Are biased sportswriters hindering America’s up and coming boxers?

Photo: Pavel Terekhov – By Matt Flanagan: Watching Chris Arreola’s emphatic defeat at the hands of Vitali Kitschko did not make me feel happy or justified in any way in regards to what I am about to say. 95% of the time I will support the underdog, the exception to that rule being if one of the fighters is one of my favourites, or if one of the fighters is from my country. Last night I had no such bias (as a Brit living in the US), so went for the underdog.

I thought Arreola was too hesitant, he closed Klitschko down and seemed to just wait for Klitschko to use his jab. Over and over again he would waste the 2 -3 second opportunity he had to land punches, instead waiting for Klitschko to throw the first punch. Arreola was one paced and had no answer to this. He was gradually worn down round by round until the referee stopped the fight. I felt for Arreola, who was clearly and understandably upset by the decision to stop the fight, but he was out of his depth, had been outclassed and was not going to win.

The nature of the beating was such that it got me examining the reasons why I thought that Arreola might actually win going into the fight when everything was against him. Afterall he was up against a vastly experienced fighter, with a phenomenal knock out percentage. He had never been knocked down in his career, and even in the 2 fights he had lost, he had been ahead on the scorecards when the fight was stopped due to injuries. Aside from the fact that the Heavyweight division is more prone to one punch knock outs than most, there should have been nothing that remotely suggested that Arreola had a chance in this fight.

So discounting the ‘punchers chance’ that a fighter like Arreola would always have, why did I think he had a chance in the face of all this adversity?

The only answer I could come up with is the bias shown by US sportswriters towards domestic fighters which hypes them up to unreasonable levels. Foreign fighters are rubbished frequently in the US for no real reason in favour of the up and coming yet untested American ‘stars’.

Vitali Klitschko is too old. He hasn’t fought anyone with the punching power of Arreola in years. Arreola’s intensity will be too much for him and he will end up getting knocked out are all comments that I was reading before this bout, and was subsequently all proved to be at best false hope, at worst it was blinkered nonsense.

So is all this bias ultimately hindering US fighters? Do they get caught up in all the hype and believe it, only to find out the hard way?

It could well be. This was the case last night with Arreola, it was the case with Jeff Lacy back in 2005, who was proclaimed as the new Mike Tyson, who would have no trouble knocking out the declining slapper Joe Calzaghe. Lacy went to England talking the big talk but looked like a rabbit in headlights once he got in the ring with Calzaghe, who absolutely tore him to pieces. Arguably Lacy has never been the same fighter since that beating, I wonder how much of that is down the hyping up that went on before, which in turn made him feel invincible? Is there anything more demoralizing to a fighter than being told you are the next big thing, have all the talent in the world etc only to get in the ring and find out that you are not as good as everyone was telling you and having to reflect on the fact that these comments were only made after you had faced a string of B-level fighters. Very demoralizing I would imagine.

We will be able to test this hypothesis next month when the super 6 tournament gets underway. Judging by what is being written here in the States about Andre Dirrell, as well as all the talking he is doing – it seems like history is repeating itself.

Dirrell has not beaten anyone of note, yet is heralded as the next big thing, with too much skill that will walk all over Carl Froch when they meet. Is anyone noticing a pattern here? Detractors of Froch point out his limited defence, which I agree with, and say that he didn’t win the fight with Taylor, instead Taylor himself snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. It also assumes that Froch was at his absolute best that night. Unbiased pundits agree that Froch was a) well below par that night, and b) the fight took the course that most people expected – Taylor dominating the early rounds with Froch coming back later.

Look at what Froch did – he went to America to fight when he could have stayed at home for a few defences – he gets no credit for that. He did not fight well yet managed to pick himself up after being knocked down for the first time in his career, rally and knock out a big name opponent. He gets no credit for that either, but neither of those things are what you would expect from a useless fighter.

I will be watching the Froch-Dirrell, Abraham-Taylor and Ward-Kessler fights with great interest. One thing is for sure – we will know by the end whether it is just another case of average, untried US fighters being hyped up and overrated by US writers or whether they are in fact, the real deal. If I was a betting man, I would not be betting on the latter.

I will also be interested in reading their articles if Froch and Kessler KO their opponents, and see whether they are finally given any of the credit that they clearly deserve.

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