Okay. The title of this week’s Notes from the Boxing Underground column is a bit misleading. If you’re coming in to get to the bottom of the “Who is the Face of Boxing” debate, you’ve definitely come to the wrong place. I don’t give a flying reverse cowgirl about who the face of boxing is (and, really, neither should you). But the question does, however, open the door to look at some other big picture things in boxing that are way more important.
Latest news has the September 30 bout between Saul “Canelo” Alvarez and Jermell Charlo clocking in at about 700K domestic pay-per-view buys with a live gate at T-Mobile Arena to reportedly exceed $20 million.
That was enough to motivate some on social media to proclaim that Alvarez has confirmed his status as “The Face of Boxing.” Some major media voices would also feel the need to jump in and celebrate that “reaffirmation” as well.
I guess I can see why some fans would engage in such pointless posturing for “their” guy. They’re fans. I get it. But for people calling themselves journalists to engage in that silliness? It makes no sense. Unless, of course, there’s some ulterior motive behind their actions-- like not being all that fond of the other guy some people have been calling “The Face of Boxing” or the boxing company he’s aligned with. More on that in a bit.
Gervonta “Tank” Davis is coming off a blockbuster with Ryan Garcia in April that generated 1.2 million pay-per-view buys and a $22.8 million live gate, also at T-Mobile Arena. Davis’ January bout with Hector Luis Garcia in January was a much more modest financial flex, with an estimated 225K buys. The record-setting $5 million live gate at Washington DC’s Capital One Arena, though, is proof positive that Davis, who has had a long string of sell-outs at various venues, is a legitimate big ticket live draw He is now, pretty much indisputably, the biggest draw of all American fighters at the moment.
Davis, though, is a PBC (Premier Boxing Champions) fighter and that status puts a target on his back for a certain subsection of boxing media (and the fandom that still takes these guys seriously for some reason). I’ve gone over the possible reasons for that many times before. The Cliffs Notes version is that PBC bossman Al Haymon, a boxing outsider, brought a new business model to the business, even before PBC was a thing and he was just an adviser to guys like Vernon Forrest and Paul Williams. That model takes power away from the promoter-- who has, traditionally, been omnipotent in the entire boxing process with all power, money, and decision making flowing through him-- and puts more power into the hands of the fighters, themselves. Boxing media, which has very much served as lapdogs for the status quo and, very often, for the promoters, directly, went to war against all things Haymon. The fighters got caught up in that mess. There’s also a whole racial/social/class component to the attacks, especially for some of these people, but that’s a subject for another day.
In short, some media voices do (on all sides of the debate), very much, have some bizarre vendetta in play. And, so, “Face of Boxing” becomes yet another battleground for this silly us vs. them, tribalistic dynamic that, really, only serves to damage the sport as a whole.
In the world of politics, this is called a wedge issue. It’s a tactic to solidify your own base by stirring up emotion via some pretty much irrelevant issue that stirs emotion and generates heat. Kind of like “gays in the military” or “immigration.” Without politicians constantly brewing the battle, these are usually issues that either matter very little and/or can be resolved fairly quickly. But the constant bickering and chaotic skirmishes serve the status quo by keeping the people occupied with one another rather than focused on the bigger picture stuff.
This is boxing in a nutshell. And we all fall for it. We’ll argue online for hours/days/weeks/months/years about “The Face of Boxing” or who belongs where on the pound-for-pound list. And it all means nothing. Literally, nothing.
Just this past Friday, I was engaged in a bit of a flame war on Twitter after I mocked some pseudo-media idiot pushing the narrative that Ryan Garcia brought in a million of the 1.2 million PPV buys in the Tank-Ryan fight. I was immediately bombarded by “you support Tank” nonsense.
Well, no, I couldn’t care less about Tank Davis’ business or Ryan Garcia’s business, how much they made, how much they drew, etc. But I do, however, care about checking dishonest or excruciatingly disingenuous statements floated into the public discourse. THAT bullshit matters. Truth and honesty matter. And I wish other right-minded, responsible media members (yeah, there are some) would stop protecting their press passes and take up the fight, calling out the shit heads, liars, and frauds publicly like they do privately (often to me, via DM).
And, yeah, I do freelance work for PBC. But, so what? I’ve never hidden that and I post disclaimers whenever I cover PBC-related issues. Read my work and see if I have the same pro-company bias some of these shit heads have. Last week, as a matter of fact, I said Jermell Charlo, during fight week, looked shook, like he had been prison raped. I once compared Deontay Wilder’s fighting style to that of a drunken tranny in a parking lot brawl. I did an article entitled “Why Keith Thurman Sucks.” I could go on and on. I could rattle off the media gigs I was NOT given because I refused to play the partisan media game. It’s not like I spent years bragging about sightseeing junkets with Top Rank brass, before-- surprise, surprise-- posting pro-Top Rank puff pieces and going after Top Rank’s business rivals. You’d never find me taking gifts from publicists and then bragging about it in articles. There are no snapshots of me chilling in a promoter’s mansion. There are no videos of me gleefully chirping that whenever a certain person’s fighters lose, it’s good for boxing. There are no articles or social media posts of me celebrating a fighter taking a beating, just because he belonged to the “wrong” boxing company. I’ve walked the walk when it comes to integrity. I have the professional battle scars and low cash flow to prove it. If you don’t know the reality of who’s wielding agendas and who’s, really, in a promoter’s pocket, then you need to educate yourself.
But, anyway...
Don’t get distracted by these side issues like “Who’s The Face of Boxing?” That shit doesn’t matter. Who the hell cares? Take that energy and use it to get on the asses of the boxing power brokers to run this sport the way you want it run.
And here’s a hard truth for some of you who’ve been fooled into taking sides-- all boxing companies are pretty much the same, using the same tactics and running the same game. Everyone is playing risk vs. reward, giving you as little as you will tolerate and collecting as much as possible. The business is the business and if you think otherwise, you just haven’t been paying attention.
And this whole us vs. them nonsense just gives everyone cover to keep doing business as usual.
Got something for Magno? Send it here: paulmagno@theboxingtribune.com