This past Monday in London, founder and CEO of Matchroom Sport, Barry Hearn, managed to wrest some mic time away from his son, Eddie, who was in the US peddling the upcoming Saul Alvarez-Daniel Jacobs middleweight title unification bout.
At a press conference to hype the recently-signed Dillian Whyte-Oscar Rivas heavyweight contest, Hearn would wistfully recall the days when promoters like himself engaged in “slave trade” activities and did what they pleased with fighters.
“Matchroom Sport has a fight by fight arrangement with Dillian Whyte. Isn’t that weird?” Hearn offered. “He’s not tied up like the slave contractor of yesteryear.”
“When I was running boxing, it was much easier,” he continued, with the Jamaica-born Londoner, Whyte, right next to him, chuckling politely. “We were slave traders! We had these guys and they were working for us and we was the boss. The pendulum has swung. Now I have to say, ‘Mr. Dillian Whyte.’ I have to be respectful.”
Hearn would then toss in an ass-saving closing line to wrap things up all pretty-like
“…and it's really a nice position to be in because we can be honest with each other,” Hearn concluded.
But, as things would turn out, there’d be no need for an ass-saver because, not surprisingly, nobody in the media would care to even report on Hearn’s loving backward glance at indentured servitude.
Remember, this is the same boxing media that looked the other way just a few weeks ago when Hall of Fame promoter Bob Arum came off like the white guy villain in a 70’s blaxploitation movie, ranting to the media about African American manager/adviser Al Haymon encouraging African American welterweight champ Errol Spence to not sign with the white man, to keep things in the “brotherhood.”
This is also the same media that aggressively disregarded Russian light heavyweight Sergey Kovalev’s long history of racist behavior and then had the nerve to pen pieces about Kovalev “once again taking the high road” when Haitian opponent Jean Pascal peppered him with race talk during a pre-fight press conference.
Really, we could go on and on with the boxing media’s blind eye to racist behavior that would have any other personality in any other sport tarred, feathered, and driven out of town.
Barry Hearn is a likeable old codger and, as founder and chairman of Matchroom Sport, he’s certainly earned a certain degree of respect, as has Arum, who is perhaps not as likable, but is more accomplished. Kovalev was (and is) a tremendous fighter who has gotten a pass as a conveniently ignorant foreigner lacking a proper grasp on American culture (despite having lived in the US for over a decade now).
But, honestly, there’s no need for any reason to cover up the boxing media’s tone deaf take on racial issues. Boxing, as a whole, is the land that time forgot and at least half of those covering it actually get a vicarious thrill from slumming in a sport that bathes in titillating corruption, political incorrectness, and the good/bad ol’ days vibe of the 50’s where women were at the fights to be ogled and a promoter made his money pitting “his boy” against another promoter’s “boy.”
And those in the media not aroused by this portal to another time, are too damn scared to speak up against the nonsense and ass-backwards mindset for fear of losing their precarious hold on a paid gig (of which there are fewer and fewer).
Boxing doesn’t have to go full-on Berkeley liberal with the way it handles race relations and other issues, but it would be nice to see the sport at least try and drag itself into the twenty-first century and stop embracing dog shit behavior as “quaint” or “throwback.”
In the big picture, Hearn’s comments were not as blatantly offensive as some of the stuff tossed out there and allowed to fester by a weak and/or compromised media. They do serve as a reminder, though, of boxing’s not-so-apologetic take on its shameful past and dubious present.