On popularity and boxing coverage

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In the week leading up to Chad Dawson's defeat in Montreal in mid-August, there was a lot of pondering in the boxing press as to why the African-American fighter wasn't known to a wider sports audience.

He was a consensus pick as one of the top 15 talented fighters in the game, after all, with Floyd Mayweather deeming him the best not named Floyd Mayweather. But he was fighting in Jean Pascal's hometown because he couldn't draw a big crowd in his own.

Some writers focused on Dawson's safety-first style, which was fair enough as far as it went. But William Dettloff had an intriguing piece on The Ring website, which touched on the issues of race and ethnicity as well.

Because the same question could have been asked of other active black fighters who've shown the ability to entertain in the ring, guys like Paul Williams, Andre Berto, Timothy Bradley, Glen Johnson (who is Jamaican-American).

Dettloff's piece resonated with me and got me thinking. While it's very difficult to make a box office draw out of a stylistic dud (though Floyd Mayweather and Cory Spinks have often disproved this point), I think the sports media has a role to play in all of this.

I've been grappling with this piece since just after the Pascal-Dawson fight but last week's live chat hosted by Floyd Mayweather proved instructive. In case you missed it, Mayweather unleashed a string of racist and homophobic invective towards Manny Pacquiao, the man he isn't so passionate about facing in the ring. (As this column was being published, a TMZ report emerged that Mayweather is a suspect in a domestic assault case, which isn't the first time that he's faced such allegations).

When you think of the African-American boxers who are known to the general sports fan, they've gotten to that point only through proving excellence over a very, very long time (longer than in other sports, I'd argue) or with comments and actions that have them looking like a me-first wide receiver at best and a state facility outpatient at worst.

Mayweather and Bernard Hopkins are fighters for whom both statements could be applicable. Mayweather, seemingly made for the 'look at me' tendencies of social media, tweeted a photo of his Cadillac Escalade golf cart the day before the Pacquiao rant.

He's been a champ since 1998. He was once in the same boat as the previously mentioned Dawson in terms of attendance, but has made himself a star through sheer force of will.

Other contemporaries haven't succeeded to that degree despite being more entertaining in the ring. Shane Mosley has engaged in several exciting fights but has only drawn huge crowds when matched with a Mayweather, De La Hoya or Antonio Margarito. He's earned a few endorsements, but nothing commensurate with his talent level in his prime.

Antonio Tarver was probably as well known for being in Rocky Balboa as for hanging the first definitive loss - in devastating fashion - on Roy Jones Jr.

If we were in a debate hall, you'd probably counter by reminding me that boxing is a niche sport and that all fighters take awhile to get exposure beyond the sport.

And you'd get no big protest here. Pacquiao wasn't really known to the general sports fan until he battered Oscar De La Hoya in 2007, some four years after emerged as a star in the boxing community.

The likes of future Hall of Famers Marco Antonio Barrera, Erik Morales and Juan Manuel Marquez could pack arenas in the western U.S., but most sports fans are probably more likely to be able name three F1 drivers (language barriers played a small part).

It just seems like someone like Kelly Pavlik got known a lot quicker than a Paul Williams without having to resort to any histrionics. There seemed to be more media coverage surrounding Pavlik following his wins over Jermain Taylor than there was for Taylor when he twice beat the legend Hopkins (sure, the decisions were debatable, but they were tightly contested bouts).

The best-known boxing trilogy among general sports fans in recent years was Arturo Gatti against Micky Ward.

It was great, primal stuff, but it can't touch the Erik Morales-Marco Antonio Barrera trilogy and first three bouts of Rafael Marquez-Israel Vazquez in terms of action and skill level.

The story line for the Gatti-Ward battles was the fact that it was the kind of Italian-Irish pairing that used to be commonplace in the sport through many decades in the 20th century.  

And that is what it is all about: story lines. There's nothing overt going on in terms of race or skin colour, but having worked in two sports shops with a national bent it seems to me there are some institutional forces at play, perhaps even biases.

That which is exceptional is likely to get more play.  It is that simple.

It means a Pavlik might get more media attention than a non-white fighter of similar stature and back-story.

Boxing obviously has also been hampered over the past two decades by a necessary move from over-air networks to pay-per-view events and cable, before those outlets were truly in every home. 

As a result, there's been a generation of sports fans (and those who work in the sports media) who have little ability to parse the newsworthy events and fighters.

Last year the public editor of the New York Times was confronted by old press staple and HBO commentator Larry Merchant with why their once boxing-rich sports pages offered scant coverage of the sport, often choosing the strangest of stories (e.g. running wire copy of a fight in Germany but not one in nearby Jersey).

He essentially fell back on the "Oh, it's just too confusing a sport " argument.

As someone who once wrote a modern pentathlon recap for a past Olympics, I would think it part of the deal to get educated to a passable level.

The result is that to the degree boxing gets covered we have a disproportionate share of stories that have nothing to do with the fights themselves. They include: the older, recognizable name fallen on hard times outside of the ring, the older, recognizable name deluding himself with dreams of another title shot, and the latest wacky thing Mike Tyson said.

Or the guy going off like an ill-educated, soulless, money-loving whore on an internet chat.

If you're not a boxing fan, you probably think dust-ups at weigh-ins happen all the time, or at least, way too often. Actually, they happen in total about twice a year, it's just that they get covered 100 per cent of the time.

The guys simply strutting their stuff in the ring are left out.

The solution is simple to any sports media types.

When you see a wire report of a Timothy Bradley, Andre Berto, Paul Williams, etc., etc., taking to the ring and it sounds like it was just a good clean action fight, with nothing otherwise "remarkable" about it?

Run it. And then maybe it won't be so confusing.

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