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LAS VEGAS – A casino executive got up to the podium at a news conference yesterday and talked about how good it is for boxing that Shane Mosley and Fernando Vargas are fighting a rematch on Saturday at the MGM Grand Garden.
Boxing is, he said, in one of those unfortunate ‘down cycles.’
It happens from time to time, he said, helpfully. Nothing you can do about it.
I nearly guffawed as I listened and not simply because there is no worse way to try to sell tickets than to disparage your own product.
No, my reaction was more because the opposite is true. The top stars are fighting each other at an unprecedented rate for the 21st century.
It’s the first time since the mid-1980s and the Hagler-Hearns-Leonard-Duran Era that there are meaningful fights nearly every weekend.
But then I got to thinking about Floyd Mayweather and the shameful way he’s avoiding Antonio Margarito. That wiped that ****sure smirk off my face real quick.
How dare Mayweather not announce who he plans to fight five or six months early, I asked myself?
How dare he even consider the possibility of taking $15 million for a fight that would gain world-wide attention over the possibility of one for $8 million that would be little more than a regional attraction?
How dare Mayweather be so bold, so audacious and so bloody arrogant that he would try to arrange a fight with a sure-fire Hall of Famer instead of taking one against a guy who will need an ID to get into the Mexican Hall of Fame?
Each week, the e-mail count rises, though, asking those questions.
And as the guy who doesn’t believe Mayweather has anything to apologize for, I’ve become the lightning rod for the Mayweather bashers.
I’m the guy who couldn’t pick a real fighter from a lineup filled with clowns, one reader wrote. True enough, perhaps.
And I am, after all, the guy who loves Mayweather like no other, chided another.
I’m the guy, they keep reminding me, who had Kostya Tszyu over Ricky Hatton and Jeff Lacy over Joe Calzaghe, after all.
But I don’t get it. I guess I won’t until I see Margarito actually beat someone who can fight back.
Mayweather, of course, is being excoriated for his recent group of opponents. And there’s no doubt that a lineup of Zab Judah, Sharmba Mitchell, Arturo Gatti, Henry Bruseles, DeMarcus Corley, Philip N’dou and Victoriano Sosa is hardly a murderer’s row.
But that admittedly less-than-august group includes four former world champions, which is one more than Margarito has fought in his entire career.
You have to hand this one to promoter Bob Arum. He gets a lot of credit – and deservedly so – for turning Oscar De La Hoya into boxing’s biggest attraction.
His handling of Margarito, though, may surpass anything he did with De La Hoya and may be his best promotional work.
Arum had nowhere to go with an impatient guy who was demanding more and more money but selling precious few tickets and generating no buzz other than from the hardest of the hard cores.
Margarito’s February pay-per-view show against Manuel Gomez sold exactly 30,000, in case you were wondering.
Despite that, I believe that Mayweather will wind up fighting Margarito later this year. And, when he finally signs, no one will scream ‘Hallelujah!” louder or more frequently than I will.
If Arum said back in 1973 that Secretariat was afraid to take on Mister Ed in a match race, would anyone have talked about yanking Big Red’s Triple Crown?
Let’s be clear: Margarito is a good fighter, but hardly a great one. He may be great some day (though I doubt it), but in order to be great, your biggest wins have to be more significant than Six Heads Lewis, Kermit Cintron and Antonio Diaz.
Mayweather is 36-0 and has already beaten 11 men who held world titles at some stage in their careers. At least three of them – Genaro Hernandez, Jose Luis Castillo and Diego Corrales – are probably going to wind up in the Hall of Fame.
Gatti may manage to get in, but he’ll make it more on his drawing power and his extraordinarily entertaining fights than for his physical talents, if he does make it (And, as an aside, I wouldn’t vote for him).
But let’s be honest: Who do you think would win a Gatti-Margarito fight, if it were to be made? I’d say Margarito, but you can’t answer without taking a deep breath and needing a moment to think.
But Mayweather made Gatti look like Butterbean when he completely outclassed him last year.
Boxing is a business and, like it or not, a fight with Gatti would sell more (and get more media attention) than a fight with Margarito. That’s why Mayweather fought Gatti.
He would have fought Julio Diaz in 2003 instead of N’dou, but HBO pushed for N’dou. Corrales is about to sign to fight Diaz later this year and nobody is complaining about that match, but Mayweather doesn’t get the same understanding.
Now, coming off the fights that he has, Mayweather owes it to the fans to fight a live opponent in November (or October or whenever it is later this year that he actually fights).
I believe that that opponent will be Margarito. The announcement could come as soon as next week.
And while I respect Margarito as a tough guy and a decent fighter, let’s be honest: He’s not in Mayweather’s league.
It’s not impossible that he could beat Mayweather – who would have predicted that Iran Barkley would beat Tommy Hearns once, let alone twice? – but it’s highly, highly, highly unlikely.
Margarito is nowhere near the same class of fighter as Castillo, who caused Mayweather his most anxious moments as a pro.
Mayweather is far from a perfect fighter, but he’s the best of the lot today.
The fact that there are many knowledgeable boxing people who believe Mayweather is ducking Margarito is proof positive, I’m convinced, that Arum’s promotion of the ‘Tijuana Tornado’ is his best work yet.
Boxing is, he said, in one of those unfortunate ‘down cycles.’
It happens from time to time, he said, helpfully. Nothing you can do about it.
I nearly guffawed as I listened and not simply because there is no worse way to try to sell tickets than to disparage your own product.
No, my reaction was more because the opposite is true. The top stars are fighting each other at an unprecedented rate for the 21st century.
It’s the first time since the mid-1980s and the Hagler-Hearns-Leonard-Duran Era that there are meaningful fights nearly every weekend.
But then I got to thinking about Floyd Mayweather and the shameful way he’s avoiding Antonio Margarito. That wiped that ****sure smirk off my face real quick.
How dare Mayweather not announce who he plans to fight five or six months early, I asked myself?
How dare he even consider the possibility of taking $15 million for a fight that would gain world-wide attention over the possibility of one for $8 million that would be little more than a regional attraction?
How dare Mayweather be so bold, so audacious and so bloody arrogant that he would try to arrange a fight with a sure-fire Hall of Famer instead of taking one against a guy who will need an ID to get into the Mexican Hall of Fame?
Each week, the e-mail count rises, though, asking those questions.
And as the guy who doesn’t believe Mayweather has anything to apologize for, I’ve become the lightning rod for the Mayweather bashers.
I’m the guy who couldn’t pick a real fighter from a lineup filled with clowns, one reader wrote. True enough, perhaps.
And I am, after all, the guy who loves Mayweather like no other, chided another.
I’m the guy, they keep reminding me, who had Kostya Tszyu over Ricky Hatton and Jeff Lacy over Joe Calzaghe, after all.
But I don’t get it. I guess I won’t until I see Margarito actually beat someone who can fight back.
Mayweather, of course, is being excoriated for his recent group of opponents. And there’s no doubt that a lineup of Zab Judah, Sharmba Mitchell, Arturo Gatti, Henry Bruseles, DeMarcus Corley, Philip N’dou and Victoriano Sosa is hardly a murderer’s row.
But that admittedly less-than-august group includes four former world champions, which is one more than Margarito has fought in his entire career.
You have to hand this one to promoter Bob Arum. He gets a lot of credit – and deservedly so – for turning Oscar De La Hoya into boxing’s biggest attraction.
His handling of Margarito, though, may surpass anything he did with De La Hoya and may be his best promotional work.
Arum had nowhere to go with an impatient guy who was demanding more and more money but selling precious few tickets and generating no buzz other than from the hardest of the hard cores.
Margarito’s February pay-per-view show against Manuel Gomez sold exactly 30,000, in case you were wondering.
Despite that, I believe that Mayweather will wind up fighting Margarito later this year. And, when he finally signs, no one will scream ‘Hallelujah!” louder or more frequently than I will.
If Arum said back in 1973 that Secretariat was afraid to take on Mister Ed in a match race, would anyone have talked about yanking Big Red’s Triple Crown?
Let’s be clear: Margarito is a good fighter, but hardly a great one. He may be great some day (though I doubt it), but in order to be great, your biggest wins have to be more significant than Six Heads Lewis, Kermit Cintron and Antonio Diaz.
Mayweather is 36-0 and has already beaten 11 men who held world titles at some stage in their careers. At least three of them – Genaro Hernandez, Jose Luis Castillo and Diego Corrales – are probably going to wind up in the Hall of Fame.
Gatti may manage to get in, but he’ll make it more on his drawing power and his extraordinarily entertaining fights than for his physical talents, if he does make it (And, as an aside, I wouldn’t vote for him).
But let’s be honest: Who do you think would win a Gatti-Margarito fight, if it were to be made? I’d say Margarito, but you can’t answer without taking a deep breath and needing a moment to think.
But Mayweather made Gatti look like Butterbean when he completely outclassed him last year.
Boxing is a business and, like it or not, a fight with Gatti would sell more (and get more media attention) than a fight with Margarito. That’s why Mayweather fought Gatti.
He would have fought Julio Diaz in 2003 instead of N’dou, but HBO pushed for N’dou. Corrales is about to sign to fight Diaz later this year and nobody is complaining about that match, but Mayweather doesn’t get the same understanding.
Now, coming off the fights that he has, Mayweather owes it to the fans to fight a live opponent in November (or October or whenever it is later this year that he actually fights).
I believe that that opponent will be Margarito. The announcement could come as soon as next week.
And while I respect Margarito as a tough guy and a decent fighter, let’s be honest: He’s not in Mayweather’s league.
It’s not impossible that he could beat Mayweather – who would have predicted that Iran Barkley would beat Tommy Hearns once, let alone twice? – but it’s highly, highly, highly unlikely.
Margarito is nowhere near the same class of fighter as Castillo, who caused Mayweather his most anxious moments as a pro.
Mayweather is far from a perfect fighter, but he’s the best of the lot today.
The fact that there are many knowledgeable boxing people who believe Mayweather is ducking Margarito is proof positive, I’m convinced, that Arum’s promotion of the ‘Tijuana Tornado’ is his best work yet.
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