Boxing is on the ropes and down for the count.
But that doesn’t mean it is dead.
No, boxing is alive and some would argue well, and you don’t have to look that far to find it.
The major fights that grab the attention of the sports world come once every few years, and the distance between those marquee bouts is getting wider and wider.
Home Box Office, the signature boxing network, has stopped broadcasting heavyweight title fights because of the lack of interest in the champions that hold the multiple championship belts.
“We’re out of the heavyweight division,” HBO sports president Ross Greenburg said earlier this year.
The only bout the public was looking forward to — welterweights Floyd Mayweather against Manny Pacquiao, the only two major attractions in the sport — may never happen.
Mayweather, who had refused to fight Pacquiao unless he submitted to a certain drug testing policy because of performance-enhancing drug suspicions, now may face a prison sentence on eight charges filed against him connected to a domestic violence incident involving his former girlfriend and their son.
Pacquiao is fighting on Nov. 13 at Jerry World in Dallas against Antonio Margarito, a disgraced boxer who could not get licensed to fight in either Nevada or California because he was found using plaster-like illegal hand wraps in a January 2009 bout.
The perception is that boxing is on its last legs. But that depends on how you define the life of the sport.
Remarkably, while it may have lost its place in the national spotlight, boxing is thriving on the local level. In fact, it has become the community theater of sports in some places — particularly the Baltimore-Washington metropolitan area.
Over the next two weeks, there will be five local boxing shows.
Last night, an amateur card was scheduled for the Sugar Ray Leonard Boxing Center in Palmer Park, Md.
On Saturday, there will be two shows in the Washington area.
Jimmy Lange — the popular local boxing franchise — will be putting on another show at the Patriot Center in Fairfax. Lange will face Joe Wyatt for the North American Boxing Association’s vacant 154-pound title, and the rest of the card will feature a number of local fighters, including former world middleweight champion William Joppy. Lange has been putting on successful and entertaining shows at the Patriot Center for several years now.
In another part of the region, promoter Bobby Magruder will be presenting a show Nov. 6 at the Waldorf, Md., Jaycees Community Center. It will feature middleweight John Mackey against George Rivera, plus a number of other bouts.
On Nov. 10, a new local promotional company — Pay Day Promotions — will hold a fight card in the District at the D.C. Star night club (formerly D.C. Tunnel). The main event will Tony Jeter against Jose Felix in a six-round bout, along with a number of other fights.
The following night is the legendary event known as “Fight For Children,” also known as “Fight Night,” the annual fundraising event at the Washington Hilton. Three live bouts are scheduled, as well as appearances from some of the legends of boxing. Past shows have included such greats as Joe Frazier and Sugar Ray Leonard.
That’s a pretty good pulse for a corpse.
Examiner columnist Thom Loverro is the co-host of “The Sports Fix” from noon to 2 p.m. Monday through Friday on ESPN 980 and espn980.com. Contact him at [email protected].
