By Cliff Rold
On Wednesday afternoon, Team USA got something it needed badly.
After being shut out of the medal stand on the men’s side for the first time in Olympic competition in 2012, light flyweight Nico Hernandez guaranteed the men’s team would not leave empty handed this time around.
A different test begins.
The test is this: if Team USA keeps winning, can they begin to capture the imagination of the American viewing public?
It’s been a long time since that was the case.
There was a time when an Olympic was a ticket to fame and fortune. The gold medal members of the fantastic 1976 and 1984 teams became stars and cashed in on their Olympic success. Oscar de la Hoya became a household name in 1992.
Since then, similar glory on the medal stand hasn’t meant a road paved with gold in the paid ranks.
That doesn’t mean Olympic success hasn’t had its benefits. The Olympics have produced plenty of stars, even without gold medals. Floyd Mayweather became the biggest box office draw of his time. Fighters like Jermain Taylor and Deontay Wilder had and are having, respectively, high profile careers relative to the boxing landscape.
Andre Ward, the last gold medal winner from the US (2004), has become a boxing star but the medal didn’t break him into the mainstream of the sports landscape. David Reid, a gold medalist in 1996, was hampered by eye injuries and ended up as part of the story of Felix Trinidad before fizzling out.
While the Olympic exposure helped them all, it wasn’t quite the rocket ship it had been for an earlier generation.
There are signs that something different could be happening this year. Prior to Hernandez’s bout on Wednesday, the Today show did a quality profile of bantamweight Shakur Stevenson. Stevenson earned a bye into the round of sixteen and is already the centerpiece of a national ad campaign. Well before he makes his first start, millions of television viewers will have seen his face as part of a Powerade ad.
He’s not the first member of this version of Team USA to get national advertising attention. Both of the Team USA women have also been similarly featured. Lightweight Mikaela Mayer, a 2012 bronze medalist at the world championships, was in a 2013 Dr. Pepper ad. 2012 Olympic gold medalist and 2016 hopeful Claresa Shields, like Stevenson, is a Powerade poster person.
This is all positive.
It’s not the same as prime time recognition of what the athletes accomplish in the ring.
Currently, there are no listings for boxing on the primary NBC coverage of the Games. The sport is relegated to the NBC sports network with one night on the USA network. Only one thing can change that.
Team USA has to keep winning.
It may not force a heavy change in the television slots, but it could create a story. It helps that boxing is consistently more compelling than it has been in several Olympic cycles. The change in scoring and removal of headgear is having the intended effect. It is making fights look like fights again more often. The slap and run style is less evident.
Team USA Olympic boxing hasn’t been the sort of positive story television could sink their teeth into for years. It has been relegated to the sidelines while thrilling events like kayaking take up hours of main network time during the day and the glamour sports of swimming, gymnastics and track dominate prime time.
It’s not like boxing fans can’t find the fights. The NBC app allows for a fight fan to see every sting of leather landed as it happens. Technology makes it possible for everyone to get anything they want.
One thing the US public always wants is a winner. Nico Hernandez gave us one on Wednesday with the possibility of even more winning to come. With seven of eight Olympic boxers still alive in the tournament (five men, both women), there is a story here.
Can they keep winning long enough to spread the word and force themselves into at least some prime time coverage? If they can, maybe the Olympic bounce can be a genuine boon for the sport again.
Now for a review of Wednesday’s results.
Nico Hernandez
Through the Round of Eight: Hernandez, 20, of Wichita, Kansas, will be the first medalist in the 108 lb. class since Michael Carbajal won silver in 1988. He earned his way to the medal stand with a disciplined victory over Ecuador’s Carlos Quipo. Hernandez struggled to find his range in the first, losing the round on two cards. His growing maturity in Rio was evident in the next two rounds.
Maximizing his advantage in height and reach, Hernandez took control in the second and won the favor of two judges. A strong final round saw him noticeably stun his opponent and sweep the scoring of the round from all three officials. It is a coming of age before our eyes. Can he grow up enough to make the finals?
Coming Next: Friday (11:15 AM EST), Hernandez will face Uzbekistan’s Hasanboy Dusmatov in what looks like a tough fight. Dusmatov was impressive in shutting out Kazakhstan’s Birzhan Zhakypov in the quarterfinals. Fast and aggressive, Hernandez will have to figure out how to use his greater height to create countering opportunities as Dusmatov comes forward and will have to beat him to the punch in close quarters. Hernandez showed in upsetting Russia’s Vasilii Egorov that he could rise to the occasion under pressure against a more experienced foe. He will have to do so again if he wants to hear his national anthem played on the podium.
Gary Antuanne Russell
Through the Round of Thirty-Two: Russell, 20, of Capitol Heights, Maryland, took care of business on Wednesday with a unanimous decision over Haitian-by-way-of-Brooklyn Richardson Hitchins. The brother of current WBC featherweight champion Gary Russell Jr., Russell has the pedigree. He showed some of the speed and defensive technique that gives him a chance to proceed at the Games. Hitchins proved a solid foil but could get on the board on only one of three judges scorecards.
Russell, Team USA’s light welterweight hopeful, can at least say he made it to the ring. Complications on the scale kept big brother, a serious medal hopeful in 2008, from ever competing. Little brother is two wins away from sending the Olympic dreams of the Russell family to the medal stand.
Coming Next: Russell will have to defeat a strong draw in the round of sixteen and he has until Sunday to think about it (12:30 PM EST). Thailand’s Wuttichai Masuk was a bronze medalist at the 2015 world championship tournament. Older at 26 and slightly taller than Russell, will that experience prove too much? And what kind of pressure could there be on Russell by then? Team USA is 6-1 after Wednesday. The momentum for the team could change, for the better or worse, a lot in the next four days.
Previous Olympic Thoughts
Cliff Rold is the Managing Editor of BoxingScene and a member of the Transnational Boxing Rankings Board and the Boxing Writers Association of America. He can be reached at roldboxing@hotmail.com