This is what the Oscar De La Hoya-Floyd Mayweather fight, one of the most important events in recent sports history, really means: It's boxing's last stand.
Boxing is fighting for its life, and in some ways the largest obstacle to its rebirth is its greatest competitor -- the worst league ever invented, the UFC. Which means it is good vs. evil, Halle Berry vs. Courtney Love, true sport against the mosh pit of sweat and bloodied skull fractures known as ultimate fighting.
It's up to Oscar and Floyd to get boxing back on the national landscape. (Getty Images)
De La Hoya and Mayweather can single-handedly save their sport from deteriorating into dust while simultaneously stopping the advance of the UFC barbarians at the gate, trying to destroy boxing by polluting pay-per-view with their brand of low-brow, ghetto-fabulous hooliganism.
This is it. This is when boxing emerges from its great depression riding the shoulders of De La Hoya and finally strikes a blow to the caged ignorance that is mixed martial arts.
It will happen.
In the coming days, you will read foofs who will say boxing can never survive, despite one of the more glorious bouts just several days away. On Thursday, you will attempt to stomach the dopey ramblings of my good friend Gregg Doyel, otherwise known as Captain Persnickety, downplaying this grand moment in history. He's probably another ultimate fighting apologist as well.
Mixed martial arts will never be as good as boxing on its worst day. Many of the ultimates are nothing but thugs and ruffians. All that league has done is take a few former nightclub bouncers, knuckle crackers and parolees, put on some fancy TV graphics and told them, "Kick the other guy in the nuts."
No skill is required to knee someone in the groin (and it happens despite rules stating it is illegal). I'm kneeing Doyel in the groin now. See, was that difficult?
Next on Spike TV: Man eats another man's face. Then some dork will call it a sport.
The UFC has no credibility. UFC equals the Ultimate Farcical Clown league.
And please do not wax poetic about the UFC's popularity. Of course people watch the UFC. It's human cockfighting. It appeals to the lowest common denominator of human existence.
The message boards and my e-mail will be irradiated with balderdash about how the mainstream media is simply a bunch of snobs and we don't "get" the Ultimate Farcical Clown league. I love the NFL. Only Roman gladiators had a more dangerous sporting profession. The NFL is more violent than the UFC, but football at least possesses a veneer of being civilized.
Boxing is almost comically imperfect. It is full of crooks, con artists and ear biters (and that's just a weekend in Atlantic City with Mike Tyson). Despite its faults and notwithstanding the massive greed that has caused boxing to collapse on itself like a dying sun, boxing has more charm in its broken pinky than the Ultimate Farcical Clown league does in its entire crappy organization.
No UFC goon has or ever will possess the grace and natural showmanship of De La Hoya or the true fearsome fighting skills of Mayweather.
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Notice the word: skills. This match will not resemble a bar-room brawl but meticulous, highly practiced, man-to-man warfare between two skilled, all-time athletes.
It is only a matter of time before the UFC suckers, er, fans realize they have been fooled by a Jedi mind trick.
The UFC should be banned; the De La Hoya-Mayweather bout should be embraced.
The fact a non-heavyweight match is getting so much attention shows that boxing still has appeal (and even I once thought it was dead). The fact boxing has survived despite so many scandals and crooked promoters demonstrate it has resilience.
"This (fight) is important because boxing is at its lowest point and boxing has been at its lowest point for quite a while now," De La Hoya told the New York Post. "Boxing is always taking these low blows left and right from people. This will give it a good shot in the arm."
The fight can do more than that. It can begin a resurgence perhaps not seen before in American sports. If the fight is particularly competitive, casual fans will give boxing another look and the all-important advertisers will again open their wallets instead of turning their backs.
Then maybe we can begin to put the sad joke that is the UFC behind us.
And once again we can get excited about a real sport.
Mike Freeman
MAY 2, 2007
http://cbs.sportsline.com/columns/story/10162545/1
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WTF is this guy thinking????
