Off Wing Opinion

From today's New York Times:

There is an up-and-coming female boxer with fast hands and a famous last name, but unlike Laila Ali, she does not want to be known or promoted as anyone

After announcing a world boxing tour where he said he would like to box against women, Mike Tyson hit the campaign trail for the Republican nominee for the U.S. Senate in Maryland, Lt. Governor Michael Steele:

"It's all fun. I'm not Mike Tyson," he said, referring to the fierce boxer whose career was upended by a prison term. "I'm not 20 years old. I'm not going to smash anybody. I'm not going to talk about smashing anybody's brains. You're not going to see that guy no more."

At the press conference, Tyson posed for photos with fans, signed autographs and campaigned for Maryland U.S. Senate candidate Michael Steele.

Tyson, wearing a white and blue Steele for U.S. Senate T-shirt, said he used to believe black Republicans were "sellouts." But Tyson said he changed his mind after researching the Maryland lieutenant governor.

"We have to open our eyes more," Tyson said, as he pointed to his T-shirt.

Never thought I'd see the day ...

How far has boxing fallen off of the national sports radar? Well, considering the triumphant return of Roy Jones, Jr. to the ring is going to happen in Boise, Idaho, that's probably all you need to know.

Something tells me that the bling factor in Boise is going to be mighty low.

The royalties from Cinderella Man will pay for a nice condo in Boca!

Jamie Mottram over at AOL managed to snag a short interview with Mike Tyson at the pre-fight press conference hyping his Saturday night bout with proto-Celtic tomato can Kevin McBride.

But that's not the best part about his post, not when he laid the smack down on ESPN's Jeremy Schapp:

While hype man Rock Newman was espousing about Howard University's rich history (the conference took place on campus and Newman is an alum), Schaap leaned back in his chair, thrust his face skyward and closed his eyes. The biggest media name in the room faux slept through the press conference. No wonder everyone hates him.

Ouch!

An athlete from an era that seems so long ago, finally passes from the scene.

Chris Lynch has a review.

And click here for the paralell effort to get a posthumous presidential pardon for Jack Johnson.

Though I won't be watching it in first run on Monday and Tuesday night, I will be making time on my TiVo for Ken Burns' latest documentary, "Unforgivable Blackness: The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson".

For those of you unfamiliar with Johnson's story, he was the first African-American to become Heavyweight champion of the world back in 1908 -- an achievement, that in tandem with his flamboyant personality -- earned him the scorn and emnity of millions of his contemporaries, even as it amazes us today.

Here's an excerpt from Tom Shales' review in the Washington Post:

Johnson was, as dozens of photographs and rare ancient film footage keep verifying, a magnificent figure, whether dandied up in bow tie, straw hat and tailored suit, or nearly naked, proud of his tremendous strength and musculature, fighting in tight shorts rather than the laughable baggy silks favored today. Naturally, inescapably, white men saw him as a sexual threat, and just in case they didn't, Johnson made anything but a secret of his preference for white women. He had a series of white mistresses and wives who were photographed proudly and adoringly at his side. The hubris, considering the time in which he lived, still seems awesome.

Indeed, it does. Johnson's story is one worth telling again, and one worth listening to. I'll have my own review after I finish watching the series later in the week.

To purchase the DVD, click here.

Other reviews:

Washington Times, New York Times, San Francisco Chronicle, The Sweet Science, and the Dallas Morning News.

Try to stifle the spasms of laughter when reading this next item:

Boxing promoter Don King filed a $2.5 billion defamation suit Wednesday, claiming he was portrayed in a false light on an ESPN "SportsCentury" segment aired last May.

The suit, filed in state court in Broward County, Fla., names ESPN, ABC Cable Networks, Advocate Communications and Disney as defendants, claiming King was falsely portrayed as "a con artist and a thug."

"This case is one of the worst examples of reckless broadcast journalism and blatant disregard for the truth," lawyer Willie Gary said.

Quick, somebody call Jackie Chiles.

I never saw the episode of SportsCentury that King's suit refers to, but you can read his ESPN.com bio entry here. As for other documentary evidence of King's activities, check out Sports Law News, Wikipedia and The Smoking Gun. Then decide for yourself.

Anthony Harwood of the Daily Mirror spends a few hours with Mike Tyson. And yes, it's as sad and pathetic as you suspect:

Quietly, the once-great fighter observes: "You look at old pictures and then you look in the mirror and you don't even know who that person is."

Overweight and on prescription drugs to fight depression and keep him calm, Tyson is still carrying a leg injury from the pounding he took from Britain's Danny Williams, who knocked him out in July.

Contrary to what his adviser Shelley Finkel claims, he is not planning a comeback fight in March. Maybe there will never be one. "I'm just training," says Tyson, who hasn't worked on his bad knee for more than two months. "I don't know if I still want to box. Sometimes I do, sometimes I don't. I feel I don't more than I want to. I'm just tired."

Looking back at Tyson's life and career, it's hard not to conclude that while for a time he never met his match in the ring, he was always overmatched once he climbed out of it. It didn't matter -- whether it was his managers, the media or any of his two former wives -- outside the ring everybody always seemed to be one up on Mike Tyson.

And when we look back at the history of boxing in the coming decades, Tyson's loss of his defacto fathers, Jimmy Jacobs and Cus D'Amato, may come to be known as one of the greatest tragedies in the history of the sport. Without the guidance of the two men who saved him from life as a thug, Tyson quickly fell into the clutches of Don King, and it was all downhill from there.

Boxing is the poorer for it. And so is Tyson's life.

Over at National Public Radio, Nina Totenberg is doing a series of reports based on the release of late Supreme Court Justice, Harry Blackmun. Over at the SCOTUS Blog, I found this excerpt that reports that the Court was set to rule against Muhammad Ali in his draft case:

"Cassius Clay, who had taken the muslim name Mohammed Ali, had been refused conscientious objector status. He appealed all the way to the Supreme Court, where the justices initially voted to uphold his conviction. Justice John Harlan was assigned to write the opinion, but again, in the course of writing it, he decided his original conclusion was wrong. "I am now convinced that the conviction should be reversed," he wrote to his colleagues. In the end, the Court issued an unsigned opinion, without dissent, holding the conviction invalid because of the Justice Department's handling of the case. Although a hearing officer had ruled that Ali should be granted conscientious objector status, based on sincere religious views, the Justice Department had recommended to the draft board that the finding simply be ignored."

Remember, this is the same man who was honored (and rightly so) with carrying the Olympic Torch to the cauldron at the 1996 Atlanta Games. How different might our perceptions of Ali be today had the Court ruled against him?

Some say Super Bowl III. Others say the Miracle On Ice. But for many fight fans, the greatest upset in sports history occurred on February 10, 1990. Dick Heller of the Washington Times remembers:

A 42-1 underdog on whom almost nobody bet, he dominated the fight from the beginning. He connected with jabs and right hands while easily avoiding the thunder that lurked in the fists of his befuddled foe.

Was Magic Johnson ever greater than when he was leading the Lakers against Larry Bird and the Celtics?

Could Martina Navratilova ever have raised her game to the heights it reached without facing down Chris Evert?

For me, the answer to both questions is undoubtedly, no.

Before he met Mickey Ward, few people knew, or cared, about Arturo 'Thunder' Gatti. But three compelling fights later, he and Gatti had become compelling pay television stars. But after fight three, Ward decided that it was time to hang them up, and begin enjoying the piles of cash the three fights with Gatti had brought him.

Tonight, Gatti gets to find out what life looks like without his toughest opponent when he takes on Gianluca Branco for the Junior Welterweight title. It's a fight Gatti will probably walk away from with his title intact. But here's one fight fan who thinks it won't be nearly as satisfying a win as the two he had against Ward.

POSTSCRIPT: Gatti won in a unanimous decision, but not one without some excitement. He broke his hand in the midst of the fight, something which handicapped him for much of the night. Surprisingly, Branco wasn't a typical tomato can, and showed that he could dish out some punishment when given the opportunity -- he just couldn't land those punches often enough to stop Gatti.

Missed this story from this morning's NY Daily News:

A corruption probe of boxing is examining whether the disputed bout between Oscar De La Hoya and (Sugar) Shane Mosley was fixed, the Daily News has learned.

The investigation centers on allegations that Top Rank - one of the world's largest boxing promoters - and a number of its boxers were involved in schemes to throw fights.

Law enforcement sources told The News there also is evidence that scales may have been tampered with to allow boxers of different weight classes to fight each other, and that medical documents were forged.

Top Rank, owned by uber-promoter Bob Arum, had its Las Vegas HQ raided by the FBI earlier this week, prompting the story. As for the possibility that the De La Hoya - Mosely bout was fixed, I'm not exactly surprised.

The backstory behind the probe sounds like something out of Hollywood:

The probe was spearheaded by an NYPD detective posing as a wiseguy from New York trying to sell stolen booty in Vegas.

The FBI's Vegas office had asked the NYPD for assistance, and with the blessing of Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly, the former New York State boxing commissioner, the detective packed his bags for Vegas.

The detective teamed with an FBI special agent pretending to be his enforcer/driver, and they began moving among Las Vegas underworld figures. They cemented their reputation as goodfellas from New York, accumulating evidence through wiretaps and their own observations.

"These guys were solid in Las Vegas, flashing cash and acting like tough guys. It was all smoke and mirrors, but it worked," said another source familiar with the operation.

Wow, that sounds very interesting, and it's probably in the midst of being optioned as a script.

Meet Bob Hazleton:

Bob Hazelton spent the days before Christmas in a Minneapolis hospital. He had fallen trying to get into a building not accessible to the handicapped, and doctors had to reflap the bone over the muscle above his left knee.

From the lawsuit file:

Former heavyweight boxer Chuck Wepner is suing actor Sylvester Stallone for a share of the profits from the "Rocky" movies, claiming the series was based on Wepner's career.

Wepner, who went nearly 15 punishing rounds in a 1975 loss to Muhammad Ali, claims in a lawsuit filed Wednesday in Superior Court in Jersey City that Stallone repeatedly credits that fight as the inspiration for the film.

"Stallone has been using Chuck's name -- and continues to this day -- in promoting the 'Rocky' franchise without any permission or compensation," said Wepner's attorney, Anthony Mango.

The film won the 1976 Academy Award for best picture.

Mango estimates the five "Rocky" films and associated products have brought in over $1 billion. Wepner is entitled to part of that, the attorney said.

As a non-lawyer, I have no standing to evaluate Wepner's claim, but I know one thing: Stallone has never hesitated to cite Wepner's fight with Ali as the inspiration for Rocky -- something I've seen Stallone do in numerous interviews. A member of the New Jersey Boxing Hall of Fame, Wepner now sells liquor in his hometown on Bayonne.

There was a time during the 20th Century when New York was the boxing cpaital of the world. Young men from ethnic neighborhoods all over the city sweated in gyms and dreamed for a shot at the title. On weekends, fight clubs filled all over the city, and Madison Square Garden hosted fights just about every Friday night. And in good weather, title fights made regular stops at Yankee Stadium and the Polo Grounds.

But no more. And, as Dave Anderson of the New York Times chronicles today, one of the last vestiges of that glorious past is finally leaving New York, as the Everlast plant in the Bronx is closing as part of a corporate consolidation:

FROM the outside, it's a gloomy gray building in a gloomy gray industrial section of the Bronx, not far from the Triborough Bridge, about as far away as you can get from the casino glitz of a big fight these days. But inside, the Everlast plant is where most of the boxing gloves in a big fight have been made for decades

Over at Slate, Allen Barra explains why those of us watching the De La Hoya-Mosely fight at home last Saturday had a more accurate view of reality than everyone sitting ringside:

So, what we're left with is a situation in which the combination of television, taped replay, and punch-stat counts give any TV-watching knucklehead more evidence to work with than is available to the judge or sportswriter sitting right there at ringside. Yet it's the opinion of the latter pair

Was Oscar De La Hoya robbed by the judges Saturday night in Las Vegas when he lost a unanimous decision to 'Sugar' Shane Mosely? The AP's Tim Dahlberg says that doesn't matter:

Just what good is De La Hoya doing for the sport of boxing by insinuating that the judges who scored Saturday night's fight for Shane Mosley were corrupt, blind or merely incompetent?

No good at all, of course. And by the time De La Hoya sits down in his office to call his high-priced lawyers and make a further mockery of the whole idea, maybe he'll have calmed down enough to realize he should keep his mouth shut.

Which is sort of like saying you shouldn't report your home being robbed for fear of making the police look bad. In the New York Post, George Willis feels much the same way:

De La Hoya's concern for the integrity of boxing is noble, but his investigation into Saturday's decision could hurt the sport more than help it. If every fighter with "the financial resources" launches an investigation when a decision goes against him or her, it will only enhance the perception that boxing is corrupt.

I watched the fight with my brother-in-law, and we were both open-mouthed when the decision was announced. On our own score cards, we had De La Hoya up either 5 rounds to 1, maybe 4-2, after the first six rounds. And yet, the judges all scored the bout 115-113, and seven rounds to five for Mosely.

That meant Moely had to win either five or six of the fight's remaining rounds. And that's not the fight I saw.

In my mind, the bout most closely resembled the heavyweight title fight between Roy Jones, Jr. and John Ruiz. De La Hoya took on the Jones role, keeping the more powerful Mosely at bay -- in part with a surprisingly powerful right hand. De La Hoya consistently landed far more punches.

Meanwhile, Mosely seemed chary to close with his opponent, lest he be stung by a De La Hoya combination. Perhaps most tellingly, during the fight, Mosely's corner man (his own father), constantly berated him for failing to follow up any of his powerful punches.

The post fight coverage was split, as HBO's on-air team of Jim Lampley, Larry Merchant and George Foreman all thought De La Hoya had won, perhaps not convincingly, but had won nonetheless. The MC of the evening for HBO, Bob Costas, as well as fight analyst Emanuel Steward, pretty much agreed. Over at ESPN, Brian Kenny and Max Kellerman (who makes Boxing more fun everyday) scored it unanimously for Mosely.

At the New York Times, Clifton Brown takes the middle of the road, simply noting that Mosely seemed to land the only significant blow of the night in the ninth round. At ESPN.com, Tim Struby seems convinced that Mosely earned the title. MaxBoxing's Jason Probst scored it 117-111 for De La Hoya. As you might imagine, MaxBoxing is all over the story.

As for me, I know what I saw. De La Hoya kept Mosely at bay all night long, and landed far more punches. He won the fight. But you don't have to believe me, just catch the rebroadcast on HBO on Saturday, September 20.

POSTSCRIPT: Significant edits and additions were made to this post after an editing error in the original post.

UPDATE: More from John Saraceno of USA Today:

Did it look like De La Hoya ever wanted to engage Mosley? Did he stand there in the trenches and fight for his belts? Did he dig down deep like Leonard or Hearns or Hagler?

He may have fought a cagey fight, he didn't necessarily fight a winning fight. He may have landed more punches, but they weren't the most effective, telling blows.

I can see the point that others are making about this fight concerning the way De La Hoya boxed. But if De La Hoya didn't "dig down deep," Leonard or Hearns or Hagler, then neither did Mosely. In fact, all fight long I was screaming at the television for Mosely to wade in and bust up De La Hoya -- but he never did.

As in King, Boxing promoter extraordinaire, courtesy of Gordon Marino at the Wall Street Journal. It's a colorful piece, filled mostly with background info on my all-time favorite huckster that I'd heard somewhere before. But there are still interesting passages like this one:

Before visiting with the promoter, I watched a video in which Mr. King is enthusiastically telling Hillary Clinton, "You're the next president of the United States"; later, in the same video, Mr. King is shown passionately stumping for George W. Bush, whom he much admires for both his decisiveness and his appointment of Colin Powell in his administration.

That, I'm sure, takes muy grandes cajones as they might say on the streets of Corona; then again, it's not anything Ken Lay and a thousand other corporate executives haven't done before either.

Only a few weeks after taking the beating of his life at the hands of Vitali Klitschko, Heavyweight Champion Lenox Lewis has broken off negotiations for a rematch with the Russian boxer, and may just be getting out of the fight game altogether.

It's not the first time a rough bout has forced a fighter to reconsider his priorities. I just hope Lewis is getting out of the fight game without sustaining any lasting damage.

The Washington Post's Michael Wilbon on Lenox Lewis' effort in the ring against Vitaly Klitschko on Saturday night:

For the record, Lewis had a busted nose, and the left side of his eye began swelling after the very first round. He looked like the Lewis who got knocked silly by Hasim Rahman. He looked like the Lewis a few of us thought could lose to Tyson a year ago. He looked like he'd been spending too much time having tea and crumpets instead of training.

Ouch. As others say, read it all.

After six rounds packed with unexpected excitement, Boxing's Heavyweight division just got a whole lot more interesting. I'm talking about the truncated title match between challenger Vitaly Klitschko and World Champion Lenox Lewis that just ended on the West Coast. Were it not for a right hand that opened a fearsome cut over Klitschko's left eye, Lewis would be limping home the loser.

Klitschko, a last minute substitute, didn't fight like one. He ignored Lewis' five-inch reach advantage and continually stung the cunprepared champion with punch after punch over the first two rounds.

Lewis was lucky to leave the ring as champion.

But much to the crowd's dismay, the ring doctor had seen enough. After a quick conference with the referee, it was over. Afterwards, Lewis boasted that he'd been in control of the match all along, but the better than 12,000 in attendance and millions more watching around the world knew better. The better prepared fighter had been sabotaged by a bad break, while the overconfident champion had caught the lucky break.

Now there will be a just call for a rematch -- one Lewis may be forced to give begrudgingly. Now George Foreman might return to the ring at 55 to fight Klitschko. Roy Jones Jr.'s plans are still unlcear, while Vitaly's younger, and bigger, brother Wladimir, waits for any other foe outside of his oen brother.

And there's always Mike Tyson. Yes, things are more interesting than they were at the start of the evening.

UPDATE: On the scene, AP's Tim Dahlberg had Lewis up four rounds to two. Don't know what fight he was watching.

UPDATE: This photo gives you a better idea of how bad the bleeding was with Klitschko.

ANOTHER UPDATE: This has to be the one photo I've seen that sums up the fight in just one shot:

In Florida on Saturday night, 30-year old Stacy Young of Sarasota stepped into the ring to box in something called the "Toughman" competition. The wife and mother of two young children had long been a fan of this dubious travelling enterprise, one that gives locals a chance for one night of glory boxing before their friends and neighbors. At the last minute, Young decided to fight when she heard that that only female that had signed up didn't have an opponent.

The 240 pound Young, who outweighed her foe by about 60 pounds, was in trouble from the start:

But in the first 30 seconds of the bout, family members knew it was an uneven match, said her sister Jodie Meyers.

Young nearly lasted all three rounds before falling the final time, Meyers said, adding that doctors said any one of the many blows could have damaged Young's brain.

After massive internal bleeding and swelling of the brain, Young was declared brain dead on Monday, and was removed from life support on Tuesday.

Predictably, a number of people from around the nation are now calling for regulation of these events in which nine people have died over the past several years. Most of the complaints have centered around concerns that contestants aren't given sufficient physical examinations before climbing into the ring, or that medical personnel working the events weren't fully qualified in any meaningful sense.

But with all due respect to the families of those who have lost their lives, the real problem here is that the folks who climb into the ring in "Toughman," ought to have their heads examined. Boxing isn't a joke, it's a violent sport with real consequences. And one look at "Toughman" should be enough for anybody to realize that they won't be duking it out in a WBC-sanctioned event.

Hard as we might try, and as the Darwin Awards continue to remind us, there's really no way to regulate against common everyday stupidity.

This weekend, Vitaly Klitschko will take on Lennox Lewis for the heavyweight title in Los Angeles. As it turns out, his younger, and bigger brother, Wladimir, might just be the better fighter. In any case, Steve Springer of the L.A. Times(registration required), just finished a neat feature on the two brothers and their long journey from their lives as Soviet Army brats to the suburbs of Los Angeles. Here's a sample from Vitaly:

"In other places, people look at foreigners and say, "What are you doing in my country?" In the U.S., you never hear that. Everybody comes from another country."

If you missed part III of the Ward-Gatti trilogy on Saturday night, you indeed missed something special. Though a quicker and more skilled Gatti dominated the scoring winning eight rounds out of ten, Ward came tantalizingly close to closing out the fight, and his career, on an incredible high note. The first critical moment came in Round Four, when Gatti broke his right hand. At first, Gatti seemed to try to rely solely on his left jab, but later simply had to steel himself to the reality that he would have to keep throwing punches with his broken hand just to stay in the fight.

Unlike the rest of the boxing game, Ward and Gatti didn't disappoint.

At first, it didn't seem like it was going to make a difference, as Gatti continually battered Ward, who simply would not go down. Then, in the sixth round, Ward caught Gatti with a right to the top of the head that sent Gatti to the canvas. Though he popped back up, the round went to Ward, and actually put him within striking distance of winning the match on points.

From there on in though, Gatti gradually took control, dodging, jabbing, and keeping Ward off balance. But even though he stayed in control through the rest of the fight, Ward kept coming. But if it wasn't for one missed punch as Ward had Gatti up against the ropes in the Tenth Round, it would have been Ward who would have walked out of the ring with the victory.

If only the rest of the boxing game could generate as much excitement.

Outside of anything to do with Roy Jones, Jr., the only real action worth watching in boxing comes from two fighters who have little hope of ever wearing a championship belt.

I'm talking about "Irish" Mickey Ward and Arturo "Thunder" Gatti, two junior welterweights from Palookaville who don't know how to do anything but throw down for a living. They'll be boxing for the third time in less than a year on Saturday night on HBO.

Their first fight was one for the ages, and left me speechless. The second fight wasn't as much of a contest, with Gatti supressing his own worst urges to slug it out, and instead used his technical superiority to out-box Ward.

Ward has promised that this third fight will be his last, and I can only hope he gets out of the ring without suffering any lingering damage. Still, with the images of the first slugfest still burned onto my corneas, I'll have to tune in on Saturday. You should too, if just on the off chance that you might see what top flight boxing was once about, and probably won't ever be again.

Saddled by child support payments to who knows how many ex-wives and girlfriends, former Heavyweight Champion Evander Holyfield keeps soldiering on as a boxer -- and who knows when the next fight might be one fight too many?

That time may be upon us, as Holyfield is now in negotiations to fight WBA heavyweight title holder Roy Jones, Jr. Jones won the title outright last March after methodically out-boxing former title holder John Ruiz in a 12-round decision.