By Gerardo Granados: Are we the Fight fans so naive or just plain stupid, to not to know, that professional boxing is a business too? In the last few days, I have read a couple of comments and articles defending Canelo Alvarez and Golden Boy Promotions CEO Oscar Dela Hoya decision to vacate the WBC middle title.
I don’t mean to disrespect pro wrestlers around the world, but pro wrestling is a quality show offered by many companies based on entertainment first and not on a real competition standard. Maybe in the US there is one major wrestling company, but there are many more regional wrestling promotional companies all over the United States and also around the World.
The main goal at pro wrestling is to offer to the viewers, an entertaining quality drama show, be it at the microphone or inside the ring. On times a wrestler might not be really skilled inside the ring, but if he does has an attractive personality and knows how to arouse the audience, then it is possible for him to gain many fans. Now, that doesn’t mean wrestlers aren’t real athletes, they also get hurt and on times tragedies occur.
When I was a kid I used to play to be a wrestler, I bet the reader also used their parents bed as a wrestling ring, the only problem is, there were no ropes and on times you did get to fall off the ring. I grew up amazed watching wrestling, I got the chance to watch live Blue Demon Sr. also Tinieblas Sr. and Mil Mascaras; on TV I followed Hulk Hogan and Andre the Giant, later on Stone Cold Steve Austin and Eddy Guerrero became my favorite wrestlers.
But as time passed, I started to notice “things” and the magic started to delude. I guess it was a normal process a kid suffers when he grows older, but that never happen to me when I watched a boxing fight.
“He’s a monster. He’s the best in the world,” said Mora about Golovkin to Fighthype. “They’re scared of the paycheck they’re going to get. People hate the fact that they have to match the risk with the reward. You only have a certain amount of fights as a boxer, and you want to try and maximize that. So if you’re going to fight a monster, especially a popular monster, and he’s filling arenas now, make sure there’s a couple of zeros for the opponents as well. I wanted Triple G [in the past]. He wasn’t the fighter he is now. Now he’s become a different kind of monster. He’s evolved. He used to get hit a lot more by opponents that didn’t belong in the same ring with him. Now he’s not fighting the best, but he’s fighting the best he can possibly get and he’s still annihilating them. He’s the real deal. Everyone wants Canelo because Canelo brings the zeros. Canelo brings the pay checks. Canelo brings what Triple G doesn’t bring. So it’s all business now. It’s numbers and business, you’re one fight from retiring. Canelo did the right thing by vacating. That was Canelo. I’m not Canelo. As a fan, it will never be justified. You put your heart, your soul and wallet to support a man like Canelo. His promoter says he wants to find the best for his fighters, but he’s not fighting the best. Now it’s business, so I respect Canelo as a fighter. I respect his business and his promoter and everyone else. The fans need to understand this is a business too. They hate to hear that, but it’s the truth, and Canelo is now the superstar of the sport, making a lot of money now that Mayweather is gone. You’ve got to protect that golden egg [Canelo], pun intended. They could fight anytime. Golovkin would kill Canelo. Let me take that back. He won’t kill him. He’ll beat him. I think he’ll take a lot of years off Canelo. I think Canelo has a lot of years, and a guy like Golovkin will diminish that a little bit. That’s how guys are sometimes. One fight can take a lot away, and I think Golovkin is one of those guys,” said Mora.
At many pro sports we see a competition being regulated and contested in order to obtain a Champion. Pro Boxing is structured that way too, thru the ranking system and the mandatory challenger rule, we should be able to guarantee to a new talent, to be able to land a shot at the title and at the purse bid to receive a fair deal after have worked hard and made sacrifices to obtain the status of mandatory challenger.
When I hear opinions such as Sergio Mora or Danny Garcia father Mr. Angel Garcia have expressed, I feel really disappointed. Yes, it’s true, this is a business, but we the fight fans don’t follow pro boxing because we like to follow businessmen, no, it is because we enjoy watching courageous boxers fight instead. I wonder if the reader has a favorite Wall Street stock broker and if you follow him just as we do to a prize fighter.
Since its beginning prize fighting has been a business, how come now some boxers, pretend to be so smart and to assume that we the fight fans not to know it. It is us the fight fans who pay to watch them fight; expecting a real fight and not just a glorified sparring session hyped by major media.
I would like to see any boxer who vacates, once the negotiation already have started with the mandatory challenger, to be banned to fight for any title of the many boxing organizations for at least 12 months. Also if he agrees for a step aside agreement and after have defeated his opponent still don’t comply to fight the mandatory challenger next, then to be stripped off the title and also to be banned for 12 months.
Maybe pro boxing survives on the fight fans who wait for the weekend to watch a good fight and perhaps it’s the casuals that brings the big revenues on the big events. None the less an increase in quality of match making cannot hurt prize fighting at all and we the faithful fight fans surely will appreciate it.
No boxer is bigger than pro boxing, no promoter should be more powerful or influential than a boxing organization, and perhaps the only one who can kill pro boxing, is us the fight fans, by walking away due getting tired of the Divas and greedy promoters, who only care to take our money, but not to offer a quality fight for it.
Mr. Sergio Mora, I hope you do understand that we the fight fans do understand the business side of pro boxing and also of many other pro sports. We know or at least have an idea, on how football teams and players earn their money. How important TV rights are and also that the endorsements represent an important income to the athletes. When we go to the stadium beer isn’t free, not even the parking lot is for free. Just please don’t expect an average fight fan that also has to work to earn a living, to understand how a boxer can call crumbs to a million dollar purse split for a single fight.
As for the high risk low reward way of thinking, well, that might be the perfect excuse for a boxing paper title holder, but that way of thinking, can never be in the mind of a true world champion.
Do the readers think that the MMA or Muay Thai fighters fight just for fun? Is there a business side in all professional sports? Is the customer always right? Should we the fight fans applaud a boxer business wise decision, even if it is clearly a decision to avoid a dangerous opponent? Is Pro Boxing rapidly becoming more of a show similar to Pro Wrestling?
I don’t but, do the readers agree with Sergio Mora?