Who's the real Man: Golden Boy vs. Pretty Boy

Encanto · Posted: 08 May 2007 10:55 AM Post subject:

hopefully Margarito shines against Williams to set up a big fight with any of those top champs.

Damn, seems surreal, two years exactly after his fight with Castillo, Chico Corrales is dead. He ran his new 07 suzuki he just bought one week ago into the back of car, then flew out and got ran over by oncoming car opposite side of street. Sad story for boxing, and left his wife 6 months pregnant, and other children. A great warrior, never feared his opponent. RIP Diego Corrales.

sakurob · Posted: 09 May 2007 04:32 AM Post subject:

On the contrary boxing brought this conversation to everybody's water coolers...... check.

With positive and building momentum on the side of UFC, Dana White was a happy camper.

Then, he caught a break of a lifetime.

Floyd Mayweather Jr., who was promoting his upcoming mega-fight against Oscar De La Hoya, opened his big mouth about UFC .

Mayweather started ripping on UFC as fighters who couldn’t make it in boxing, and also offered $1 million USD to Chuck Liddell to beat a heavyweight boxer in a boxing match. Mayweather also called UFC a ‘fad.’

Like mana from heaven, Dana White capitalized on Mayweather’s public relations mistake. He gave Mayweather an open challenge to face UFC 155-pound champion Sean Sherk in an MMA match. Sherk, the least-publicized of all of UFC’s champions, suddenly gained national media attention. White masterfully framed the terms of the PR war that Mayweather suddenly found himself in.

As boxing writer Charles Jay stated in a radio interview last week , Mayweather made a major PR gaffe. Jay also stated that Dana White knew more about the boxing industry than three-quarters of the people in the business. White was primed to be in a position to capitalize on Mayweather’s verbal blunder.

Soon, Mayweather’s comments were turned from a PR gaffe to an actual media storyline that dominated a lot of the conversation in the weeks of media coverage leading into the Mayweather/De La Hoya fight. UFC suddenly hijacked media attention away from the biggest boxing mega-fight in the last two years. Like a trojan horse infecting a computer, UFC penetrated much of the hype discussion leading into Mayweather’s fight. Dana White and Sean Sherk masterfully took advantage of all of the free publicity they were getting.

Both the boxing and mainstream media were all too willing to play into UFC’s hands.

In the last two weeks of media hype leading into the De La Hoya/Mayweather boxing match, readers continued to consume a tired and played out storyline of, “Will this fight save boxing?” The mainstream media all but proclaimed the mega-fight as boxing’s funeral. Mayweather and De La Hoya found themselves playing defense to media writers asking them about MMA surpassing boxing.

The media scrutiny would not stop any time soon.

Teddy Atlas played it honestly, but cautiously last Tuesday on Jim Rome’s nationally syndicated radio show. He credited MMA fighters as hard-working athletes while still defending the sport of boxing that he very much loves. A flurry of mainstream sports media writers continued to flood web sites and print newspapers with columns proclaiming the death of boxing at the hands of the more exciting sport of MMA.

ESPN was glad to carry the water on that message.

ESPN Radio hosts Colin Cowherd and Dan Patrick buried boxing profusely on their respective radio shows. Cowherd said that everyone is looking to invest money into Mixed Martial Arts and that nobody is looking to put money into boxing. He also claimed that Shaquille O’Neal’s agent, Perry Rodgers (based out of Las Vegas), was responsible for UFC getting onto Spike TV. Cowherd compared boxing to a one-night stand in relation to MMA, which develops relationships with its fans and gives fans every month the fights they want to see. On The Big Show , Dan Patrick talked about meeting with UFC Light Heavyweight champion Chuck Liddell and how accomodating Liddell was to meet in person. Patrick practically took a verbal pitchfork and stuck it into boxing on his program.

On ESPN TV last Thursday on SportsCenter , host Brian Kenny narrated a video package discussing hype for Mayweather and De La Hoya’s upcoming fight. However, at least 30% of the air time on the video package was dedicated to the future of boxing and where MMA fit into the equation. Again, Mayweather took the time to trash MMA on national television. De La Hoya, as he had done so all week leading into the fight, played it cool and stated that boxing wasn’t a dying sport while praising those involved in MMA.

To see ESPN push the “boxing is dying, MMA is coming” storyline so hard on television was remarkable to watch. You could not put a price tag on this type of coverage if you were in UFC’s shoes.

Oh yeah, there also was a boxing fight this past weekend. Mayweather defeated De La Hoya in a good, but not great 12-round split decision encounter. DirecTV was overflooded with customer orders and cable outlets throughout the States were experiencing heavy customer traffic.

The fallout from the aftermath of the fight, however, was not about the fight itself.

After defeating Oscar De La Hoya, Floyd Mayweather Jr. half-heartedly announced his retirement from boxing. De La Hoya indicated that he might fight again. The mainstream media covered the fight, but once the fight was over so was the interest from the casual fan towards boxing.

However, there was one incident on the De La Hoya/Mayweather telecast that struck a chord with MMA fans. After the boxing fight, play-by-play announcer Jim Lampley took time to get a shot in against MMA . He stated that you would not find a MMA fighter with the kind of hands (for boxing) like you would with either Mayweather or De La Hoya. Max Kellerman jumped into the conversational fray after Lampley’s comment and told Lampley that MMA fighters are every bit the athletes that Mayweather and De La Hoya were. There were some writers who defended Lampley for his comments (which technically are right), but Lampley’s defenders are missing the bigger picture.

Why did Jim Lampley feel insecure enough to try to take a gratuitous cheap shot at MMA during boxing’s biggest mega-fight PPV telecast? He clearly aimed to intentionally make this provocative comment — but why? What purpose did it serve? Was it to strike back at HBO executives who are rumoredly going to start airing UFC shows on the network? Was it to strike back at the mainstream media and the constant “boxing is dying, MMA is taking over” storyline?

Whatever Lampley’s intentions were, it backfired. It made many MMA fans angry. On the FightOpinion.com site, we had a correspondent at the fight in Las Vegas who heard about Lampley’s comments — which supposedly raised a stir live at the arena.

Of all of the blunders from those in boxing playing right into Dana White’s media wheelhouse, Lampley’s comments were by far the most egregious of them all. Yes, he is technically 100% right with his comments. However, there was no impetus for him to make those comments other than to stir up trouble.

On the day of the Mayweather/De La Hoya mega-fight, UFC issued a press release for their July 7th card at Arco Arena in Sacramento, California. The press release practically read like a laundry list of arguments against boxing PPVs and where disgruntled boxing fans should be turning their eyes to for spending their hard-earned money on PPV.

After winning his fight against Oscar De La Hoya, Floyd Mayweather Jr. found himself making some interesting comments about MMA. After spending weeks trashing UFC and giving UFC an amazing amount of free media coverage, Mayweather was quoted by FightNews.com as saying the following in a post-fight media session:

“I apologize to the UFC, sometimes we say things that we shouldn’t have said and I’m man enough to admit that. I apologize to the Fertittas, Lorenzo and Dana White (UFC owners). I respect MMA fighters and what they do in the UFC. I have no plans of fighting in mixed martial arts.”

For Floyd Mayweather Jr., his comments came way too late. The damage to his sport in media circles by his anti-MMA comments was already complete. There was no going back. The genie was let out of the bottle. UFC was (pardon the pun) the ultimate victor coming out of this past weekend’s activities in Las Vegas.

For those thinking that UFC’s onslaught against boxing is about to stop, think again . On June 21st, UFC will be holding a breakfast at the AP Sports editors convention in St. Louis, Missouri. White will continue to aggressively court media writers to invest more time and money into covering MMA.

There is a growing chorus of sportswriters who see where the money and eyeballs are shifting to, and it’s not boxing. It’s mixed martial arts. Floyd Mayweather Jr. only managed to highlight this fact with his loud mouth and even louder anti-MMA statements.

elchrist · Posted: 09 May 2007 07:26 AM Post subject:

sakurob · Posted: 09 May 2007 08:40 AM Post subject:

From The Boston Herald

Very Happy

Sometimes I post sometimes I copy and paste..................I'd burn out my keyboard. Very Happy

El Christ is the man....I'm just the man who knows the man.

Back in Vegas, Dana White is smiling too.

“I went to the fight that night,” said White, the UFC president, referring to last Saturday night’s Oscar de la Hoya-Floyd Mayweather match, “and I tell you this: Inside the arena, there was no energy whatsoever.

“On my way out of the arena, people were screaming at me, ‘The UFC rules!’”

The so-called “Fight to save boxing” has come and gone and it definitely scored big at the box office and in pay-per-view sales. People attended it and viewed it because of De la Hoya, Mayweather and the HBO 24/7 show that promoted their matchup so compellingly.

But White’s point all along boils down to this: Now what? With no other super fight on the horizon and the immensely popular De la Hoya having lost for the third time in his last five fights, it may be a while before momentum for the sport can build again.

“I’m not bashing boxing, I love it,” White said. “But all these people have destroyed this sport, I’m just being honest. A lot of guys want to act like it’s not. They got something like 2 million (pay-per-view) buys, they did a $20 million gate. Imagine what they could have done with an undercard and if they had done it the right way. That was their biggest mistake.”

White, a former boxer and South Boston gym owner, has long bemoaned the sport’s reluctance to think of the future. Last week he told the Herald that De la Hoya, who promoted the fight, missed the boat by not stocking the card with boxers represented by his Golden Boy Promotions.

“Saturday night is what pisses everyone off,” said White. “It’s crazy. It just drives people further from boxing. You get one fight for 55 bucks. One fight for a $2,500 ticket. You get people all excited for the buildup and then the fight ends up sucking. Both guys try to outpoint the other and win a decision.

“In the UFC, we give you eight or nine fights, they’re all good, and the guys are fighting their asses off trying to finish it. There’s tons of energy.”

In the world of combat sports, the next big thing is UFC 71 on May 26, with Liddell defending his light heavyweight title against Quinton “Rampage” Jackson in the main event. It’s just one of nine fights lined up for the evening.

Liddell, who is trying to avenge a 2003 loss to Jackson, the only defeat he’s yet to pay back, is pounding his way into the mainstream media. His Men’s Fitness cover was the magazine’s best-selling issue, according to White, and the Iceman just starred in a recent episode of “Entourage.”

Now he’s gracing one of the entire sport’s world’s leading magazines. It may not be coincidence that the coverboy he’s supplanting from last issue is none other than Floyd Mayweather

Mars · Posted: 09 May 2007 09:14 AM Post subject:

is this thread about golden boy vs. pretty boy?

verbal · Posted: 09 May 2007 09:53 AM Post subject:

sakurob · Posted: 09 May 2007 10:08 AM Post subject:

Too bad their can't be a third "Corrales vs Castillo"........... Crying or Very sad

That was a barn burner right there.!!!

Encanto · Posted: 09 May 2007 03:54 PM Post subject:

a corrales cotto would've been exciting.

pato · Posted: 10 May 2007 01:21 PM Post subject:

You nailed it right on the head ENCANTO, fucken Mayweather did nothing but run and cover his body with is arms and elbows. De La Hoya was the champion, therefore Mayweather was the one who was supposed to go after the champ to take his belt away, and he did none of that. De La Hoya did all the chasing during the whole fight. I guess judges don't score boxers for being the aggresor.