There seems to be reason for optimism for the status of The Sweet Science to rise from one step above mountaineering back to its former prominence as a major sport. Boxing has been represented well of late with the Academy Award winning Million Dollar Baby, the Jimmy Braddock bio-pic Cinderella Man, the brilliant documentaries Unforgivable Blackness and Ring of Fire, the boxing reality series The Contender, and a plethora of great fights to satisfy the hard core fan and hopefully reach out to broaden the sport’s fan base. In addition, Main Events is still working on a deal to broadcast fights on network television, possibly by 2006. From a business perspective as well as the best interests of boxing, such regular broadcasts along with corporate sponsorship might be the best thing to happen to the sport in a generation. Television means exposure, as well as revenue.
It’s been a great year on the tube. Let’s review a few of the high points as we approach the mid-year point.
Ring of Fire: The Emile Griffith Story, originally broadcast on The USA Network on April 20th, examines the circumstances of the death of Benny “The Kid” Paret at the hands of Griffith on March 24, 1962 in the third fight of their trilogy held at Madison Square Garden. I remember watching it in shock on television as an adolescent, and it was no less horrifying to watch Griffith land almost 30 unanswered blows in about five seconds, and see Paret slip to the canvas unconscious, the last moment of fury shown in slow motion.
What I didn’t know in my youth, and the primary undercurrent to the story, is that at the weigh-in the Cuban Paret taunted Griffith with a Spanish slang word for homosexual, maricon, opening the possibility to some that Griffith’s final assault was motivated by vengeance. Of course, that reasoning is ridiculous. As a boxer, Emile was supposed to hit his opponent to achieve victory. The movie is evasive on the truth of Griffith’s sexuality, which normally wouldn’t matter if it weren’t an integral part of the story. Griffith never addresses the issue directly.
The meeting and reconciliation between Griffith and Benny Paret Jr. tugs at the viewers heartstrings and brings a measure of closure to the tragedy after 43 years, although Lucy Paret, The Kid’s wife, wasn’t able to make the same gesture, at least not in person. Today Griffith suffers from dementia, an ironic result of a beating that he suffered in 1992 after leaving a gay bar.
The Kid’s death was a blow to boxing, too, a turning point in its decline from premiere sport to its current status. There was an uprising from activists determined to banish the sport, and the subsequent public outcry and investigation resulted in the end of fights on TV in primetime for years.
Postscript: Boxing After Dark, April 23rd
On this installment of the HBO series, Wladimir Klitschko starched the previously unbeaten but totally overmatched Eliseo Castillo in the fourth round in Dortmund, Germany. One early indicator of who was the German favorite was the Klitchsko website address, seen adorning the ring ropes.
It really wasn’t an epic battle by any means, and Wladimir only needed one solid shot to stop the running Castillo. It might not have been noteworthy at all in fact, except for the scene in Eliseo’s corner at the end of the third round. One of his handlers could be heard shouting his exhortations over the top of the ring rope in Spanish. Unable to speak Spanish, I was only familiar with one word – maricon.
The Contender
The boxing reality series didn’t set any ratings records, and was cancelled. I have an opinion on this – too little boxing and too much Mark Burnett. It reeked of being a formula reality show and needs a format change if Sly Stallone can find a network to air it, as he has promised. Some things come immediately to mind. The early shows had a phony press conference set up. Come on, it was supposed to be top secret. Would they really have invited the media? Secondly, when did boxing become a team sport? Instead of those insipid challenges between East and West teams, let’s focus on the fighter’s preparation and show the fights in their entirety instead of short snippets of isolated blows landed in slo-mo for dramatic effect. One more observation – I admire the accomplishments of Jackie Kallen, but do professional boxers need a den-mom? Now, having voiced my discontent, I should add that I never missed an episode.
Outside the Lines, May 1
ESPN scored with this analysis of what is considered the first ever sports bribery fight fixing conviction. Promoter Bobby Mitchell received 37 months and heavyweight Thomas “Top Dawg” Williams received a 15 month term for their roles in the fix. Manager Robert Mittleman, who referred Williams to Mitchell, testified for the state and is under house arrest.
Mitchell, referred to by an FBI agent as a “serial fight fixer,” was pushing heavyweight Ritchie “The Bull” Melito toward a big money fight and persuaded Williams to take a dive for $10,000, just as he had convinced possibly half of Melito’s opponents to do previously. The fight was on the undercard of the Holyfield-Ruiz fight at the Paris Hotel in Las Vegas.
Hosted by Bob Lee, the show featured commentary by New York boxing writer Wallace Mathews, who had been investigating the scandal, and promoter Lou DiBella, who knows boxing as well as anyone.
DiBella called for a federal commission, saying that current federal laws are not being policed, although he didn’t believe that the practice was prevalent in the sport. But as he perceptively stated, “The fact that it exists at all is a huge problem.”
The Networks
ESPN Pay Per View
Kudos to ESPN for a successful and entertaining PPV event at Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas last April 23rd. The outdoor event survived early blustery winds and a late rain to stage a show as sharp as the panorama of the Vegas strip that was shown frequently throughout the evening.
ESPN showed that they have the potential to be a major player in the PPV game. Sources say that the event generated 150,000 buys, a highly satisfactory number since Cablevision. a major PPV distributor in New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut. serving 3,000,000 households didn’t offer the card to its subscribers
HBO vs. SHOWTIME
So far this has been Showtime’s year. The perennial King of televised boxing, HBO, has had some good fights, but they’ve been stuck with some turkeys, too. Such offerings have included Floyd Mayweather -Henry Bruseles, Arturo Gatti- Jesse James Leija, Fernando Vargas- Raymond Joval and the aforementioned Klitschko-Castillo stinker, not to mention this year’s candidate for worst PPV investment, Marco Antonio Barrera Vs. a dubious #1 contender Mzonke Fana.
The Bernard Hopkins-Howard Eastman fight was typical Hopkins fare, fought not so much for entertainment but for a clinical Hopkins victory. Miguel Cotto, HBO’s rising star, was almost “Chop-Chopped” to ESPN 2 by Demarcus Corley. Cotto survived Corley’s right hook in the third round to win by TKO in the fifth after the home town referee stopped the fight after Corley took a knee.
Then on April 30th at Madison Square Garden, the network’s fortunes appeared to change when James Toney sent millions of boxing fans on a two week high, briefly ending our national nightmare when he took the WBA belt from John “Half Man, Half Nelson” Ruiz with a decisive unanimous decision.
Regrettably, Toney tested positive for an illegal substance, the steroid Nandrolone, was suspended 90 days, fined $10,000 by the New York State Athletic Commision, and barred from fighting for the WBA title for two years.Toney would have been that rare boxing commodity, a four division champ with titles at middleweight, super-middleweight, cruiserweight, and heavyweight.
Instead Ruiz, who did not attend the post fight press conference and announced his retirement after the fight, had his title reinstated. Oh well, at least the Toney bettors are still victors. The sport books have no fail safe plans in effect as yet for such an occurrence.
In any other year, the Erik Morales – Manny Pacquiao PPV thriller would have been a good bet to be the Fight of the Year. The action and drama was sustained throughout the bout as Morales demonstrated a masterful boxing exhibition and an iron chin to withstand Pacquiao’s power and aggression to win by 115-113 on all cards. The blistering action was non-stop give and take throughout the contest, truly breathtaking and elevated the status of both men.
The highly anticipated Winky Wright- Felix Trinidad mega-fight turned out to be just a dramatic boxing clinic as Wright dominated Trinidad and sent him back to retirement. But it drew 510,000 PPV buys, and no one complained. However, the next week the delayed broadcast, [included in the PPV budget], was shown prior to the Lamon Brewster – Andrew Golotta fight. Winky-Tito wasn’t nearly as exciting on the second go around, and worse, Brewster starched Golotta in 53 seconds of the first round, leaving plenty of time to promote upcoming programming.
On the other hand, Showtime has been consistently excellent with their monthly contests, not to mention their outstanding Shobox series. This year Showtime has presented us with Zab Judah- Cory Spinks, Jose Luis Castillo – Julio Diaz, Wayne Braithwaite -Jean-Marc Mormeck, Kostya Tszyu -Ricky Hatton, and the Corrales – Castillo Fight of the Decade.
That fight had it all – toe to toe exchanges, ebb and flow, brutal body work, and Castillo’s left eye dripping blood while Corrales’ left eye was closed to a paper thin slit with the right eye swelling. Corrales defied convention, choosing to hook with a hooker, and was dropped twice in the tenth and had a point deducted after spitting out his mouthpiece after each knockdown. [He also lost/spit the mouthpiece in the eighth.] Corrales made the extra seconds work to his advantage, imposing a furious rally on Castillo and leaving him helpless on the ropes before the bout was stopped by referee Tony Weeks.
What more could a fight fan ask for? The epic had terrific action, bruises, blood, drama, and enough controversy to have fans begging for more. The two men made their mark in boxing history that night.
On June 11th, HBO presented a very entertaining doubleheader, with up and coming lightweight Kid Diamond receiving a draw against the veteran Joel Casamayor, a former champion who is always among the elite in his division. In the feature, Miguel Cotto retained his WBO Jr. Welterweight belt over Muhammad Abdullaev, the man who had derailed Cotto’s Olympic aspirations.
But, Showtime didn’t let that stop them from putting a Mike Tyson PPV card on at the same time. Considering the opposition, journeyman Kevin McBride, and the HBO competition, Showtime seemed to win this battle, too, as the Tyson “event” chalked up PPV sells of 225,000-275,000, “very satisfying” according to a highly placed Showtime executive. The paid attendance for Tyson, [with Laila Ali and Sharmba Mitchell in supporting bouts], was reported as 15,472 at MCI Center in Washington, D.C. Madison Square Garden drew 10,231 to see Cotto and Company.
As this is being sent to press, HBO began their comeback impressively with an exciting light-heavyweight fight between Glen Johnson and Antonio Tarver, won by Tarver by unanimous decision. And, next week Pretty Boy Floyd Mayweather takes on the ultimate warrior, Arturo Gatti , on PPV, followed three weeks later on July 16th by another PPV contest between Hopkins and Jermaine Taylor.
Clearly, Showtime is indeed having a big year, and clearly HBO, coming from behind, is seeking to regain their position as the premier boxing network. And, with the competition tightening, it is the boxing public that will benefit.