Then again, I hyped the fight as a beating at the carnival, so that might not have been the best line to take on this one.
Valuev is a seven-foot tall Russian who took Barrett's lunch money for 10 rounds before Barrett's trainer needed to step in and end the fight. That was a decision so rational that Mike Tyson would have made it, so that's where the fight stood near the end there.It was distracting to watch and a pretty sad fight overall and it makes me a little nostalgic for a time I wasn't even around for. Most of the recent big-name title fights have fallen flat and so it's no surprise that boxing has lost its audience.
No longer are there hordes of men in there 20s clamoring for title fights in their hometowns (Don King arranged a fight last year in Chicago at the United Center that was far from a sellout and this fight was downgraded to Rosemont) and why would they?
This is not even the heyday of Mike Tyson when I was in grammar school and everyone knew he was the undisputed champ, even snot-nosed fourth graders.
Now, of the four fighters holding belts today, they are all Eastern European (which isn't very appealing to an American audience) and there hasn't been a decent high-profile fight in years. When I think back to the Lennox Lewis/Michael Grant fight I remember that the fight lasted a few minutes and that the highlight of the evening was the undercard that went the distance.
Lewis/Tyson? Same story. That was just a pitiful showing, despite the bales of cash collected for the pay-per-view. While there are fights that appeal to the hard core boxing fans, for the casual fan like me, it's a bummer that there hasn't been a decent bout in recent memory.
To put it in perspective, imagine if the last five Super Bowls had all been 45-7 blowouts or if the only teams in the World Series were from tiny markets and comprised of players from the Eastern bloc. It just takes some of the fun out of it.
I don't really have a point in all of this, except that I wish things were different and that there was a reason to book a flight to Vegas or Atlantic City with a group of friends to see a big bout.
Well that, and a boxing world where nine out of ten passersby on the street could name the heavyweight champ. Say what you will about Mike Tyson, but at least everyone knew his name.
(Photo from HBO.com)
2 comments:
Listening to the deliberately over-cautious Larry Merchant, the articulate Jim Lampley and company, I gathered that they too do not think that Nikolai Valuev, for all his size, is the kind of boxer who can unify the severely divided sport of heavyweight boxing at this time, the politics of the sport aside.
It is exactly this reason why I find the lower weight classes more interesting nowadays. Nevertheless, top rank heavyweight boxing is still potentially the most intriguing of the lot. But like you, I long for the return of the drama of yesteryear.
Minchie: http://woodshedec.blogspot.com/index.html
With all the clutching, I just didn't see him as a major force. I'd put my money on one of the other heavyweights to unify before Valuev does.
I mean, it's great to be able to take a punch, but it seems like you could catch him on an off night and end things pretty quickly.
Then again, I'm a casual boxing fan at best, so what the hell do I know, right?
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