Tuesday, March 04, 2008

Knockout Reporting

All you need do is search for the words “Obama knockout Clinton” in Google, and you will get a plethora of news articles and headlines comparing tonight’s Democratic primaries to a boxing match. We get them from coast to coast, and in print and online.

The New York Times reports, “Spending Heavily, Obama Attempts Knockout Blow.” MSNBC.com titles an AP article, “Obama seeks knockout, Clinton bids for revival.” The Honolulu Advertiser writes, “Final punches thrown before fateful voting.” By the time you could list them all, the primaries would be over.

These are not merely the product of cliché-mad writers having to grind out headlines day after day. They not only reflect the reality that boxing can be seen as a microcosm of life. What they signify is that interest in fighting, in struggle, in battles, is as high as ever. We also know that the same cannot be said about the sport of boxing, at least in the regions that the media obsessed with these primaries operate.

Yet most of these media outlets make little or no attempt to recognize the connection of boxing to the rest of life from the other side, and cover this universally compelling sport. The New York Times, for example, on the same day they were writing about Obama’s attempted “knockout blow,” had absolutely nothing about the previous night’s fight of the year candidate between Israel Vazquez and Rafael Marquez. All the news, indeed.

Part of the blame, alas, has to lie with the way boxing positions itself. Besides weekly bombastic cons that every televised fight will be a great one, little is done to connect the sport to the rest of life, save in a few unimaginative areas like appealing to crude nationalism, sentimentalism about dying relatives, or just cheap trash talk borrowed from the fake pro “wrestling”.

What parades itself as the boxing media follows in kind. It does not take a sizable budget or expense account to ask fighters more than just how they plan to beat their opponent or who is next. This sport is obviously completely different from those where you hit or throw a ball. What does it mean to these athletes to hit each other and get hit in return in this sport? We rarely ever find out.

The drama inherent in such a sport is incomparable to any that can be produced in the non-combat sports, at least in my estimation. While the clock ticking down in an intense, close game, or a full count with the bases loaded and the score tied in the ninth inning, might be entertaining to some (and it is at times to me), the stakes in those sports are entirely different from that in sports like boxing. A batter may strike out, a receiver may drop a pass, or a basketball player may miss a free throw, but those are all in different galaxy from getting knocked out.

I, for one, wouldn’t mind all these politicians knocking each other out, for real. I would settle for writing and reporting of the sporting knockouts which had the equivalent depth that the sport itself does. For that, just like we cannot rely on the politicians for anything other than passing gas, we have to go beyond what our lame, established boxing media is doing and produce it ourselves.

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4 Comments:

At 6:41 PM, Blogger Frank Lotierzo said...

I see your point regarding the inference to Fighting/Boxing regarding the Obama-Clinton fight for Delegates. (I'm hoping it's a fight to the death match between them) However, I'm not sure Louis-Schmeling II or Frazier-Ali I would garner the Election type coverage. But it might for a few days, because so many saw the fights.

One of the greatest fights I've ever seen in 42 years of following boxing, was the WBA Super Flyweight title bout between Gustavo Ballas & Rafael Pedroza back in December of 1981. I'll be shocked IF any of you saw it. IF you are, you're the first one I know of other than myself. That single Fight was as good as any single bout I've seen. And I can't even remember where I watched it.

My point is, how many saw Vazquez-Marquez III. Due to my not having Showtime, I had to watch six or seven rounds of it on YouTube. Therein lies the problem, IF you didn't follow Boxing pretty close, you wouldn't even have known about it. Whereas IF it was on ABC/CBS/NBC in the afternoon, many would've caught it, and they'd be discussing it today.

Much of the Problem is, Boxing can only be found on pay cable channels. Add to that the deplorable way Olympic Boxing is aired late at night, or very early in the morning, nobody sees the fights.

Great fights like Vazquez-Marquez need exposure. Sadly, Fights like Klitschko-Ibragimov get too much. IF Boxings best Fighters had more free exposure, its fan base would be growing, instead of evaporating. And that only scratches the surface why the National coverage is so lame.

 
At 7:31 AM, Blogger Eddie Goldman said...

The mainstream media, both after the Feb. 5 “Super Tuesday” primaries and Hillary Clinton’s victory in three of the four primaries held yesterday, have been borrowing yet another boxing term: the split decision. A Google search of “Clinton Obama split decision” turns up references in sites like MSNBC.com, WashingtonPost.com, CNN.com, CBS.com, and even AlJazeera.net (in English, at least).

Now that neither remaining Democratic candidate appears capable of scoring that knockout referred to earlier, and the race will likely be decided by their judges, i.e., the convention delegates, yet another term common in boxing may appear: the robbery. If one candidate, say, has a sizable lead in delegates and support among the party members, but not enough to secure a majority of the elected delegates’ votes at the convention, the choice for the presidential nominee will fall into the hands of the unelected, so-called Super Delegates, meaning party insiders, wirepullers, and hacks. If they vote for the more connected candidate, who also would otherwise be behind in support, the politicians would continue in the fine traditions of boxing seen most recently in November’s Santa Cruz-Casamayor decision, and so, so many more.

The difference between the politicians and boxing, and perhaps why these guys are running the government while boxing can’t even get on network TV in America, is that the politicians know that any such robbery would tear their party apart and clinch a victory for the Republicans. Thus, if this race continues to be as tight as it is, and neither Obama nor Clinton can win an outright majority of elected delegates at the convention, it is likely that some kind of deal would be made to place both on the ticket, in whatever order made most sense.

Here is where American politics and boxing part company. There is no central body running boxing, and little accountability to the public. As Frank said, the best fights are on relatively inaccessible pay networks. That arrangement makes a lot of money for a tiny number of people, and even a growing amount of money for a declining number of people. Even if that weakens boxing in the long run and also year to year, there is no one who can step in to can get everyone to work together for the overall good of the sport, both long-term and short-term.

That is how bad things have gotten in boxing: There are positive lessons to be learned from the politicians.

 
At 11:04 AM, Blogger Frank Lotierzo said...

And like boxing, the establishment will appoint the champion/Democratic nominee. Clinton is part of the establishment. They'll select Clinton as the Presidential nominee, as long as she picks Obama as her VP. So she'll have no choice. That's because they can't throw one of them out, without pissing off women or blacks. And she knows the Democrats couldn't win a student council election without the Black vote.

Clinton - Obama is the dream foe in the mind of the Democrats to take on the racist Repulicans. The problem is, Clinton - Obama is only a Dream ticket for the GOP, since it can't win, and gives the opposition two reasons to vote against it.

The only way the Democrats could've lost this fight is IF they dropped their hands, stuck out their chin and said hit me. Which is what they're in the midst of doing.

 
At 10:15 PM, Blogger Jack said...

Sure the Democrats might knock each other out-anything's possible. It's just not likely. As Eddie said, there is a central body in control of the Democratic party. And everyone can be assured that the party's "central command" is whispering into both candidate's ears. A joint Clinton-Obama/Obama-Clinton ticket is also possible, though I doubt it. (Hillary doesn't want to play second fiddle in the pecking order-again. And Obama doesn't want to play third fiddle to both Hill AND Bill.) It's still likely that the voters will sort this match out themselves. No KO, but a decision. In the meantime "old man McCain" will be well and truly tied to GWB's coattails (The "Bush-McCain" administration.) And as the Iraq War drags on, and the economy goes south.... That may be all that the democrats need. Messy, but a win.

As for boxing's failing marketing strategies, as seen on the larger pay cable networks, the underdog smaller stations will reap the benefits of smarter packaging of better bouts. As a result, the larger channels will probably buy them out, and the viewer will benefit---even if only for awhile, until the madness returns.

 

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