Sometimes, I Think There's Hope

One of the reasons I established this little blog was that I sometimes seriously wonder about the quality and motivations of boxing writers. I've mentioned it from time to time before. I love the journalistic quality of The Ring, but its columnists have a tendency to irritate me in ways ranging from slight to major. Jeff Ryan gives me the impression of thinking that anyone who doesn't fight like Marvelous Marvin Hagler is a boring disgrace to the sport, but for most of his career Hagler didn't even fight like Hagler. How is everyone else supposed to compete? Ivan Goldman is a little less harsh, but he too is very quick with the 'boring' label when he doesn't like a fighter's style. Jim Bagge travels the gamut from being interesting and off-beat to being completely unreadable. Dr. Margaret Goodman's column on fighter safety never offends me, but is occasionally a tad dry and boring and I can't agree with her slightly paternalistic attitude toward the health of fighters still intellectually competent to make their own decisions. On the other hand, William Detloff's complete libertarianism on such topics as fighter safety and steroids frequently turns me off when it goes a touch far for me. Like Ryan and Goldman, as well, he can be entirely too scathing of quality fighters for whose styles he does not care. One of my favorites every month is editor in chief Nigel Collins' editorial... but in the most recent issue he defended the idea of a De La Hoya-Mayweather rematch and to some degree betrayed the ideals of his own publication by saying that not only do the business aspects of boxing come before its sporting aspects but they should. There are plenty of voices arguing the fan's perspective and the promoter's perspective, Mr. Collins' job as editor in chief of the ring is to campaign for the sporting aspect of boxing which receives far too little attention. So while The Ring is my favorite source of boxing fact and opinion, it is hardly perfect. It is the best available, but it could be better and there is other available.

Which brings us to internet writing. I use East Side Boxing to keep up with my daily and weekly fight news, but the quality of writing varies greatly. Writers range from pillars of class whose work is always top quality whether I agree with their opinions or not (Ted Sares comes immediately to mind), to guys whose obvious reason for writing on the internet and not in print is because of what their work would be used for if it were on paper (Yero Moody, and a writer whose name I can't recall who defended the system of mandatory challengers and title stripping currently in practice among the alphabet syndicates). Within that range, there's lots of varying degrees one way or the other. Even worse than the uneven quality of the writing on internet boxing sites, however, can be the tendency for such sites to release unedited promoter press announcements, which should be put in their own category or treated like advertisements, among the actual news entries. Still, the internet is the only way to get boxing news immediately on a daily or weekly basis.

Which brings me back to Mr. William Detloff. Mr. Detloff writes a weekly column for The Ring's website, entitled The Ring Update. I read it every week, sometimes with great approval and sometimes with great umbrage but rarely with disinterest. However, this week, he wrote a commentary upon the lightweight championship of the world (and in doing so, about the meaning of the word 'championship' in the larger sense) which cannot be stated and restated enough. His defense of the true meaning of 'champion' is evidence of why I still read and subscribe to The Ring, even though it's not perfect and there's more available, despite buyouts and Jim Bagge: the magazine and its writers defend the sporting and athletic aspect of boxing as a competition between opposing athletes and advocate for a fair field of competition.

Now, Mr. Collins, if you would please lock Mr. De La Hoya out of your office when writing editorials and remember how you really feel about boxing as a sport I would greatly appreciate it.