By Jermilll Pennington: I was doing my morning browse of my twitter timeline and came across a tweet from ESPN’s Brian Kenny. Kenny’s tweet was a post of ESPN’s updated p4p ranking. Atop the list was none other than Roman “Chocolatito” Gonzalez. Honestly I don’t have a problem with Gonzalez being the #1 guy in the sport, I have a problem with the #1 guy in the sport being relatively unknown to even hardcore fans.
Now before all you boxing nerds come out saying you knew of Gonzalez for years, you must first understand that you are a boxing nerd. To you I would like to pose this question; name another sport on earth where the best guy in the game is completely unknown to the majority of fans who follow the sport? I like to fancy myself a hardcore; however, I have to question that assertion because before Gonzalez started showing up on Gennady Golovkin undercards, I had never heard of the guy.
I can already hear Mr. Boxing nerd now “you’re no hardcore, I’ve known of Chocolatito since he beat (insert name) back in 2012.” Fine, then maybe I’m not a hardcore, however, I do pay more attention to this sport than any other. That said, how close attention do I have to pay to a sport to know who the best guy is? The NBA doesn’t make me work that hard, Stevie Wonder could tell you what Steph Curry looks like at this point. The NFL in a sport where the athletes have their face covered by a mask leave no wonder to fans to what the stars look like. Mr. obvious may say “well boxing is a niche sport,” that’s a fair point, however I’d like to add that boxing did produce what is known as the greatest athlete of this past century. Boxing has made Floyd Mayweather the highest paid athlete world-wide without the aid of endorsements. So before we write boxing of as a sport only us “nerds” pay attention to, take those facts in to consideration.
Boxing’s self-inflected destructive behaviors are often used as conversation points in the industry. Fans bickering and siding with particular promoters only help perpetuate the problems. We’ve had relationships between promoting companies and television networks termed as the “cold war,” I think a more properly termed word for the war in boxing would be the civil war. People within the same entity seemingly wanting what’s best for the sport unable to work with one another. In return we as fans rarely get the fights we want when we want them.
With no singular commission one could say there are too many cooks in the kitchen. I have to assume that they could come together to some degree, however given there has been no attempts to do so I believe that the money is better not being under one umbrella. I wonder how much better it would be if boxing was under one umbrella? I would imagine we would all know and have seen Chocolatito for some time now. Making intriguing matches would be in the best interest of the sport instead of being a risk. Making competitive matches come at a risk of promoters losing their best asset.
Larry Merchant said it best “boxing is a baby born with a black eye, nothing can kill boxing, and nothing can save it.” Likely the most dysfunctional sport once governed by mobsters, now governed by mobsters with MBA’s. Will it ever change? I highly doubt it, will I happily continue to watch? No question.
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