The Ring is Still Legitimate (But I'm Wondering More and More About Nigel Collins)

When the first de la Hoya-Mayweather fight came down, The Ring was universally critical of the match being made. This was from the top down. Nigel Collins joined in the criticism and was not ambivalent about preferring to see Mayweather fight Hatton or Cotto. Then Mayweather fought Hatton and everyone agreed Cotto was the next man for Mayweather to fight. 'Everyone' included Nigel Collins.

When The Ring was purchased by Golden Boy Promotions, I didn't really care. While I did question Oscar's motivations to some degree, I did not believe that he would be able to effect serious changes at the content level or wish to do so beyond little things to increase sales. I didn't believe he would be able to influence the content of the articles and columns themselves at all. The early changes to the magazine have all been along the lines of what I expected: higher ticket advertisements, including advertisements for Oscar's book, and a regular feature in which Bernard Hopkins gives photo-captioned boxing lessons. I can't really object to any of the advertising changes, and I like the Hopkins feature.

The actual content of the magazine, in the form of news articles and regular columns, has not changed significantly. The Ring Update has not changed significantly. William Detloff, Ed Raskin, Jeff Ryan, Ivan Goldman, and Jim Bagge are still, fortunately in most cases, themselves and still write like themselves. So do The Ring's correspondents.

The one area in which the magazine's content has changed is the personal editorials of publisher Nigel Collins. In his defense of the proposed Mayweather-de la Hoya rematch, now scuttled by Mayweather's retirement, he wrote an editorial about the business side of boxing. In a radical departure from the past tone of such editorials, he argued that what was good business was good for boxing, defending the massive waste of time and money and saying Mayweather could easily face Cotto later, even as his staff wrote blisteringly about the rematch and called for Mayweather to fight Cotto as soon as possible.

In a new editorial, this one added to the online Ring Update in advance of William Detloff's weekly online column, Collins now defends the circus show of de la Hoya-Pacquiao as 'A Worthy Superfight.'

I don't know if Mr. Collins believes what he has written here or not, but it is at a wide variance with the stance he himself and nearly his entire writing and editorial staff at the magazine have taken in the past. It is at wide variance with what the majority of his columnists claim to believe now. I am certainly pleased to see that Mr. Collins is granting his staff this degree of journalistic freedom to disagree with him, but it also concerns me to see his attempt to establish the 'party line' of the magazine so clearly in Golden Boy Promotions' tent. This is precisely the sort of thing he assured everyone would not happen because of the GBP buyout. His pandering editorials are unnecessary, if The Ring truly has the degree of independence from GBP that he claimed it would when it was purchased. If he and his publication are independent of micromanagement by Oscar and his business partners, then he should continue to write what his past columns have expressed as his genuine sentiments.

If he has been forced into a role as GBP's promotional lap-dog within an otherwise legitimate journalistic magazine, he should admit to his partisan interests in the discussions which he chooses to editorialize or perhaps choose another writer for the role of GBP yes-man. His writing these columns himself makes them appear to be the official line of the magazine, regardless of the feelings of its writers. Perhaps space for a Golden Boy Promotions editorial column should be made, if it is absolutely necessary to pump de la Hoya inside the magazine.

It is inappropriate for Mr. Collins to continue to do so in a manner that gives promotional partisanship the stamp of authority from the publisher of 'The Bible of Boxing.'