 |
|
|
Fixed fights, FBI investigations, greedy promoters, champions ducking top contenders. These are some of the many reasons the mainstream is disgusted with boxing and wants to keep away from it, it is a powder keg, and that keg is about to explode any day now. It can explode and do one of two things.
It can A) kill boxing and make the names Marciano, Robinson, Ali, Leonard, Hagler, Frazier, and many others just old combatants in a dead sport. Forgotten in the archives of sports history because what they went through and the years of punches and pain they endured mean nothing because of the actions of greedy, selfish men 30+ years later.
Or B) just a few good men from boxing’s illustrious past with the financial ability and business savvy to create what could be called the WBL, (or World Boxing League, this name is subject to change) and a union to support ex boxers with health care and a good pension, just like every other athlete who’s ever lived.
What our second option would do is attract fighters who are in the grasps of Top Rank or Don King among others, to join this new league and join the new union because of its financial and medical security. An organized league that gives licenses to fighters only if they are cleared medically without a shadow of a doubt, and made sure champions fought the leagues number one contender. Instead of promoters protecting and babying their fighter because he is only dollar signs to them.
|
MUST SEE AND IT'S FREE!
Free Press Video: Things get Heated Between Tito Trinidad and Ricardo Mayorga. Watch the Blood Boil. Free At DogHouseBoxing.
Click Pic Below: Opens in Media Player
(Video © MaxBoxing.com)
|
 |
This could bring mainstream media attention as well as network television fights. I mean big fights, not necessarily title big, but 1st class contender big. The public would fall back in love with the sweet science and realize just what they were missing even in its dark days. We would have a unified title in each weight class, no more alphabet belts, no more disputes as to who is the best fighter in the world. Granted it would take a couple of years for the fighters to trickle in causing the WBC’s and Don King’s of the world to go belly up. The time is worth it to finally fix our loveable, but screwy sport.
Imagine if we could have gone back in time and organized this. Joe Louis would never have had to live out his last days in miserable poverty and anguish. Ali may have never been cleared to fight after Manila, thus causing his Parkinson’s Syndrome (which is caused by blows to the head unlike Michael J. Fox’s Parkinson’s disease, there is a difference) to possibly never exist, Jerry Quarry’s brain may not be damaged eventually causing his death, and Evander Holyfield could be saved from embarrassment.)
But now we can only look forward with hope. So now all we need is a commissioner. A brilliant likeable figure who the public already knows and adores. Oh baby if your not shouting George Foreman at this point you’re crazy! Who else, but Big George? Who doesn’t own the lean mean fat grilling machine? Who doesn’t know George Foreman? Women love him, kids love him, guys love him. He is the perfect WBL Commissioner and could take the sport to new heights with his promotional abilities. I’m getting goose bumps just thinking about the prospect of boxing going mainstream again. Instead of depending on the big men (heavyweights) to carry the load (which this crop just cannot do) we can properly focus and promote the Hopkins’, De La Hoya’s, and Manny Pacquiao’s of the world, instead of the Ruiz’ Byrd’s and Brewster’s.
So you tell me, am I onto something or on something? It can work, it can save the sport and the men who participate in it while ridding it of the evil parasites who run it now. All we have to do is wait for the powder keg to explode, pick up the pieces and rebuild.
|
|
|
|
© Copyright / All Rights reserved: Doghouse Boxing 1998-2004
|
By Aaron Imholte (May 26, 2004) 
