, and I'm all for that. But that doesn't mean they're right.

Good article...unfortunately, i highly doubt the people reading that are gonna take in what you're trying to get at...Some people are rght, NSB isnt neessarily about boxing anymore...

It's not just boxing forums. What bothered me was when a sports writer friend came up to me and said something about Pacquiao using steroids. Like in high school, a rumor that is repeated often enough and loud enough doesn't need to be true... but it can become so widespread that it's treated as basically being true.

[Mr. David]

I more than happy to debate Griesman over the issue of Pac and PEDs. He can come to our boxing site anytime, anyplace. Nobody can say certain either way, but i am sure this writer never even see most of pac's fights.


In fact, i will give him an email that I sent to ring magazine. I guess he is more of an expert than some of the doctors about the issue. He should go to the medical advisory board to both the New York State Athletic Commission and Nevada State Athlethic Commission and see what he can offer to the debate of PED's.?

Hi. I've got an e-mail address posted at the end of all my articles. You can always feel free to contact me that way, unless you feel better about yourself calling me out via the message board. Either way...

I skimmed your articles. I'm not against drug testing. I've said in previous columns that I think Pacquiao should agree to the tests. I've been for better drug testing in baseball than the really weak version they have now that basically amounts to an IQ test.

That's not my issue. My issue is people insisting that Pacquiao uses steroids despite the lack of evidence, despite any solid reason for su****ion. Just people making observations and trying to make a+b equal c when, in this case, a and b need a lot more until they can equal c.

I guess my problem in this whole thing as I have said it that BOTH fighters asked things that were over the top, things they hadn’t asked for in the past, so it goes both ways. I have not heard one person who was calling Floyd a chicken or saying he was being ridiculous ever mention that Manny asking for 10 million per pound or fraction over 147 being something that was not ridiculous, which it is. Most people want it one way but no the other. People like to use stats and numbers and excuses to tell one side of the story or make a strong argument in their favor.

This is a good point, and one that I've been thinking about.

Here's the difference I can see: Mayweather had to make a last-minute change to his last contractual agreement, so at least there's a history there. Pacquiao doesn't have a history of using performance enhancing drugs.

But like I said, I think Pacquiao should take the tests just to shut the critics up.

I also am a proponent of better drug testing. But what's the limit? Do we make all boxers take USADA type tests? Do we start treating boxers like the Tour de France guys and suspect that everyone is using and hence should be tracked and tested at all times?

It's a good question, one I don't have the answer to now.

[Mr. David]

Again, thanks to all, especially for keeping it respectful. Like I said, I don't expect everyone to agree with me. I'm for good respectful debate and discussion that doesn't get stuck on hardheaded closedmindedness.