January 2002 - October 2006 - The Jerry Quarry Foundation
January 2002 - October 2006 - The Jerry Quarry Foundation
January 2002 - October 2006 - The Jerry Quarry Foundation
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many millions. <strong>The</strong> situation created a demand for telegenic and exciting<br />
boxers for these telecasts. Even promoters who'd never been involved in boxing<br />
or even sports needed fighters to be in their productions. This demand tended to<br />
distort and twist the traditional boxing setup of rankings and divisions. New<br />
divisions sprouted up so that TV promoters could claim to have "world<br />
championship fights" featuring "top-ranked boxers". Not for the first time but<br />
now more often, we saw unknown boxers vault into the upper rankings soon before<br />
a big closed-circuit fight. As time went on, this situation redefined the sport.<br />
Sugar Ray Leonard was a professional boxer chosen by ABC TV to begin at the top.<br />
It's a happy coincidence he turned out to be one of the finest boxers of all<br />
time. By 2003, this is how profitable boxing works. Promoters thrive on TV money<br />
-- now cable and pay-for-view. <strong>The</strong> local fight cards barely break even, if they<br />
do at all. Every boxer wants to fight on TV and make big money. Who can blame<br />
them? <strong>The</strong> effects of this situation are obvious. 1. Kids are rushed into<br />
big fights. 2. Certain kids are favored to appear in these big fights over<br />
other kids who are just as good. 3. Some kids get into the wrong sport,<br />
hoping to become millionaires. 4. <strong>The</strong>re are dozens of ranking organizations.<br />
5. <strong>The</strong> rankings have lost almost all their credibility. 6. Powerful<br />
promoters run the sport. 7. Boxing now has an artifical nature to it,<br />
because sometimes it seems everything is contrived and made up for a cable or<br />
pay-per-view audience. 8. Top boxers now fight only occasionally, or once a<br />
year or even every 2 years. Before 1960 or so, they fought once or twice a<br />
month. That busyness made the competition and the rankings meaningful, because<br />
they fought each other and had common opponents. Now they don't nearly as often.<br />
Now as far as this generation of 1960s-1970s heavyweight boxers we're<br />
talking about goes, it was a transitional period. One foot was in the old way<br />
and one foot in the new. We had some terrific fighters and some people who could<br />
barely fight at all, like Chuck (<strong>The</strong> Bayonne Bleeder) Wepner and the endless<br />
parade of Great White Hopes including Cooney, Morrison, etc. If a knowledgable<br />
fan had been able to follow either of them for a while, would he pay to see one<br />
of them go up against a Frazier, a Foreman, a Norton or a Holmes? I wouldn't.<br />
<strong>The</strong>re's a great suspicion thrown over boxing now and a doubtful quality to<br />
it all. When fighters are treated more like movie stars and celebrities, always<br />
in the gossip columns or the papers for beating people up or rape, and they only<br />
fight matches once a year, the integrity and meaning of the sport are<br />
drastically diluted. We might even say that on this hypothetical one night of<br />
fighting that these two fighters have, one wins and so what? It just doesn't<br />
seem like the Real McCoy any more. In fact, with the money becoming<br />
astronomical, how can we trust them? You can be a pretty honest guy, but for $5<br />
million bucks or more, you might do things differently, like throw a fight or<br />
dog one. Who knows? Possibly the most hurtful thing to a true fan, like all<br />
of us, is seeing what has always been a shabby but respectable sport where<br />
atheletes train harder than anyone else and risk their lives to pursue it, the<br />
whole thing is cheapened now, and reduced to a commercial process. We might<br />
say someone like Eddie Machen or Zora Folley or Ernie Terrell or Cleve Williams<br />
were good fighters at the most, but by God, they paid`their dues in two-bit<br />
towns, gritty arenas, with unfair judges sometimes, and for measly purses for<br />
years and years before they made it to the big time. Most of the kids we see on<br />
TV now can't say that, and it matters. Our sport too often turns into a<br />
spectacle that has little to do with boxing. Thanks. |<br />
|9/4/03 04:07:04 AM|Massimo|Rome||CarnerabAli' KO 1||||10|Tubby-Why do you<br />
think Alejandro Lavorante didn't deserve to be a top 10 in 1961 ? I know he KOed<br />
Zora Folley in 7 ! I' d be curious to have interesting informations about this<br />
ring's victim. Wasn't he a good fighter ? What did happen to Amos Lincoln and to<br />
George Johnson ? Thanks|<br />
|9/4/03 07:00:30 AM|George Otto|Youngstown, Ohio||ehnpbsa@aol.com||||10|As many<br />
of the old school visitors to this site know, I have represented the legislative