Archive for July 8th, 2008

Floyd Mayweather and Winky Wright think that HBO boxing announcers are biased against Black fighters.

“They talk about Kelly Pavlik, a white fighter, like he’s the Second Coming. Or they go crazy over Manny Pacquiao. But I’m a black fighter,” Mayweather said. “Is it racial? Absolutely. They praise white fighters, they praise Hispanic fighters, whatever. But black fighters, they never praise.

“I’ve noticed it for a long time but I couldn’t say anything because I had to do business with them. I’ll still do business with them, but I’m done holding my tongue.”

I’ll tell you what: I have noticed that HBO’s announcers can be biased. When Floyd won me that dough in his fight against Hatton, if i hadn’t actually been watching the fight myself, I would’ve thought that Hatton was walking away with the thing. Jim Lampley is nowhere near unbiased, and Larry Merchant…well, at one time he was the best in the business, but Larry Merchant has no more business announcing a boxing match than Larry Holmes has fighting in one. At this point, Larry Merchant is strictly on unintentional comedy status. But he’s definitely opinionated, and it definitely favors a certain type of fighter. Unfortunately for Pretty Boy Floyd, it’s not really based on race. Winky actually hits at the real reason, but he allows himself to let the racial angle stick.

“Black fighters, we have different styles,” Wright said. “But the announcers, they want someone that just walks out there face-first. Boxing is supposed to be an art. Black fighters, we’ve got style, we’ve got pizzazz. All they want is for us to just go out there and slug.

“I think they’re just always looking for the next white hype. They just don’t give black fighters the same credit that they do for a white fighter, or a Hispanic fighter like De La Hoya. They definitely have their favoritism.”

Now, what Winky Wright said, if you exclude race, is exactly true: announcers and fans want to see a fight. Speaking for myself, while I appreciate a strategically-executed boxing match, that’s not really what I prefer to watch. Those aren’t the fights that get me excited while they’re happening and they’re not the fights I look back on with fond memories. The fights that get me excited were actually fights. Maybe Winky forgot, but Hagler and Hearns were both Black. So was Larry Holmes. So were a whole lot of other fighters. Again, don’t get me wrong, I understand the scientific, strategic aspect of boxing, but that’s not what I’m tryin’ to see. Especially not if I’m dropping pay-per-view money on it. If I dropped 45, 50 dollars on a fight, you better believe I want somebody to get dropped. So except for the fact that I have always and probably will always root for the Black fighter first, I want the one who’s bringin the action to win. I think the announcers call the fights the same way. As far as I’ve been able to observe, the announcers tend to favor the active fighters. But it’s not about race, or even “racial” style, it’s about activity in the ring. You wanna be a fan and announcer favorite? Go in there to wreck.

But this is a funny thing, because I definitely understand the picture from the perspective of the boxers. We’ve all seen what kind of a toll boxing can take on those who have been willing to get in there and slug it out. Nobody wants that. Nobody wants to come out brain damaged or physically disfigured. Roy Jones was famous for saying that he didn’t want to hurt anybody and he didn’t want to get hurt. I can respect that. It’s a job, not a lifetime sentence.

But, and this is a sofa, fighters hafta understand where the fans are coming from, too. This is America. Soccer has a following, but it ain’t nowhere near football. That’s because football has scoring. If a fighter wants to leave the ring looking exactly the same as he did when he came in and fights with some impregnable defensive style that leaves him invulnerable while allowing him to pick his shots from round to round, that’s his prerogative, but he can’t feel some type of way when the fans and the announcers don’t like it. He can play goalie if he wants to, but we’re lookin to see blitzes and bombs. If he’s unwilling to do that, it’s disingenuous to act like there’s some racial bias afoot. Even if the feet are in the mouths of Lampley and Merchant.