By Anthony Bosco
I love boxing. Of all the sports to choose from, it is the Sweet Science, without fail, that has the most allure for me, that can transfix me as no other, that can draw such anticipation and, unfortunately, that continues to shoot itself in the foot and, by extension, alienates even its most ardent supporters, like me.
Over the past two weeks I have watched three championship or championship-caliber matches, two of which ended with controversial decisions while the other, for the most part, failed to live up to its prefight promise.
The latter, the Jameel McCline-Shannon Briggs heavyweight bout, fought this past Saturday at Madison Square Garden, was a decent fight, the kind that I really shouldn’t bring into a rant on the poor state of the sport, but it does emphasize my point. You have two massive heavyweights fighting for a top 10 ranking, two behemoths who decide that going for the knockout is a sin.
When tuning in to catch this fight, I expected some truly explosive fireworks, two big guys trading big blows in an all-out war. What I got instead was a semi-entertaining boxing match for four rounds and then a one-sided affair for the remaining six, as Briggs simply stopped punching and McCline cruised to a unanimous decision.
Earlier in the evening I watched Johnny Tapia escape with a razor-thin majority decision and the International Boxing Federation featherweight championship, barely outpointing Manuel Medina over 12 furious rounds.
The fight was great, but the decision was wrong. Medina threw, I mean, literally threw, more than twice as many punches as Tapia and landed more as well. While not a big puncher, Medina forced Tapia into his fight, dictated the pace and was never in danger of getting stopped.
Tapia, the marquee name of the two, had to rally late to get the decision, which, in my opinion, was an injustice. Medina won the fight pure and simple.
But worse than both was the Floyd Mayweather Jr.-Jose Luis Castillo bout the week before, when Mayweather, moving up from 130 pounds, literally stole the title from a valiant Castillo. He outworked and outpunched Mayweather, again, the marquee name of the two, and was awarded the WBC lightweight crown in what I consider an out-and-out robbery.
As someone who has paid close attention to boxing over the years, this is the single worst problem with the sport. One bad decision leaves a bad taste in the mouths of the paying public that can not easily be fixed.
Take the first Lennox Lewis-Evander Holyfield bout which would have unified the heavyweight championship. This much-anticipated match-up was dominated by Lewis, but Holyfield was spared his title courtesy of a split decision draw.
To right the wrong, a rematch was ordered and even then boxing could not get it right. With the thought of Lewis being robbed in the first bout so on everyone’s minds, he was awarded the decision of the second bout, a fight I had Holyfield winning. So goes the Sweet Science, when a quitter sometimes wins and a winner doesn’t necessarily win.
In covering boxing, I have seen several local fighters on both sides of bad decisions. The first such fight I remember was watching former top-10 rated junior lightweight Freddie Liberatore having to settle for a draw against someone named Leon Bostic. So convincing was Liberatore’s win — er, draw — that Bostic’s then manager, Stan Hoffman, signed Liberatore after the fight.
Kevin Kelley, the former featherweight title holder who made a successful return to the ring this past week, has seen both the good and the bad side of bad decisions. I thought he was lucky to get a technical draw against Tommy Parks when a cut called a halt to the fight and, at the same time, I thought he was robbed in his draw for the vacant WBO 126-pound crown against his longtime friend Clarence “Bones” Adams.
Boxing has a big problem with big names. When you throw a big name into the mix, referee and judges seem to have something silly click in their heads that immediately tells them to favor the guy they already know. Whether they do it consciously or subconsciously, I believe this is a form of fixing fights.
When a guy like Mayweather, who routinely appears on many experts’ “pound-for-pound” lists, gets into a tough scrap, his reputation sometimes carries him over the top. I think in all my years watching boxing, I have never, ever seen an unknown fighter get awarded a close decision over a named opponent.
It hasn’t always been that way. I once met and did a story on Ralph “Tiger” Jones, a former middleweight from Queens who fought in the ‘40s and ‘50s, who once actually beat the great Sugar Ray Robinson, via close decision.
Boxing being what it is, I just can’t see that happening today, not under any circumstances.
What’s the solution you ask? Well, pray for a knockout. Subjectivity will always be a part of boxing and that’s just the way it is. Knockouts are more exciting anyway and certainly more decisive.
But give boxing a chance and I’m sure it will find a way to screw that up too.
Reach Sports Editor Anthony Bosco by e-mail at TimesLedger@aol.com or call 229-0300, Ext. 130.
