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A Message to the Casual Viewers of Boxing Like Stephen A. Smith

Despite the heavyweight division being at an all time high in the last ten years, 'experts' still are unsatisfied.

By Jeffrey FontanosPublished 5 years ago 7 min read
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When a game happens in most sports, we don't go in 100% of the time expecting for the same team to win. We hope for a good game. If baseball gave us the Yankees vs Red Sox every year, there wouldn't be as many baseball fans as usual. If basketball gave us the Celtics vs the Lakers every year, only Celtic and Lakers' fans would watch the playoffs. There'd be no point in enjoying that sport. Which brings me to the sport of boxing. For some reason, the casual fan, for years, grew too dependent on "the big fight" to happen, the main example today being Joshua vs Wilder in the heavyweight division. Joshua took a loss to Andy Ruiz. The boxing world and the once-thought-dead division now has a fire lit underneath them; another contender is in the mix. For close to a decade, the only name that mattered was Klitschko. At one point, that name was so big, the biggest fantasy fight in the heavyweight division was Klitschko vs Klitschko. In 2019, top names in the heavyweight division now consist of Wilder, Fury, Ruiz, Joshua, Whyte, Ortiz, Parker, Joyce and rising prospects like Daniel Dubois. For some reason though, the Ruiz win was met with criticism from the casual side. When words like "disgrace" and the continuous body shaming are being used first, instead of looking at the fact that a fighter with over 105 amateur victories just became the first heavyweight champion of his ethnicity, you have to acknowledge the lack of respect and knowledge for the sport that the individual has. Hopefully, this article can get more people to look into the rich history of boxing first, rather than be a cheerleader to only two mainstream names.

Making uneducated statements like this on the platform you're on not only hurts the winning athlete who shed blood, sweat and tears, in training camp, it also hurts the network you work for.

Let's address the body-type sport fanatics that are still shocked at how Ruiz won. Look into George Foreman's comeback to becoming the oldest heavyweight champion. He went through 12 round wars with Evander Holyfield and Tommy Morrison, two younger, more chiseled fighters who couldn't put the older, more out-of-shape looking fighter to sleep. George also went the distance with Shannon Briggs, the heavyweight champion with the most first-round KOs ever. It doesn't stop at heavyweights; look at Tommy Hearns. He's a tall and lanky fighter who had the power of a heavyweight. Tommy started his career from welter to cruiserweight (one division below heavyweight). He even called out Roy Jones Jr. after one of his fights. Tommy was so good, the great Ray Leonard even said he used to give him nightmares. A tall, lanky kid fighting out of Detroit. Clearly, these two examples show that, when discussing body types, boxing doesn't apply like other sports.

Skinny and Big

(Left) Skinny and shredded tommy hearns. (Right) George Foreman, who ate McDonald's during training camp, in his 40s. Both top contenders in their time.

A Championship diet

Big George Foreman enjoying "a little bit" of McDonald's

I could pull more examples of body types of fighters who pulled off victories over chiseled athletes, like James Toney over Evander Holyfield, and Tyson Fury over Klitschko. Hopefully you get the point by now though. It's nothing new. To reporters like Stephen A. Smith though, despite always saying they watched Muhammad Ali fights, it's a "disgrace." They ignore that all heavyweight belts in close to 30 years now are back in America. They ignore the amateur career and the abnormal hand speed for a fighter of Ruiz's size. Bottom line, the man wasn't your average, last-minute contender. Not acknowledging that is dangerous for casual viewers.

When George Foreman knocked out Joe Frazier in two rounds, The "Thrilla in Manila" with Muhammad Ali still happened. When Hasim Rahman knocked out Lennox lewis in five rounds, Lewis still fought Mike Tyson and Vitali Klitschko, closing a legendary career. With those defeats, the division became deeper and added more stories to their era. Instead, reporters like Stephen A. Smith choose to downplay the victory. The cause of casual reporting will affect the casual viewer to stay away. Here's a little note for casuals to put in their back pocket: heavyweight boxing is different. Everyone above 200 pounds packs some solid pop to their punches. Muhammad Ali losing the first fight to Joe Frazier, but Joe getting KO'd by George in two rounds proves this. Kenny Norton also KO'd in two. Ali would later stop George Foreman in eight. A loss doesn't mean big fights won't happen. If that were true, the classic series of fights Ali had with Joe and Norton would've never happened. Which leads me to my next paragraph.

By now I hope I eased your thoughts of "the big fight being ruined." Most of the time, whenever a big matchup happens, it doesn't deliver: Floyd vs Manny, Lewis vs Tyson, De La Hoya vs Trinidad, just to name a few. Unexpected classics happen in this sport when you're not looking for it. In the "Thrilla in Manila," Ali was expected to breeze through Frazier. It ended up being the greatest heavyweight fight of all time, in my opinion. Evander Holyfield was a heavy underdog in his first fight against Mike Tyson. Their bout ended up winning both fight of the year and upset of the year for 1996. Bottom line, a true fan of the sport, not just a fan of the athlete or fighter, will still tune into an event regardless. A fighter with the "0" still attached to their name sells better to a casual, but a fighter who has experienced a loss and who doesn't want to lose again is just as deadly as an undefeated fighter. Styles make fights. History has shown this. We shouldn't write AJ off just yet, and we shouldn't put so much stock into one fight when golden eras of boxing were about series of fights involving a plethora of fighters. Celebrate this era now or we'll look back missing what made it. An example would be Larry Holmes & Lennox Lewis. They were bashed most of their careers, but after retirement, they are looked at as legends and are respected whenever they enter a room. A Lennox Lewis or Larry Holmes right now would be interesting in the sport of boxing, just like a Deontay Wilder and Andy Ruiz would be in the Klitschko era.

Hilarious

Chill, Stephen, nothing was ruined. @Zeekthat's reply is hitting the nail on the head for casuals.

My final point goes to the generic reporting that has been happening for years with mainstream sports media. Stephen A. Smith's opinions on this fight and the sport overall are a good example. Every mainstream sports outlet, despite more eyes focused on the division in years, still hilariously report, "This is what's wrong with boxing." The love and obsession with "the money fight" is like a sickness. Isn't it common sense that a deeper division is more entertaining than one or two dominant names? With so much wrong in the sport, mainstream media sure does love going to the gyms of these fighters every time camp pops up for them. Also, ever since the Oscar De La Hoya era (maybe even further back), a few boxers are guaranteed to pop up in the top ten on the Forbes list of highest paid athletes. Seems like a good thing for all these articles who had spread the propaganda of boxing being a "dying sport," doesn't it?

Boxing didn't need mainstream media for years. Sites like FightHype, EsNews, Boxing Scene and many more have been better at reporting the sport for years. Who besides the casuals turn to mainstream media like ESPN for their boxing news? They don't cover up-and-comers, Olympians or contenders. Now that fights are starting to have that crossover appeal, many of these sports analysts wanna put their expert hat on again.

Stephen A. Smith mistakenly says prince Naseem Hamed has been knocked out before when he hasn't. Skip Bayless doesn't even know what a pull counter is, and he thinks McGregor would've been a better challenge for Floyd than Canelo (look who was knocked out and look who made it to the final bell, Skip). The bottom line is, you're better off studying the sport of boxing yourself if you want to learn about the sport. Mainstream analysts themselves have a lot to learn, or relearn in some cases. Whenever a mainstream analyst gets pointed out for not knowing a lot about boxing, they pull out memories of watching Hagler Hearns, Muhammad Ali, and Mike Tyson. Well, those are past greats, not fighters of today who are making a name for themselves. Also, like a fighter coming off a lay-off, the analyst might be a little rusty. Instead of choosing to double down on their uninformed opinions, studying the sport again should be an option. Watching a "game" is different from watching a fight. The obsession with the money fight needs to disappear, especially when history has been made and it's being ignored.

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About the Creator

Jeffrey Fontanos

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