Not business as usual

By Augie Cruz - 04/24/2014 - Comments

By Augie Cruz: I still remember the days when boxers in their prime and most times undefeated wanted and pushed to fight the other boxers considered the best or ranked at the top of the sport. Don’t get me wrong, it still happens today but very seldom, some examples; recently Miguel Cotto was offered upwards of $10 million to take on Saul “Canelo” Alvarez and although I still think that fight will eventually take place and it will be exciting and very competitive, Cotto decided to go for glory and the history books by accepting a fight with tougher fighter in Sergio Martinez for much less money.

Another example was Oscar De La Hoya vs. Felix Trinidad. These guys could’ve avoided each other for years and make a ton of money facing lesser opposition but they each wanted to prove to the world who was the best and even though the result can be argued forever depending on how you judge a fight the bottom line is that they faced each other and gave us the paying public what we wanted. Others include Roberto Duran vs. Sugar Ray Leonard 1 and 2, Leonard vs. Tommy Hearns, Marvin Hagler vs. Hearns, Muhammad Ali vs. Joe Frazier and many more. These guys fought for the love of the sport, glory, pride and recognition, those were the good old days.

The reason I decided to reminisce a little is because it is tough to root for a sport that lately is more and more about how much money can a fighter make rather than the sport itself. I will clarify that I don’t have a problem with a fighter trying to maximize his earnings at all. In fact I encourage it, but at what cost? Nowadays every single major fight is aired on PPV and it isn’t cheap either at $60 to $75 per event and considering that there are sometimes 1 or 2 events per month it can be pretty costly. So we as the buying public, aren’t we entitled to expect good, competitive fights? Fights featuring the so-called best in the sport? It was done before without the benefit of PPV so why not now when we have to pay all this money in order to enjoy the sport we all love.

I can’t help but think that both TOP RANK and GLODEN BOY PROMOTIONS are in cahoots regarding this supposedly cold war. If you think about it from a corporate business standpoint it makes sense, the words SUPPLY AND DEMAND comes to mind. If there isn’t enough of a product that the public wants then of course the price goes up and we the customers are left holding the s@%t end of the stick while these fat cats meet up once a month to count their money and rejoice. For 5 plus years now we have been denied the one fight we all want to see and regardless of who’s at fault or not it is ultimately up to us to do something about it and maybe just maybe we can get what we want. I mean this country has been doing it since the late 1700’s. Does anyone remember THE BOSTON TEA PARTY?



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