Mayweather vs McGregor is a disgrace to boxing

The Conor McGregor training footage released in the lead-up to his fight against Mayweather - both of his controversial sparring sessions with Paulie Malignaggi and his media workout - only confirmed that the Irish MMA star has no business whatsoever getting into a boxing ring not only with this particular opponent, but with any halfway decent professional, and indeed any top amateur. He is not just out of his depth, he is woefully out of his depth. He lacks speed, footwork, reflexes, and lateral movement, while his technique is that of precisely what he is - a rank novice. Thus this is not the greatest sporting event in history, as the overblown hype would have us believe, it is the greatest sporting con in history.

Why do people think Mayweather has requested 8oz gloves for the fight? It is because he knows he is up against an opponent who will be lucky to land a glove on him, and whom he will play with until he decides to bring this farce of a contest to a conclusion.

In fact the best and most competitive aspect of the fight is taking place now, before they even meet in the ring, with the trash talking and all of the controversy involving Malignaggi. Here, you do have to hand it to Conor McGregor; he is box office and does make for compelling viewing. This, rather than his boxing skills, is why we are getting this fight. Moroever, the way he left Paulie Malignaggi looking like a fool proves that he's no mug when it comes to mind games either.

Speaking of which, what did Malignaggi believe he was getting into in agreeing to work with the Irishman in the first place? You almost get the impression that the former world champion was looking to make friends with the guy, maybe see if some of his stardust might rub off on him. Whatever his reasoning, the fact he went into McGregor's camp fat and out of shape after being retired for four months bespeaks astounding arrogance suffused with idiocy. He made a mistake, got turned over for his trouble, and should have walked away and refrained from the verbal histrionics which he's engaged in day after day afterwards.

Whether it was a knockdown or a pushdown, whether Malignaggi got the better of him in or sparring or not, it doesn't matter. What does matter is that McGregor looked awful in those two video clips of him sparring Malignaggi, which does not bode well considering that those clips were obviously released because his camp believed he looked good in them. Are they having a laugh? During his media workout, he worked the heavy bag like a fitness guy who had decided to give it a go at the end of his regular workout to see how it felt. His technique was all over the place - hands far too wide apart, head static, every second punch an arm punch, hooks way too wide, reflexes and combinations slow and ponderous.

A mantra very much in vogue in the world of pro boxing nowadays is, "If it makes dollars it makes sense." Maybe so, but integrity is also important, and without it you merely hollow out the sport, shredding its credibility and damaging its reputation. Mayweather couldn't give a shit about any of that stuff, of course, and in his eyes why should he? In his eyes he is boxing, bigger than any fighter who's gone before, bigger than the sport itself. However for the rest of us mere mortals, boxing remains the noble art, the sweet science, the sport that more than any other provides a distillation of the human condition and a reminder of our evolutionary and primal roots. As such, boxing deserves better.

Mayweather vs McGregor has turned the sport into a circus and a freak show, wherein the emphasis is on creating a spectacle rather than on honest and true competition.

This fight is a disgrace to the sport and its history, to the legion of great warriors and champions that have gone before.

Mayweather vs McGregor is a celebration of vulgarity and greed

We knew it was going to be vulgar. What we did not anticipate was that it would be ‘this’ vulgar.

The opening press conference of a scheduled four city tour to sell Mayweather vs McGregor on August 26 at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas kicked off at the Staples Center in downtown Los Angeles earlier this week, where 20,000 fans were whipped up into a frenzy over the spectacle of two of the highest profile athletes in their respective sports, boxing and MMA, coming together for the first time to promote their upcoming non-title bout, set to take place under Marquis of Queensberry – i.e. boxing - rules.

This is not a serious fight. It is not even an event. Instead it is a spectacle of unfettered vulgarity and greed that has little if anything to do with sport. As such, the decision of the World Boxing Council (WBC) to sanction the fight brings that organisation into disrepute.

Amid the obligatory pyrotechnics, booming Hip-Hop, and promo films of both fighters training and talking trash, Conor McGregor appeared onstage first to a blast of his by now signature ring song, The Foggy Dew. For those who don’t know, this is a song that was written to commemorate the men of the 1916 Easter Rising in Dublin - men who rose up, arms in hand, to free Ireland from British colonial rule. The Ireland they fought and died for in 1916 is most assuredly not the country represented by a multi-millionaire who flashes money and wealth around like a latter day pimp, dressed in tailor made suits with the words ‘fuck you’ embroidered all over them, as he did at this press conference in LA. On the contrary, it is a perverse distortion of everything they fought for and an indictment of the values that dominate the country a century later.

As for Mayweather, what can be said that hasn’t been said already? In the ring there is no arguing the sublime skillset and sheer winning mentality of one of the all time greats of the squared circle. Outside the ring, we are talking a man who has succeeded in making a dollar bill seem like the most disgusting thing in the world. When he isn’t cavorting around shopping malls weighed down with more jewellry than Liberace, he’s flaunting one of the fleet of monstrously expensive vehicles he owns, always while surrounded by an entourage of flunkies and sycophants whose every smile is bought and paid for.

At one point onstage at the Staples Center Mayweather called over one of those flunkies, who duly arrived bearing a backpack, which no doubt cost more than what the average person in the crowd earns in a month.
Mayweather reached into the backpack and pulled out a check, which he boasted was for $100 million, flashing it aloft while assuring the crowd he is yet to touch it he’s so rich. The crowd whooped and hollered in response, intoxicated with the vicarious thrill of watching a rich guy flaunt his wealth. This, to be sure, was a glimpse of the moral sickness that feeds the obsession with individual wealth and fame in the land of the free.

Meanwhile, not more than a five minute drive from the Staples Center where this circus was being held, you come to one of the largest colonies of homeless people anywhere in the Western world. They call it Skid Row and it is here where you see the other America, a society with its mask removed, one in which economic failure is treated as a crime and punished accordingly.

The expletive-laden back and forth between both fighters onstage, the synthetic animosity, was acting of the B-movie variety. It failed to compensate for the fact that the entire thing is a joke, a charade, involving two athletes looking to cash in on their fame at the expense of anything resembling the integrity of competition or sport.
While the intimate relationship between big money and professional sport is nowadays a given, there is a line beyond which it becomes a violation of man’s evolutionary development, leading us to ponder if it may not have been better if as a species we had remained in caves eating grass.

It doesn’t have to be this way. When the great Cuban amateur heavyweight Teofilo Stevenson was offered millions to face Muhammad Ali in the 1970s, he turned it down, saying, ‘What is a million dollars compared to the love of 8 million Cubans?”
The only chance Conor McGregor has of laying a glove on Floyd Mayweather when they meet in the ring is if Mayweather allows him to. But by then it will be too late, as professional boxing will have been dragged through the mud with its reputation tarnished — perhaps beyond repair.

Until then we will be forced to suffer the antics of two very rich and very vulgar clowns prancing around to Hip-Hop music, dressed in garish outfits spouting profanities and epithets at one another.
Like the proverbial car crash, you cannot help but watch it unfold.
End.

Manny Pacquiao - when it's gone it's gone

I still remember the day I set eyes on Manny Pacquiao for the first time. It was 2001 and I was living in LA and a regular at the Wildcard Boxing Club in Hollywood, training to stay in shape. Though back then not quite the Mecca of boxing it was destined to become, the place was special even then, attracting a heady mix of up and coming pros, the odd genuine contender and former champs. You also found a liberal sprinkling of Hollywood types and a cornucopia of characters from every walk of life that had to be experienced to be believed.

It was just another afternoon and I was working on one of the double end bags, situated adjacent to the ring, when all of a sudden a shrill voice started screaming and grunting, so loud it echoed through the entire gym, forcing you to stop to look. In the ring was this painfully skinny kid shadowboxing. He had a red bandana tied round his head and was throwing punches and combinations at an imaginary opponent like his life depended on it; and with ferocious hand speed such as you'd never seen. But yet even so, after a watching him for a while I went back to my workout deciding he was just another of the many young pros from south of the border who came, arriving at Wildcard heads filled with dreams and hearts bursting with hope but ultimately destined to return home with nothing much more than bruises and memories to show for their shot at the big time.

Yet as the weeks passed it became obvious that this Filipino kid was extraordinarily special. The speed was outlandish, yes, but it was the intensity he exuded that made him stand out. Whether on the mitts, whether shadowboxing, working the heavy bag, or in sparring, he positively burned, exploding combinations while moving in and out like a human ball of fast twitch fibres on speed. In those days he had nothing like the entourage he would acquire along with superstardom. He was just another young pro learning his craft. I remember, on occasion, being part of the group of Wildcard regulars that regularly went on early morning runs up and around the Griffith Park with Manny. No one could keep up with him, not even the pros that were around the same weight, but those early morning roadwork sessions were a joy to be a part of regardless.

The point I'm trying to emphasize here is just how far Manny Pacquaio travelled from the streets (literally) of General Santos City in the Philippines to the start of his relationship with Freddie Roach at Wildcard as an unassuming and hungry young kid seeking to escape the poverty whence he came, and from there on to global superstardom, feted as the nearest thing to a living god back home in the Philippines and not far off it everywhere else.

In his prime he was took on the character of a machine, combining frightening, fearsome power with relentless aggression. His partnership with Roach saw them each reach the heights of their respective trades, with Pacquiao recording some immense performances that will still be held up as examples of excellence in years to come. The golden period of his career arguably unfolded over a three year period between 2006 and 2009, when he was the closet thing to invincible and indestructable a fighter can be, rolling over the likes of Erik Morales, Jorge Solis, Marco Antonio Barrera, David Diaz, Oscar De La Hoya, Ricky Hatton and Miguel Cotto. The only ever eight-division world champion, winning 10 world titles, the Filipino at one time seemed to be sprinkled with stardust, he was so popular.

His reign as one of the greats of his era was brought to a shuddering end at the hands of Juan Manuel Marquez, his ring nemesis, in the sixth round of their fourth meeting on December 8 2012. The Filipino southpaw walked into the kind of right ring hand that ends careers, in some cases even lives, in an instant, it was that brutal. The sight of him lying inert on the canvas afterwards remains one of the most anguishing sights I have ever seen at the end of a fight. Marquez is the one fighter who had Pacquiao’s number and arguably should have won three of their four fights. Instead he lost two, drew one and won the last. They fought 42 rounds in total, which count among the most competitive ever fought in the sport.

Of his 68 fights the most anticipated was his 2015 clash with Mayweather. Everyone knows it should have happened six years before it did, when they were both at their peaks. However the ocean of bad blood between Mayweather and his old promoter, Bob Arum, who's guided Pacquiao’s career from when he set foot in the States and to whom the Filipino has always remained loyal, ensured that it never did. The result was a gap in their respective careers that when finally filled proved a crushing anti-climax, involving a way below par Pacquiao failing to force his opponent out of second gear.

That being said, Pacquiao’s career possessed more meaning for more people in a way Mayweather’s never came close to. The Filipino possessed a title far of far more value than any which the sport’s various sanctioning bodies could offer; he was the champion of society's have nots at home in the Philippines, but also in his second home, the United States. There he was a symbol of pride for the legion of migrants who spend their lives serving and pandering to the rich – the cleaners, valets, busboys and day labourers, those who work in the swanky hotels, casinos and restaurants for a pittance. Every time he stepped into the ring Manny took with him their hopes and dreams, allowing them to enjoy the vicarious thrill of watching a champion who was of them and like them being exalted and respected in a culture in which their existence is barely acknowledged much less respected. The Filipino champion was for them a symbol of pride in a world of injustice, and in this regard his greatness is unsurpassed in our time

His foray into Filipino politics began with his election to the country's House of Representatives in 2010 then again in 2013, subsequently running for and being elected to the Senate in 2016. But in trying to mix his career in politics with boxing he only lent truth to the biblical injunction, 'No man can serve two masters'. His failure to stop any opponent in the ring since Miguel Cotto in 2009 tells its own story, evidence of a fighter whose killer instinct, snap, whatever you want to call it, deserted him along with the aura of destructiveness and invincibility he once carried into a squared circle in which there is no hiding place from a fighter's hardest opponent - himself.

Jeff Horn, no disrespect, would not have lasted three rounds against an in-prime - against even a just-post-prime - Manny Pacquiao. The Filipino's controversial loss to the Australian only confirmed what most of us already knew. Whatever he had it is gone and isn't coming back.

Kell Brook's courage in taking a knee against Spence was exemplary

The criticism levelled at Kell Brook in the wake of his 11th round KO defeat to Errol Spence is a stark reminder that boxing is and always has been a sport of extremes, wherein the very best and the very worst of human nature is exposed. Courage, respect, resilience, and skill is offset in boxing by cowardice, venality, brutality, and cruelty. Typically the former are expressed inside the ring on the part of the fighters, while the latter is the domain of the sport's fans and spectators, many of whom take the opportunity, when watching a fight, to give expression to their own lack of achievements, happiness, or self respect by taking delight in misfortune to befall a given fighter whose only crime is to have dedicated his life to the hardest sport there is and achieve a level of fame, success, and admiration conversant with that dedication.

Every fighter who climbs through the ropes immediately puts his health and life at risk. This is a truth well known, yet regardless far too many dismiss it, preferring to view those who do risk their lives in the name of sport as mere commodities, their humanity diminished, more machines than men.

Kell Brook's courage in taking a knee in the 11th round against Spence, rather than continue and risk permanent damage up to and including blindness, was exemplary, marking him out as a true champion and role model. The idea, the ludicrous idea, that he should have fought on to bring boxing into disrepute by turning it into a savage spectacle, this is an indictment of the intelligence and base instincts of his critics.

Brook gave his all against Spence, outboxing and outfighting the American for much of the fight, but in the end he is a human being, of bone and blood, and when one of those bones break and he can't see are we seriously suggesting he should have risked permanent damage just to burnish his credentials as a 'warrior'?

Fellow professional and world cruiserweight champion Tony Bellew was particularly scathing of Brook for taking the knee when he did, accusing him of quitting in his role as pundit for Sky. This is particularly lamentable given Bellew's status and clout in the sport after defeating an injured David Haye in dramatic fashion in his own previous fight. It is worth recalling that in the build-up to that contest most people - myself included - agreed wholeheartedly with Bellew in his criticisms of David Haye's ugly rhetoric, pledging to put him in hospital and leave him unconscious.

You can't have it both ways Tony - you can't slam Brook for refusing to allow himself to sustain permanent damange while lambasting Haye for promising to dole out permanent damage to you. Furthermore you make a point of continually reminding people that your priority when it comes to boxing is making sure that you get home safely to your wife and kids, and you are absolutely right to do so. But surely you also recognise and support the right of Kell Brook to make it home safely to his family after he fights?

Perhaps the drama of the occasion took over and Tony Bellew's judgement was temporarily clouded by emotion. Hopefully in the coming days, as the smoke clears, he realises that he was wrong to attack Kell Brook, a fellow professional and a fighter who has been a credit to the sport over many years. Perhaps, with this in mind, Tony Bellew will be big enough take back his words and apologise.

Boxing is such a unique and compelling sport in that it walks a line between barbarism and nobility. Ensuring that it remains on the right side of this line is surely the most important priority of everyone who loves the sport. Kell Brook, in taking the knee when he did, ensured that he stayed on the right side of this line. As such, not only did he save himself, he saved the sport.

As none other than Aristotle reminds us, "The brave man is called rash by the coward, and cowardly by the rash man."

Former IBF welterweight champion, Kell Brook, is a brave man.

Anthony Joshua - Hero or Hype

By all accounts Anthony Joshua is a decent human being, an inordinately wealthy young fighter who hasn’t forgotten his roots and who always makes time for the fans. His recent decision to buy his old amateur coach a new BMW was notable in this regard, though the fact that a film was made and released of him doing so says much about a hype machine which after just 18 professional fights against a hodgepodge of journeymen, domestic-level opposition, and fading contenders, sees the 27 year old IBF heavyweight champion faces a 41 year old Wladimir Klitschko at Wembley Stadium in front of 90,000 fans amid more fanfare than your average royal pageant. It is testament to the timeless words attributed to the great 19th century American showman, P T Barnum: “There’s a sucker born every minute.”

The hype with which Joshua is being sold not only as an elite heavyweight, despite his record, but as a sporting icon and national role model in the UK, reaches its nadir with the new ad released by Under Armour. The US sportswear outfit bought over the rights to Ali’s name and image in the wake of his death, and in the ad we see footage of a young Ali juxtaposed with footage of Joshua in action. The inference being made both are cut from the same cloth, that they belong in the same category, is an insult not only to Ali’s legacy but even more grievously to the truth.

Ali, by way of a reminder, faced and defeated the likes of Sonny Liston, Joe Frazier, Ken Norton, George Foreman, and the US government in his career. Thus far Joshua has faced Dillian Whyte, Charles Martin, and Eric Molina. Thus not only does Joshua not belong in the same category as Muhammad Ali, he isn’t even walking on the same planet.

Hype and heavyweight boxing have always occupied two sides of the same coin. The most famous example of a hyped up heavyweight involved the Italian giant Primo Carnera. During the ill-starred 1930s boxing decade, when ringside at championship fights across America you would see more mafia hoodlums than could fit in a black mariah, Carnera was propelled as a great white hope by dint not of his ability in the ring but on the back of one of the most remarkable PR and promotional jobs ever seen. Initially managed and trained by Leon See, the Frenchman who discovered him plying his trade as a circus strongman and wrestling act in France, and who was described by the US sportswriter Paul Gallico as “one of the most intelligence, smart and wily men that ever turned a fighter loose from his corner,” Carnera inevitably fell into the clutches of the mob. Thereafter one after the other his opponents took a dive, allowing the 6’7″ giant to actually believe he was as great as they said he was, a master of defensive fighting who carried TNT in his fists.

It was a lie that ended tragically when his ‘management’ eventually ran out of excuses and they were forced to expose him to genuine opposition. This opposition came most brutally in the person of Joe Louis at Yankee Stadium on June 25, 1935, when despite giving away 65lbs in weight, the Brown Bomber bludgeoned his hapless opponent with merciless combinations until the referee stepped in to save him in the 6th round. Back to Gallico: “He [Carnera] had nothing. His title was gone, his money squandered by the gang. And the one thing he thought he had, an unbeatable skill in defence and an irresistible crushing power in attack that no man living could withstand, never existed. It was a fable as legendary as the great giants of mythology that he resembled.”

Not for a second can Britain’s Anthony Joshua be compared to Primo Carnera. The former Olympic gold medalist possesses genuine boxing ability, power, and has real potential. The point is that at this stage of his career he is yet to achieve the greatness in the ring to match the profile he currently enjoys outside it. Indeed, the disjunction between both is an achievement that belongs to a team of whom the most public face is Matchroom’s Eddie Hearn, a man who looks like he collects Rolex watches like your average 10 year old collects toy soldiers. Hearn is only the latest in a long line of boxing impressarios whose stock in trade is the identifying, packaging and selling of fighters to a gullible general public. As with every promoter who has gone before, his dream, his is to find that rare diamond in the rough in the form of a fighter who is able to cross over into mainstream stardom, it’s the equivalent of winning the lottery. Such a fighter Hearn has clearly found in Anthony Joshua.

But as with Primo Carnera, and as with Frank Bruno when he faced Mike Tyson, hype eventually crashes against the rocks of reality. If Joshua loses to an ageing Wladimir Klitschko at Wembley the ensuing damage limitation will centre on his lack of experience at the elite level compare to Klitschko, and how he deserves huge credit for taking this challenge at such an early stage in his career. However if he emerges victorious he will be regaled as the toast not only of heavyweight boxing but British sport as a whole, with brands flocking to offer him even more lucrative sponsorship deals than those he already has and Eddie Hearn smiling all the way to his local Bentley dealership.

David Haye and Tony Bellew served up more drama than Shakespeare

In terms of drama, excitment, and raw emotion, Haye vs Bellew was a classic that will be talked about and debated for years to come. The inordinate bad blood that flowed in the lead up made the stakes involved higher than most world title fights have in recent times. That it also brought the sport into disrepute is a feeling that will not be shared by Eddie Hearn or Sky Sports given the number of PPV buys it undoubtedly generated precisely because of the bad blood and vicious pre-fight rhetoric, most of it from David Haye.

But placing that to one side for a moment, Haye proved beyond doubt that scratch the surface of the playboy image and lifestyle he is known for, you have man with the blood of a warrior flowing through his veins. The way he refused to quit despite carrying a ruptured Achilles for five rounds was unbelievable, with the sight of him hobbling around the ring conjuring the image from ancient history of a Spartan or Roman gladiator for whom death is preferable to surrender.

That said, along with the vast majority of fans, pundits, and former fighters, Haye came into the fight fully expecting to blast his opponent out of there within one or two rounds. It was evident in a performance that calls into question his future in the game. He appeared slower, more ponderous, and one dimensional than the Haye of old, loading up on wild single hooks and right hands, as if expecting Bellew to stand still and take them. It was only when he settled down after the third and started using the jab more prodigiously, particularly to the body, that he began to take the fight and his opponent seriously. He was in control of the fight up until he sustained his Achilles injury in the sxith round, pressing the action and throwing more than Bellew, whose gameplan of avoiding unnecesssary shots and taking the fight into the later rounds was working a treat. He and his coach Dave Coldwell had made no secret of their gameplan, one they'd devised in the belief that Haye would start drowning after four or five rounds. Bellew moved well for those first six rounds, consistently spinning off and away whenever Haye closed the distance. That said, the former cruiserweight and heavyeweight world champion's habit of following Bellew around the ring instead of cutting him off provided the Liverpudlian and current WBC cruiserweight champion with the opportunity to do so.

Both men started seriously gassing in the second half of the fight. Bellew came close to punching himself out trying to finish Haye in the sixth and seventh rounds, realising he was seriously injured. By this point it was only a matter of time before Bellew's hand was raised. The sixth was the most explosive of the fight, during which both fighters hit the canvas, Bellew once and Haye twice, though none were ruled knockdowns by the referee. It was now, with Haye injured, that sustained the momentum shifted decisively in Bellew's favour. From now to the end Haye was reduced to throwing the odd desperate big shot, fuelled by forlorn hope rather than serious intent. The rumours that he may have been carrying an Achilles injury in the final few days prior to the fight looked to have been true. Indeed, watching his ring entrance a second time a slight limp looks apparent as he makes his way to the ring to the trademark seventies disco classic 'Ain't No Stopping Us Now' by McFadden & Whitehead. As he did, Bellew in the ring appeared the most relaxed man in the building, taking the opportunity to have a dance as he waited for his opponent to arrive. This alone should be a YouTube classic.

Shane McGuigan was right to throw in the towel in the eleventh round after Haye fell through the ropes at the end of a Bellew combination. By now he was running on sheer will, courage, and pride, adding a tragic element to the denouement. Only the hardest of hearts could argue that Haye's warrior courage does not mitigate his distasteful rhetoric during the build-up. But as mentioned, the harsh reality is that however distasteful and vicious Haye's verbiage it sold the fight as no other fight has been sold in Britain in recent years, perhaps with the exception of the Froch vs Groves rematch. In this regard we're all culpable when it comes to a sport that all too often plumbs depths of indecency that no sport should ever be permitted to. Having made that point, however, boxing is the only sport that reaquaints us with animal instincts that have been blunted after centuries of civilisation and culture. Those instincts see the most base and virtuous aspects of the human condition laid bare, which is what makes boxing so compelling.

When it comes to David Haye the burning question has now been answered. Though he was in control of the fight before his Achilles went, he is not the fighter of old. His speed, timing, and agility even prior to the injury were noticeably diminished compared to the peak model of old. His body is now breaking down in the face of the rigours of too many training camps. Haye was never a natural heavyweight, which means that the wear and tear sustained after consistently sparring and fighting proper heavyweights has taken a grievous toll. Though along with Tony Bellew, Haye talked up the prospect of a rematch during the post fight interviews, there will likely not be a huge appetite to see one.

As for Tony Bellew, the big Liverpudlian and Evertonian has made a career out of proving the army of naysayers where he's concerned wrong. Though in defeating Haye he beat a man who was reduced to hobbling around on one leg for five rounds, Haye was gracious enough in defeat not to enter the injury as an excuse for the loss, and neither should anybody else. Haye was expected to roll over Tony Bellew in one or two rounds. That he failed to was in itself a victory for a fighter was was giving away a stone in bodyweight.

Bellew's gesture immediately after the fight was stopped in shoving promoter Eddie Hearn away in order to minister to Haye
should see him elevate to cult status even in the eyes of his detractors.

David Haye talks and looks like a man ready for war

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