While both the Sweet Science and the Sport Of Kings have arrived at the same place in sports culture, only one of them is considered to be on deathbed watch.On May 2nd, the sports world was treated to a true rarity: Two marquee sporting events headlining on the same day. In this day and age of numerous cable or satellite channels and the subsequent ever-precious slice of the ratings pie, the risk of putting your marquee event opposite another sport’s is normally a risk not worth taking. NASCAR would never be caught dead hosting the Daytona 500 on the same day as the Super Bowl, right? This year, however, the first Saturday in May showcased the 135th running of the Kentucky Derby, followed by the Manny Pacquiao-Ricky Hatton superfight later that evening. So while sports fans can debate whether 50-1 underdog Mine That Bird’s Derby win was more shocking than the Pac Man’s destruction of Hatton in two rounds, the fact that these two particular sports were in the marquee on that day presented its own interesting referendum on what it means to be a “dying” sport.
You see, if one was to glance over a typical American sports page circa 1940, you would find three sports featured significantly above the rest: Baseball, horse racing, and, yes, the Sweet Science. For a large part of the 20th century, you could stop anybody on the street and they all knew who Joe DiMaggio was, who Joe Louis was fighting next, and could also tell you who was favored to win the Belmont Stakes that June. While baseball still finds its healthy place in the American media, both boxing and horse racing have seen its coverage decline to the point of being relegated to “other sports” sections of newspapers and TV shows. To find an actual show featuring either sport requires you to dig rather deep into the 300+ channels offered, and even then it is possible to come up completely empty. However, ask your grandfather if he remembers how great Rocky Marciano was, chances are that he could recite nearly all of his big fights and where he was when they happened.
Well, for the sports world, the last “where were you when it happened?” fight was Tyson-Douglas, now nearly 20 years ago. Somewhere since that time, boxing seems to have drifted away from the consciousness of the sports public. Not only that, everyone let themselves become stupid about the sport. Remember Lewis-Tyson? Though Tyson was years past being a serious heavyweight factor of any kind, mainstream media coverage acted as if the Tyson that destroyed Michael Spinks in 1988 was somehow going to walk into the ring that night in 2002. Even now, many boxing fans literally cringe when hearing non-boxing sports reporters talk about a big fight; it sounds like Flavor Flav trying to explain particle physics. Reference the fact that ESPN2’s First Take show once asked ESPN.com boxing writer Dan Rafael if after their respective fights on a PPV card, Miguel Cotto and Kelly Pavlik would face each other playoff-style, despite a 15-pound weight difference. That’s akin to saying that if three NFL teams from the same division made the playoffs, they’d have to play a round-robin tournament before playing in the conference championship game! It would never be allowed, would it?
To be fair, boxing itself has caused some of this atrophy. As boxing moved away from network TV to PPV and premium cable channels exclusively, much of the general public’s ability to see great fighters and the progression of their careers was taken away. Add onto that the advent of numerous sanctioning bodies, which made boxing extraordinarily difficult to follow. In a sports league you may have some 32 teams, or a top 25 to keep tabs on; in boxing, you have hundreds of top fighters, and now 60+ champions to keep track of. With no major league oversight, boxing is like sports’ own Heathrow Airport, with everyone coming and going all over the place. General sports fans and sports media like things simple, and boxing has not provided that. Add to the situation unscrupulous promoters, bad hometown decisions and more sports options on TV, and maybe we’re looking at the reason boxing is where it is today.
Perhaps, at this point, boxing really is just a niche sport. And, actually, that’s OK. If the media chooses to leave it alone for the most part, the general boxing fan can live with it; the Internet allows us to follow it better now than ever before. However, more and more it seems, instead of getting a few extra news blips from the mainstream sports media about this or that superfight when one happens, there has to be added questions about whether boxing is dying or not. The rationale used is always that since boxing was mainstream 20 or so years ago, and the media pays no attention to it currently, it has to be going the way of the dodo. Never mind that boxing has survived just fine (if not under the radar) in all that time, it supposedly needs to be classified as healthy or dying. And many boxing fans are getting sick to death of it.
The worst part is that non-boxing media often don’t bother to do their homework, typical of sports they don’t care about. Food for thought: The Pacquiao-Hatton fight had a sold out gate of 18,0000, nearly 15,000 more around Las Vegas watching on closed-circuit TV, about 850,000 PPV buys, plus another 25,000 British fans (yes, there’s only ONE Ricky Hatton!) in town. Perhaps it’s not a Super Bowl-worthy crowd, but does that sound like a dying sport? Especially for the American media, the fact that Julio Ceasar Chavez once crammed 100,000 fans into a Mexican bullring doesn’t count for boxing, because, to them, Mexico doesn’t count; they might as well have had the fight on Mars. It’s this myopia that really frustrates boxing aficionados, because no one will listen. If Mayweather-De La Hoya didn’t save boxing, it must now be on its deathbed, right? Please.
Which brings us to the Sport Of Kings. Like boxing, as big as horse racing once was, the only pulse it has these days is the Triple Crown races: The Kentucky Derby, the Preakness, and the Belmont Stakes. One can follow horse racing on various cable stations or web sites if they would like, but those three races are really the only part of the sport that gets significant media coverage. No one is really arguing that the sport has fallen off the radar somewhat. However, the difference between coverage of horse racing and boxing is stark. While everyone has a great time at Churchill Downs on Derby day with their frilly hats and mint juleps, no one in the media makes mention of horse racing’s state as a sport. If it’s dying or not, it doesn’t seem to matter. Enjoy the show, have a good time, the media will cover the sport for six weeks, everyone’s happy.
For whatever reason, boxing doesn’t get this same treatment, although the two sports are mirror images of each other. You’d think that the same media that said that boxing wouldn’t survive Oscar De La Hoya’s retirement would wonder at some point how horse racing would survive without a Triple Crown winner since 1978. But it doesn’t happen, and for that matter, it shouldn’t happen, to horse racing or any other sport with legions of fans. But as long as ignorance rules the day, a sport cannot be appreciated for what it is; it has to be scrutinized for what someone thinks it ought to be. Boxing doesn't have to be the NFL or the Premiere League to exist in the sporting landscape.
For my matter, I enjoyed the Derby, and then equally enjoyed Manny Pacquiao’s electrifying performance later that night. And you know what? I didn’t once wonder if I was going to see another night like this. Boxing, like horse racing, will die only when it’s good and ready. And, like with most fighters who have no quit in the ring, I just don’t see that happening anytime soon.
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