By Mark Turley: Former WBO Light Heavyweight Champion Nathan Cleverly has admitted to having serious doubts about his future in boxing. After his brutal knockout loss to the feared Russian, Sergey Kovalev, the previously unbeaten Welshman is considering hanging up his gloves at the age of 26. “Something I’ve always said is I would not continue once I lost, Cleverly said to Express.co.uk, after the defeat.
Cleverly, accused by many of being a ‘paper champion’ finds himself now in a similar position to Lucian Bute, the former IBF Super Middleweight King who lost his title and unbeaten record two years ago, in a savage mauling at the hands of Carl Froch. Bute has continued fighting but appears shorn of confidence and a shadow of his former self.
In similar fashion, British and Commonwealth Heavyweight champion, David Price, once touted by many as heir apparent to the Klitschko brothers, now apparently faces a huge task of career re-building, amid calls for him to retire, after a couple of defeats to American contender Tony Thompson. One newspaper described his career as being “on the scrapheap”. These are just three examples of a trend that is growing. And as it does so, this trend damages the integrity of modern boxing.
Boxing, like most professional sport has always been business orientated, the betting rackets run by organized crime affected the careers of many early 20th Century fighters, but with the exponential growth in purse money and big-fight revenues through entertainment media, this side to the game has become completely dominant in recent years.
Make no mistake, despite their claims to have the fighter’s best interests at heart during the post-fight embraces and jokes for the cameras, promoters make fights and build reputations with the sole aim of maximizing profit. In the early days of a fighter’s career this revolves around ticket sales, progressing through to TV rights and ultimately, for superstars only, the Holy Grail of Pay-Per-View.
In order to reach this pinnacle, boxers need to have achieved one of two things. The first is ‘crossover’ status, meaning that a fighter’s fame has transcended the sport and he is a household name, at least in his own country. Until the eighties and nineties, many World Champions gained this status, but the increasing marginalization of boxing by modern societies which view it as barbaric and its removal from terrestrial TV mean that few, if any, contemporary champions achieve this.
Manny Pacquiao can perhaps claim to have done – he is virtually a God in the Philippines – but to the general public of all other nations he comes a long, long way behind local football players and other sportsmen in their consciousness. Andre Ward is one of the most sublimely skilled operators to have stepped in a ring in decades, but unlike the Sugar Rays, Leonard and Robinson, is virtually unknown to the casual sports fan.
Even Floyd Mayweather Jr, generally regarded as the best pound-for-pound in the world, is not a huge name beyond the fight game itself. If, crossover status cannot be achieved, the second way is to reach saturation within the small, but dedicated boxing community. In many respects this is even harder. People involved in the sport on some level or who have watched it for many years can be cynical and hard-to-please, but if a fighter can gain the respect and admiration of enough hardcore boxing fans, he can be marketed as a PPV cash-cow.
So how does a promoter take his young prospect and turn him into such a profitable asset? First, obviously, he has to find him and sign him. Of course he will pick young fighters with talent, particularly those with impressive amateur careers. These young fighters will then be taken on a heavily guided journey through the early part of their professional lives, firstly fighting no-hopers and human heavy-bags, then carefully chosen journeymen, before progressing to gatekeepers.
If they successfully negotiate this circuit of has-beens and never was-es, they can then move on to fight contenders and perhaps a champion. This progression has been similar in all eras of boxing, but with the stakes ever higher and promoters ever more eager to protect their charges, in recent years it has elongated. Whereas once an unbeaten fighter could expect to step up in class after his first ten or twelve victories, it is now not uncommon for a boxer with 25 straight wins under his belt still to be awaiting his first real test.
Heavyweights Deontay Wilder (29-0 29Kos) and Denis Boytsov (33-0 26Kos) are perfect examples of this. Wilder clearly carries awesome right hand power, but until he is matched with someone who fights back, questions regarding his punch resistance, stamina and defensive abilities remain unanswered. If these questions continue to be ignored by his handlers until he starts mixing it with elite, top-ten heavyweights, the suspicion remains that Wilder, believing in his own invincibility, will be taught a painful and psychologically damaging lesson by somebody. Boytsov, despite having 33 straight wins, has fought 8 rounders in his last 2 contests. His forthcoming match-up with Derek Chisora for the European Heavyweight Title is by far the toughest challenge on his record. A loss there and the years of knocking over nobodies will be worth nothing. Why were these men not moved up in class 10 or 15 fights ago?
Boxing fans, especially those with no boxing experience themselves, have adopted this modern, over-cautious outlook and are quick to champion unbeaten fighters and deride those who lose a fight or two, often while complaining about careers padded with easy opponents at the same time. Yet by writing off a boxer because of a defeat they contribute to the promotional tactic of soft matchmaking. This makes no sense for anyone. If Cleverly’s example is at all representative, then it seems that even some professional fighters themselves are now taking the same view. Lose, and it’s all over.
The first stage of boxing regaining its dignity and status as a one of the World’s premier sports is in promoters being willing to let young prospects take a chance. There is no shame in a boxer being beaten a handful of times as he rises through the ranks. In fact, it improves them. Jake La Motta, for example, lost his 16th, 18th and 20th contests, two of them to the same fighter, Jimmy Reeves, hardly a great, meaning that at that point in his career, before he had fully risen to contender status, LaMotta had lost 3 of his last 6 fights.
Presumably, in the modern era, he, like David Price, would have been ‘on the scrapheap’. In reality though, it was the learning experience of going through these setbacks that ultimately made ‘The Bronx Bull’ one of the most engaging and intense competitors the squared circle has ever seen. In fact, by the time he finished his professional journey, LaMotta had a total of 19 defeats. His great nemesis, Sugar Ray Robinson also lost 19. Henry Cooper, national treasure of British Sport in the 60s and 70s and two-time Heavyweight World Title Challenger, lost 6 of his first 22, including 4 in a row from 1956-57. Did that make him useless, worthy of retirement? Clearly not, as he went on to forge a very successful career, capturing the British, European and Commonwealth titles. Bernard Hopkins and Alexis Arguello both lost their first pro fights. The great Hank Armstrong (RIP) was 1-3 at the beginning of his career. The list goes on and on…
By not allowing our young fighters to lose we diminish them as men and as boxers. They remain novices forever. Jim Watt, the former Lightweight Champion of the World once said ‘to learn how to be a fighting man, you have to be in fights’. Golden Boy, Top Rank, Matchroom, Box Nation, Sauerland and the rest would do well to remember those words, as would the armchair fans who shout ‘bum!’ as soon as a fighter loses his unbeaten record.
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