Sharkie's Machine: Thoughts on Boxing as 2007 Waves Goodbye


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Sharkie’s Machine: Thoughts on Boxing as 2007 Waves Goodbye

By Frank Gonzalez Jr. (Dec 27, 2007) Doghouse Boxing

2007 was an exciting year for us as. We saw some memorable fights, watched as great warriors like Arturo Gatti and Fernando Vargas retired, saw over-hyped fighters like Vic Darchinyan get whooped, while up and coming stars made their mark. On the sad side, we tragically lost some members of the Boxing fraternity, one being Diego “ Chico ” Corrales to a motor cycle accident. He lives on in our memories. On the happy side, we saw the rise of some new blood in the ranks of boxing’s elite fighters.

We saw the rise and fall of Carlos Baldomir, the fall of Jorge Arce, Zab Judah, Erik Morales, Vic Darchinyan, Edison Miranda, Jermain Taylor and Tomasz Adamek while watching the rise of Kelly Pavlik, Nonito Donaire, Alphonso Gomez, Juan Diaz, Chad Dawson and the dangerous Paul Williams. We saw the redounding return of Vernon Forrest and Ricardo Mayorga, though not against each other. Miguel Cotto, campaigning at 147, remained undefeated against respectable opponents. We got to witness two of the greatest Knockout fights of an era in Rafael Marquez against Israel Vasquez, who are 1-1 vs. each other.

The prospect for another good year in 2008 looks good.

Boxing was taking a beating for a few years in a row for the usual reasons, like bogus decisions, mismatches, no Title unification bouts, too many champions in the same divisions and too many mediocre fights appearing on Pay-Per-View. PPV remains out of control, putting on too many fights that are far from worth having to pay $50 or more to see. I wouldn’t mind PPV so much

if at least you got your money’s worth. Don’t give us only one big name fight (that might not even be entertaining) and three or four under card fights that wouldn’t make it on ESPN2, let alone be on PPV.

J.C.Chavez Jr. may have a pedigree name but does he really deserve to be on so many PPV cards? Has he even faced a single quality fighter yet? Some have him ranked as the #4 contender in his division. Based on his name I’m sure. How do we know a guy is any good if all he does is beat up on lousy fighters?

2007 did manage to give us some respectable match ups, worthy of remembrance. So, if you have any wines dated 2007, you might want to keep one to commemorate the year of Kelly Pavlik, Floyd Mayweather Jr., Miguel Cotto, or in honor of the last year you’d see Arturo Gatti in the ring. Maybe a Chateau Mormeck v. Bell or a Kessler Calzaghe Cianti? Or a Paul Williams Margarita mixer? How about a Hopkins Wright bottle of Cough Syrup? Maybe a bottle of Vasquez Marquez Super Tequila? 2007 was a good year.

Looks like the Moon has gotten truly blue for Ricky Hatton, who has the blues after his KO loss to Floyd Mayweather Jr. recently. Says he’s feeling like a woman, finding him self in tears often, so upset about losing the biggest fight of his career. I bet Kostya Tszyu understands how he feels. Ricky still has a fight or two left in him and let’s hope he fights again in the next few months. Junior Witter should be available if Floyd opts out of a possible rematch.

Hatton vs. Mayweather was about two years too late but better late than never I say.

Before anyone starts sobbing that I “hate” Floyd, understand that I do not know Floyd personally, only what I’ve seen him do in the ring, or how he carries himself outside the ring. Would I want to have a beer with him? Probably not. His personal life is his business, not mine. So I don’t put much stock in what I hear about his antics outside the ring. All that matters is that Floyd is a tremendous boxer. He is blessed with great hand speed, slick defense, sneaky power and impressive ring generalship. I hope he fights Paul Williams real soon so he can prove that he also fights guys who are in the prime of their boxing careers too.

Is Floyd the best fighter in the world? It’s a stupid question since you’d have to have a very limited criterion to answer. I don’t think there is a best fighter in the world. If there is, he’s probably not associated with professional boxing. The whole Pound-For-Pound notion is ridiculous and unrealistic. It’s simply a marketing ploy. Unless Floyd fought the best fighters in every weight class and won, there’d be no real grounds to make such a claim, unless you’re in the promotion business and know that if you say something often enough, it will be bought by an unsophisticated public, gullible enough to believe such exaggerations and ready to open their wallets to prove it.

Floyd is “one of the best in the business” but I can think of guys in his own division that can possibly beat him. I doubt he will fight any of them, but if he does, it will be great for the sport. Guys in the 147 pound class include the likes of Miguel Cotto, Paul Williams and Antonio Margarito (who Floyd opted not to fight, not too long ago). At 154, there are some quality fighters like, Joachim Alcine, Sergeii Drindziruk, Travis Simms and even Cory Spinks. You can say, “He will beat them all!” all you like, but the only way to know would be if Floyd actually fought them in the ring as opposed to your imagination.

I love this ‘sport’ but I realize that boxing is all about the money, more than about the glory of being a Champion. In fact, we don’t really have any Champions in boxing anymore since we have so many in every weight class. The word Champion by definition means ‘superior to all others.’ How can you be superior if you don’t fight all the others? The answer is money. I know there’s a lot of FMJ fans out there. Believe it or not, I am among them. I’d like to see how Floyd fares against the likes of tall Paul Williams more than any other fighter out there today. Floyd is not an aggressive fighter; he’s a defensive fighter who mostly wins by points. Mayweather Jr. vs. Williams is a must for 2008 unless Floyd gets on his skates and boogies on out of boxing.

Just beating one of the four Champions does not make you THE Champion. It makes you ‘one of the champions,’ from which there are three others or more. No one is the real champion until that person beats ALL the other Titleists and consolidates the Title Belts. That doesn’t happen anymore because there’s more money in sanctioning fees for the Alphabet Organizations having four Champs paying fees than just the ONE paying fees.

What is it that makes a fighter great in the first place? There needs to be a criterion. Mine is that a fighter must fight the toughest, most skilled fighters that have legitimately earned their ranking position and then win at least 90% of the time…with conviction. If you move up to the next division’s weight class, you must EARN your way to a title fight, not just walk in and inherit a Title shot against the weakest so called champion in the division. The way things are now, we couldn’t have lower standards.

In order to be the best, you have to beat the best on a regular basis, not just once ever couple of years. Taking on big name fighters at the end of their careers notwithstanding. That will only make you the best ‘businessman boxer’, not the best p4p ‘fighter.’ And what is up with fighters only fighting twice a year? In ye olden days, guys fought many times a year. Are we so much softer these days? Maybe it’s the genetically modified foods?

Being undefeated is over rated. All of the greatest fighters in boxing history had losses on their records, whether in the pros or amateurs. Why are we so consumed by the notion that winning…is everything. One of the greatest expressions I’ve ever heard in sports was, “The next best thing to playing and winning is playing and losing.” Guys like Carlos Baldomir, an older fighter that had some losses on his record when he beat the highly regarded, Zab Judah had a story book career that saw Baldomir win a Title, had his moment in the sun and then, he lost it. Better late than never.

Losing is never the object of the game but it is an occupational hazard that inevitably catches up with all fighters, except those who retire undefeated. If you retire undefeated, chances are you didn’t fight all the best match ups and had a carefully scripted career. Lennox Lewis was one man who retired having beaten every man he ever faced, including the two men who beat him, in rematches that Lewis won.

There are so many things that could make boxing better on every level, better in ways that would improve the sports image to the general public, make fighters more money and get them better exposure, make promoters more money and give the fans a better consistency of fights. Boxing is an International sport so there should be an International Boxing Charter that sets proper standards and uniformity, with a proper rankings system that is based on merit and not promotional influence.

What kids are going to want to become professional boxers and risk being injured and broke when they could take their athletic talents to sports like Football, Baseball, Hockey, Basketball and other sports that they would give them financial security for life if they made it into the league.

Boxing needs a League of its own. It would be a win, win situation. 2008 offers a lot of possibilities. Let’s hope Oscar De La Hoya and Golden Boy Promotions seizes the opportunity to bring boxing back to the status it once enjoyed, as the number one sport in the world.

Happy New Year to you all!