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In the increasingly litigious world of professional boxing, there are great changes taking place. Valour in the ring is being replaced by vindictiveness out of the ring. You can almost sense the future direction of the sport as it heads towards the courtroom.
In the years to come, Champions will walk to the ring with the usual belt-bearing entourage only they will not be bearing belts, instead they will be waving depositions, demands and contracts; when the fighter finally steps between the ropes he’ll be flanked by lawyers well-prepared for a last minute dash to a court room to argue over the legality of a boxer wearing pink cat-skin gloves.
Press conferences will be no more. Instead the fighters, trainers, managers and promoters will sit in circles and swap stories about how awful their fathers were whilst Oprah Winfrey looks on and weeps.
Promoters will have to take out a whinging license to cover their backs and ensure that they do not get left behind and after each fight they will elbow the fighter aside so they can get their fifteen minutes of airtime, actually that happens now every time a Frank Warren fighter wins we get ten minutes of Frank telling us: “I’ve got a huge fight lined-up for this guy, honest.”
Yes boxing is changing, it is becoming increasingly feminised and I for one blame the blame culture that sees grown men act like spurned women. A case in point is the recent Glenn Close style behaviour of Frank Warren, ditched by Ricky Hatton, Warren has done everything bar boiling his former charges bunny to gain his revenge. It is spreading too as Hatton’s current promoter Dennis Hobson postures and preens telling Warren to come and have a go if he thinks his lawyer is tough enough. Bets have been laid by both the Warren and Hobson camps as to whether their guys, in this case Joe Calzaghe and Clinton Woods, would win a proposed fight, a fight that will seemingly be blocked by the “My wife is the prettiest” quibbling of both camps over cash and who comes to the ring first.
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In the years to come, Champions will walk to the ring with the usual belt-bearing entourage only they will not be bearing belts, instead they will be waving depositions, demands and contracts; when the fighter finally steps between the ropes he’ll be flanked by lawyers well-prepared for a last minute dash to a court room to argue over the legality of a boxer wearing pink cat-skin gloves.
Press conferences will be no more. Instead the fighters, trainers, managers and promoters will sit in circles and swap stories about how awful their fathers were whilst Oprah Winfrey looks on and weeps.
Promoters will have to take out a whinging license to cover their backs and ensure that they do not get left behind and after each fight they will elbow the fighter aside so they can get their fifteen minutes of airtime, actually that happens now every time a Frank Warren fighter wins we get ten minutes of Frank telling us: “I’ve got a huge fight lined-up for this guy, honest.”
Yes boxing is changing, it is becoming increasingly feminised and I for one blame the blame culture that sees grown men act like spurned women. A case in point is the recent Glenn Close style behaviour of Frank Warren, ditched by Ricky Hatton, Warren has done everything bar boiling his former charges bunny to gain his revenge. It is spreading too as Hatton’s current promoter Dennis Hobson postures and preens telling Warren to come and have a go if he thinks his lawyer is tough enough. Bets have been laid by both the Warren and Hobson camps as to whether their guys, in this case Joe Calzaghe and Clinton Woods, would win a proposed fight, a fight that will seemingly be blocked by the “My wife is the prettiest” quibbling of both camps over cash and who comes to the ring first.
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