I'm not saying boxing is dead but I know a nice nursing home....
I have been a boxing fan nearly my entire life. My father enjoyed watching the sport so naturally jr. fell in line. Also it was easy. Big time fights were free. I mean truly free not just free on cable (which by looking at my last bill is anything but). No one had ever heard of pay-per-view but we certainly had ABC's Wide World of Sports.
I remember on Saturday afternoons watching live televised fights from of all places inside Rahway State Penitentiary. I couldn't believe it either. James Scott was a fighter that was doing a bid for something or other and they actually allowed him to fight on TV from a makeshift arena within the dining hall of the prison. That's how popular boxing once was. He wasn't Ali, Foreman, Frazier, Hagler, Hearns, Leonard or Duran. This was just a guy, locked up in a distant state in a prison that I had never heard of fighting on network TV. The venue was a bit odd but who cared. Boxing was popular everywhere.
Then came the era of HBO...Wow! And I do mean Wow. Yeah, it cost money; money that I didn't have. But since necessity is the mother of invention the 'fight party' was born. Someone had HBO and would purchase the ppv fight if everyone else would bring the party supplies, food and liquor. And Mike Tyson was the man. If you name Mike's opponent, I can tell you where I was and the name of the girl that I was chatting up at the party.
Joe Louis v anyone (way before my time but epic nonetheless). Ali v oppression. Hagler v Hearns. Hearns v Leonard. Leonard v Duran. Chavez need I say more. Tyson v himself. The 'thrilla in manilla'. The 'rumble in the jungle'. Propeller man. Don King's hair. Leon Spink's gapped toothed smile. Meldrick Taylor getting ROBBED by the ref Richard Steele. Felix 'TITO' Trinidad. Buster Douglas KO'ing mighty Mike then Robin Givens doing it again. The world seemingly marked time by these and similar events.
Then came the recent era: the golden boy, Roy Jones, Jr., pretty boy Floyd, pac-man, Gatti-Ward, Sugar Shane, Super Judah, Lenox Lewis, Tarver's 'no excuses' KTFO of Roy Jones, Jr.
But, how sadly things have changed... Last night, I fell asleep on HBO championship boxing. I only watched it (through my eyelids) because it came on after Chris Rock's new special. I've attended recent championship fights where the announcer literally invited people to come down from the cheap seats and take any open seat nearer the action so that the place wouldn't look so empty on TV. Promoters routinely give away tickets; not just on call in radio promo's but stand outside of the arena and pass them out like after party flyers.
There was a time, not so long ago that I was a fixture in my ring side seat yucking it up with rap gods, movie celebs, the latest R&B hotties and sports superstars. But now you can't get $49.95 out of me to sit home, on my sofa, wearing an old t-shirt, in a pair of boxers and watch ppv.
I ain't saying boxing is dead but I know a nice nursing home that still serves green Jello with the fruit in it on Thursday nights.
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