For a meager $54.95, one can bear witness to boxing’s resurrection when “The Golden Boy” Oscar De La Hoya faces off with “Pretty Boy” Floyd Mayweather, Jr. on Saturday.
Or at least that’s what some are saying, one in particular being CBS Sportsline’s Mike Freeman. But rather than focus on how great this bout, these fighters and the “sweet science” are and can be, he decides to inform readers of how boxing - despite its pitfalls - will always be far better than, “the worst league ever invented, the UFC.”
What transpires is a piece eloquently titled “De La Hoya-Mayweather will separate boxing from thuggish UFC.”
This coming as he boasts of a fight built up - marvelously I’ll admit - by HBO’s “24/7″ series in which Floyd Mayweather, Jr. tossed out as many F-bombs as jabs with his young son right next to him and his uncle Roger Mayweather proudly compared his courtroom triumph to OJ Simpson’s.
While just about every paragraph in the piece is infuriating to mixed-martial arts fans and common-sense supporters alike, it is one in particular that is simply disgraceful.
“Mixed-martial arts will never be as good as boxing on its worst day. Many of the ultimates are nothing but thugs and ruffians. All that league has done is take a few former nightclub bouncers, knuckle crackers and parolees, put on some fancy TV graphics and told them, ‘Kick the other guy in the nuts,’” he writes.
The old high-school jock in me wants to retort by saying someone should kick Freeman in the nuts - and then raising my hand. But the journalist in me is simply embarrassed by the fact that I share the same job title as this guy. I’m really nothing special, I scrape by as a sports editor for a small paper and have been privileged enough to write for Hall of Fame along side journalists whose resumes I couldn’t duplicate in my wildest dreams. Nonetheless, I take pride in writing, in particular, writing about sports.
People, sports fans, they’ve a long history in tossing out unfounded insults that couldn’t be further from the truth. Writers on the other hand have an obligation to at least attempt to be responsible in what they print - even if it is an opinion piece.
And in the aforementioned paragraph, that most certainly is not the case.
For starters, boxing on its worst day has seen death, rape charges atop never-ending lists of criminal charges, fighters who can’t speak coherently and riots - one that I can remember being caused when one fighter kept punching, “the other guy in the nuts.” Hence, casting “many” of the combatants in mixed-martial arts as “thugs and ruffians” and “former nightclub bouncers, knuckle crackers and parolees” is ludicrous enough, but when comparing them to boxers, it’s just plain stupid.
Chuck Liddell has an accounting degree. Tito Ortiz is a savvy businessman. Randy Couture is a former Olympic alternate.
Growing up watching boxing matches on HBO and wherever else you could find them, 90% of the fighter profiles seemed to be about guys who would’ve been in jail or dead if they weren’t getting swindled for millions by Don King as pro fighters.
Of course they’re not all like that. De La Hoya is pure class. I’ve talked with his trainer for the fight, Freddie Roach, and he’s about as nice a guy as you’ll find.
Not everyone associated with boxing is a criminal, but if you’re going to compare MMA and boxing, boxing’s clearly winning the orange jumpsuit battle. And Freeman, who at one point refers to himself as being part of the mainstream media, clearly is comparing the sports.
Of the impending bout-to-save-boxing, he bellows: “It is good vs. evil, Halle Berry vs. Courtney Love, true sport against the mosh pit of sweat and bloodied skull fractures known as ultimate fighting.”
Nope, it’s just De La Hoya vs. Mayweather. One is elegance, the exception to the rule in boxing, and the other is Mayweather, the best in the ring and the worst display of respect out of it. It’s going to make a whole heckuva lot of money, people will have boxing on the brain for a while and then it’ll fizzle out again. The UFC won’t though. It’s here to stay, just like those who call it barbaric and will never understand its appeal.
Freeman uses gross and unfounded stereotypes rooted in ignorance and false assumption. Not all boxers are crooks and not all mixed-martial artists (none that I’ve come across as a matter of fact) are anything like he colors them.
Not all sports writers, or members of the mainstream media, are out of touch when it comes to the athletic world they cover, either. But every so often an irresponsible article like this comes around to make the general public think the contrary.
Whether people want it to or not, Saturday’s fight probably won’t save anything, but any fight fan - boxing, MMA, you name it - should be looking forward to it. I’m excited to see it. I’m just not going to shell out the $55 bucks to see one fight and an unheard-about undercard. I’ll just wait three weeks, pay $15 less and watch Liddell and Quinton Jackson duke it out, right along with a bunch of other “thugs” and “parolees.”
Some time back Charley Steiner wrote a piece for HOFMAG.com entitled “
