Stop punching yourself! Stop punching yourself! No, seriously, British boxers, stop punching yourself. (h/t staff writer Andrew Harrison)
I suppose you could answer this edition of Quick Jabs with, “stop touching yourself,” since there’s some media-masturbation-type material where I discuss at some length developments at The Ring. But as always, TQBR is a la carte. Just skip that stuff if you don’t care and read about the stuff you do care about, like maybe what’s in the headline, or some news about how boxing is doing with young white people, or what have you.
Quick Jabs
We finally got some info in the latest issue of Ring Magazine about what’s going on there with its recent upheaval (and, to a lesser degree, we know a bit more about what’s going on at the website RingTV.com). Michael Rosenthal is the new editor of the mag, as expected, with Doug Fischer in the associate editor spot. My understanding is that Fischer is in charge of the website. The personnel has shifted fairly radically: Out are most of the columnists, save Margaret Goodman and Michael Rivest, as well as regulars like Eric Raskin (who still has a couple leftover pieces in the mag) and William Dettloff. Joe Santoliquito, who served in a leadership role, will become a contributor, and Don Stradley, who’s been a regular mag contributor, has plenty of work in the latest issue. New additions to the website and/or magazine team include quality youngsters Corey Erdman, Mike Coppinger and Ryan Songalia. This issue of the magazine has a ton of contributors who haven’t previously written regularly for them to my knowledge, including: Norm Frauenheim, who had done a few pieces of late; Gary Poole; Jake Donovan; Ron Borges; Thomas Hauser; Steve Springer; Cliff Rold; Lem Satterfield, who’s a staffer for the website; and Dave McKee. There are some new features, like “Roll With the Punches,” a section Rosenthal describes in his editor’s note as focused on the lighter side of boxing, and he says they’ll be more new features later. The transition continues, but it was at least important to get SOME kind of statement about what’s going on, given how silent everyone was for more than a month after the old leadership of the mag — namely the highly-respected Nigel Collins — was let go…
So, my review of the first new issue: You can’t argue with some of that talent. And it’s hard to judge a first issue that came together as quickly as this one did as a sign of where it will end up. The jury’s out on my end. Overall, the magazine has less long-form features and more website-like smaller items. For instance, the best-written long-form piece in the magazine is by Santoliquito, and it feels like something that was still in the hopper from before the transition. And take how they handled their Manny Pacquiao/Juan Manuel Marquez III preview. There are fewer big idea/big picture/alternative take items and instead there more than 30 pages of smaller items. Inevitably, there’s some nice material in there — Poole, Donovan and Fischer have some good stuff in particular — but there’s also some stuff that reads like the kind of thing that would be better off as a small item on a boxing website like a Frauenheim piece based heavily on an interview with Erik Morales (who admittedly has some good insights into the fight). This change in direction isn’t something I automatically reject, but it does mean they’ll have to do some very imaginative work in these shorter pieces to find angles that distinguish themselves from similar material elsewhere. I don’t think they got there often enough with this issue. And I think it would be wise to stick with some of the longer-form work, but that could be a problem given that some of the personnel that would be best for it (like wordsmiths on the caliber of Raskin and Dettloff) is now gone, although I could see guys like Borges — despite his “meh” piece on Arturo Gatti — Poole and Donovan writing more of that kind of thing. Also, it would be good to have some regular columnists a la the departed Jeff Ryan and Ivan Goldman; perspective and opinion is missing here. Design-wise, the new look is good, although the previous recently-implemented new look was good, too. Lastly, there’s not a hint of Golden Boy bias that I could detect; the Stradley piece on De La Hoya’s recent remarks about his troubles is balanced, for instance. That’s a good sign, but it’s still something that will have to be perpetually guarded against, because…
Kevin Iole recently wrote something on the very idea that journalists deciding boxing champions, in light of how Ring handled keeping the light heavyweight championship in the hands of Golden Boy-promoted Bernard Hopkins despite an official loss on his record. Raskin also had some rather insightful and critical remarks about whether Ring could be trusted post-Hopkins. I’m as disturbed as anybody with the way they handled the light heavyweight championship dilemma, given Golden Boy’s ownership of the magazine, although I’m not willing to jump to the conclusion that the two are connected just yet, as previously stated, nor is Raskin. (That Golden Boy pleaded its case to Ring editors is nothing new, by the way — promoters have previously made the case from time to time for one of their fighters to Ring editors. It’s more fraught with peril when Golden Boy does it, obviously; I’m only describing how it’s not unique.) I’ve never argued that Ring handing out belts is the ideal; rather, it is merely better than the available options. The potential of the belts being corrupted by a promoter’s ownership is a real and ever-present threat. But right now, there’s nothing worse about the concept of journalists deciding boxing champions than there is about for-profit jackasses at the alphabet sanctioning level doing it. In fact, one is a good deal better — just look at Ring’s divisional ratings and champions and compare them to that of your WBCs or WBAs and common sense will indicate to any knowledgeable boxing fan that Ring’s are better, and they’d have to get a whole lot worse not to be so. Should Ring fall down on the job of maintaining rigorous ethical standards as part of its championship policy, maybe another set of journalists could come along to better track lineage and rankings. Back in the day, as Patrick Connor recently was writing about here, “newspaper decisions” were common, and BoxRec sometimes considers them more accurate. So it’s not unprecedented for journalists to be picking winners and losers in this sport. Maybe they aren’t the best people to be deciding it, but until something better comes along — and if you want to trust the alphabet gang to pick credible champions, you’ll be disappointed for the rest of your life — they’re better than anything else we’ve got…
Honestly, as funny and strange as this whole alleged Saul Alvarez street fight with a nearly 50-pound lighter Ulises Solis, I have frozen up in terms of any comedic remarks or insight I can render, other than to wonder whether all those rumors about Alvarez’ attitude becoming problematic are true. Read here for some of the latest on it, then enjoy this quip-to-beat-all-quips. I’ve let you down. I’m really, really sorry…
Two junior middleweights who deserve better than they’ve gotten are making their case, and I want to help them do it. Carlos Molina last week complained in a news release about Kermit Cintron getting a fight against Alvarez when Molina defeated Cintron, and I get why he’d complain. I also get why Cintron got the fight and not him. Cintron rehabilitated himself a little with his win over Antwone Smith, so it’s not a farcical fight, and it’s one that can be sold as Alvarez finally facing someone with top power, even if Cintron’s power has faded; Cintron also has a “name” going back to being one of the last active fighters to appear on network television. But Molina does deserve a bigger fight, and the only way he gets it is if boxing fans make it clear that they want to see him in one. That’s what I’m doing now, and it’s what people are doing on Twitter, and the more people talk about wanting to see Molina, maybe the better his chances get of actually being seen. Meanwhile, Erislandy Lara — who has a controversial draw against Molina — is still on the lips of fans because of the robbery he suffered at the hands of Paul Williams, and Tim Elfrink did a very nice profile of him in the Miami New Times. The profile is noteworthy for how hungry Lara is to get a real fight, which he also deserves. It’s also noteworthy for one of the judges of the Williams fight, Donald Givens, defending his scorecard, which was the most shocking detail of the whole piece. Anyhow, I doubt Lara and Molina are going to up and suddenly get a big fight, since they both are very good and have no built-in ticket-selling base outside of hardcore fans who like justice, so they might have to rematch one another or take a similarly difficult road back to the big-time…
A court recently found Floyd Mayweather not guilty of one of the 700 crimes he’s been accused of committing lately. I find him not guilty of wanting to fight Manny Pacquiao…
Echoing some of the sentiments of ESPN2’s boxing guru, Top Rank’s Bob Arum said this past week that he has noticed younger fans returning to the sport. He also said “Anglos” were returning as well. Arum’s word is far from gospel, but anecdotal evidence is mounting from people who matter that boxing is turning a bit of a corner in some of these areas where it was really struggling. That’s good news for the long-term health of the sport, even if what we have now are more like gossamer threads connecting the evidence than strong chain links…
One day I’m going to read a piece by Hauser and not be left wondering, “Who are these shadowy forces pulling all the strings, and what’s the motive of the people saying they’re doing these things?” Apparently some “third parties with their own interests in mind” were behind the recent would-be shift of bantamweight super-talent Nonito Donaire from Top Rank to Golden Boy. So who are they? Who even says they exist, since no source is cited for this? Who doesn’t have their own interests in mind? Are these egoists still affiliated with Donaire? What?…
Ex-middleweight champion Kelly Pavlik was reported to be moving to California to train with Robert Garcia, only Garcia didn’t know anything about it, and manager Cameron Dunkin was all like “Yeah, Garcia works with a lot of my people, this is gonna happen,” and then Victor Conte figured into things, but also Pavlik apparently talked about wanting to stay with Jack Loew, and all of it doesn’t exactly instill me with confidence that Pavlik has gotten his head back into boxing the way we were led to believe he had. Meanwhile, old 2007/2008 rival Jermain Taylor might be returning to the fold of promoter Lou DiBella. This would be a real development because DiBella dumping Taylor when he encountered his health problems was something I’d heavily praised. Of course, Taylor has reportedly checked out well with medical tests, and I’ve found it hard to argue against anyone fighting if they check out. It all makes me uncomfortable — I don’t want to see Taylor fighting again, no matter whether he CAN, and I don’t like anyone helping him unless he suddenly demonstrates inside the ring that he can take a punch…
Old Taylor trainer and a real top-notch cornerman in Emanuel Steward is going to be joining forces with featherweight YURIORKIS GAMBOA!, and it’s hard to imagine this as a good fit. Steward, as I’ve said with past alliances, isn’t necessarily better for making a fighter more exciting, and some of the explosive unpredictability of Gamboa is what makes him both exciting and good. Gamboa could probably still use some work on his balance, but as much as I like both guys, I don’t think this combination will jell…
If you want some additional insight into why HBO might make some of the strange decisions it makes on boxing, I’d encourage you to read this piece about their programming philosophy as it pertains to not canceling shows that do poor ratings. For many networks, ratings are the end-all be-all. For HBO, it’s more about subscription rates, and that formula is inscrutable to all but HBO, if even they know how it works. But, as the author said, it’s about finding the right “mix,” and maybe sometimes HBO figures some fight or fighter is good for that mix. I’m not saying everything HBO does is a defensible move for boxing. I’m not saying what they do for their boxing program makes sense for them, even, despite subscription rates holding steady, because often I suspect it does not. But this offers a potential explanation to people who are always wondering, “Why on Earth did they do that?”…
There have been more controversial fight endings than this one where heavyweight Cisse Salif got disqualified a couple weeks back, and there have been some involving much, much bigger-name fighters, obviously, but Salif got screwed in this one by a judge who DQ’ed him for blows that weren’t at all below the belt. Add it to the list of 2011 screw-jobs…
Every now and then I gotta brag about TQBR. So when in the past week Gawker called The Queensberry Rules “the best boxing blog out there” (emphasis theirs) and two Filipino media outlets cited us, and the aforementioned Lara profile did ,and the Raskin piece and Ring ratings update did, too, bragging time has arrived. Thanks to everyone who keeps visiting and finding TQBR and its writers worthy of mentioning in their own articles.
