In Defense of the Casual Boxing Fan
I don’t have television; haven’t actually for quite some time. Once upon a time, many moons ago, I had 500 channels of nothing-to-watch. This was back when I was in the music pimpin’ business; and, in case you haven’t heard, pimpin’ ain’t easy, and it sure as hell don’t pay. So, with the rising cost of rent, etc., somewhere around 2002 or 3, I had to make a choice: live in the dark without heat, live without a phone, forget about salvaging my credit rating and drown in debt, give up eating, or find something I could live without. Cable TV ended up drawing the short straw so I could still have pocket change after all the other clients, for whom I must have been the middle man, got their pound of flesh. Work gives me money, I give them their money, and now I had some money left over; but damn, no boxing.
I’d always been that guy who’d call up his friends the week of a big fight, whether they were fans or not, and ask everybody to come on over for beer and chips to go with a good beating, or we’d all just head down to the bar. Tuesday and Thursday nights were USA nights, depending on the year and ESPN was a must, even with their then-limited library of classics, which comprised of what seemed like the same ten fights on an endless loop. Now, no TV, no fights. After a week or so I felt like a junkie itching for a fix. All I had left were my VHS tapes dating back to the mid-80’s. It was a sad time.
Fortunately, about that time, I discovered boxing had its own websites, like ringsidereport.com which came on the scene in 2004. All of a sudden, things weren’t so bad. Not only could I find out the latest boxing news; but I found out that I wasn’t the only boxing fan in the world, just the only one in Tennessee.
Well, time passed and I discovered more boxing sites, made cyber-friends with whom I traded VHS tapes and later DVD’s back and forth of fights I’d never seen, books I’d never read, etc. There was a whole world out there of fight fans which I’d never been exposed to in an essentially boxing-free environment. Oh sure, every now and then a big fight would be shown in a bar or on closed –circuit at an open-door venue; but, by and large there were very few live-action bouts near any place I lived. So, the internet found its initial meaningful nitch with me, outside of work-related research. Then came the job change and no internet. Damn.
I realize how “no internet” sounds; but, believe it or not, life does exist without a series of 1’s and 0’s encoded on an LED screen, or CRT screen, as the case was at the time. Without getting into all the boring details, the economy crashed and my new bride and I learned the new meaning of “juggling the bills” and “budgeting our funds”. A computer, which was insanely expensive at the time in relation to our income, and one more bill just didn’t seem to make much sense, so, my first love, boxing, and I had to go our separate ways for a few years.
After much struggle, determination, and luck, things turned around and there the sweet science was again on a brand new desk top. Oh, I’d made sure to keep aware of what was going on in the sport. There are advantages to working at a store which sells HDTV’s. I think I even swayed a couple of non-fans to become addicts to a sport they’d never paid much attention to, thanks to an occasional commandeering of the remote control for some 200 sets.
What amazed me, once I got back on the internet, was how the landscape had changed, regarding the posters. Sure, you had your diehards, like myself, who had been following the sport for years; but there was a mass population boom of what were and are referred to as “casual fans”. You know them. They’re the ones who follow and know just one particular fighter and know next to nothing about anybody else. Originally, these types of fans seem to revolve primarily around Floyd Mayweather, JR. and Manny Pacquiao, which is understandable, as they were the hottest tickets in the sport at that time and everybody wanted to see them meet, including myself.
Looking back on that time, just a few short years ago, I’m amazed at the resurgence of the sport itself. Let’s face it, the early 2000’s were not exactly good years for boxing in the United States; and that drought lasted until just a little over a year or so ago. That’s a ten year time-span when the popularity of the sport seemed like it would never make a recovery. There were only two real “stars” and they didn’t fight each other for some ridiculous reason or another; but that’s another thread.
However, thanks to Al Haymon’s big gamble, boxing is on free TV again and the sport received a much needed shot in the arm. So, the “causal fan” population also, naturally, exploded. When there are more fights and they are more easily stumbled across by accident, how can boxing not pick up new fans? That’s how it got me; but that was way back in the 1970’s when boxing was something you could always count on, on the weekends. And, of course, my love of the sport grew from there.
Since I was about 24 or so, I always enjoyed catching a big fight in a bar. The atmosphere in a bar comes in second to actually being at a fight; but it’s a close second. Part of the experience is not just the overpriced domestics; but the conversation and debates which inevitably crop up among the people there, for you don’t always just talk about the fight you came there to watch. It always branches off into other fighters and other fights you’ve seen. It’s a shared experience and more often than not, it’s always civil, if not a bit electric and passionate.
The various discussion boards on the internet are akin to a watered-down, sanitized version of this cultural phenomenon. Very in depth discussions are had without the clatter of glasses, the ever present background noise of other conversations, and that cute waitress asking you if you want another; but there’s another factor about internet conversations that very rarely find their way into a barroom discussion without excessive amounts of liquid courage: insults, threats, and name calling. It’s very easy to be brave, resting comfortably behind a computer screen, far more easy than it is when the person you’re laying into is within punching distance. All too often, these “confrontations”, if such a word can be used, involve a long-time boxing fan and a “casual fan”.
Speaking as someone who’s been around long enough that he can remember a time when no one was referred to as a “casual fan”, I would like to offer up a couple of thoughts to the tried and true, the main thought being, “be patient with them.” Not so long ago, there were no “casual fans” simply because boxing fans were hard to come by. The UFC grew while boxing was on the decline. Some fights, such as Mayweather, JR. Vs De La Hoya were promoted as “The Fight Which Will Save Boxing”, or some other absurd title along those lines. If you walked up to any stranger on the street and asked them who the “World Champion” was, you’d get a blank stare, or the name of a fighter who hadn’t been champion for 10 years or more. In fact, that still could be the case, even though the sport is on the rebound, so we’re still not where we were.
All of us were “casual fans” at one time. We had one fighter who captured our imagination and we followed them down the prim rose path to a whole fistic world of other fighters and a sport we became addicted to. For me, it was Muhammad Ali. If Ali hadn’t gotten my attention and sucked me in, I never would have discovered Sugar Ray Leonard, or Marvin Hagler, or “The Easton Assassin”, still one of the coolest nicknames of all time, and then, of course, Mike Tyson, Julio Cesar Chavez, Diego Corrales, Marco Antonio Barrera, etc., etc. etc. It always starts with one.
When most of us became fans, there was no internet. We had ABC’s Wide World of Sports, or Boxing After Dark, or Tuesday Night Fights and a close group of friends to whom we could say, “Did you see that punch?!”
Can you imagine how it would have made you feel if (and it probably happened, as it did with me) some “mamaluke”, to use a “Bad Bradism”, shot you down in the midst of your imaginative retelling of a fight which got your adrenaline pumping or as you were going on and on about some fighter you thought was the next big thing?
Would that encourage you to be a boxing fan? Would you want to get to know more boxing fans or even continue following the sport after your fighter finally lost?
Guys and gals, there still aren’t that many of us, not when compared to soccer fans (bleh!), football fans, etc. Heck, there are probably more fans of Olympic Ribbon Dancing than there are boxing fans, God help us. We’re a unique clique. We’re the oldest; but we are not as great in number as we once were and we can’t afford to ostracize potential pledges. Most of these young bloods have grown up with the internet and it is their primary source of communication. So, they get excited and go over the top sometimes with how their man could have beaten that “old fighter with a primitive style”. Laugh it off. They don’t know; they probably never even saw him fight and I guarantee they don’t know anything about the opponent he beat and why “that win” was so impressive.
Baby steps. When they brag on their man, be glad for them. They found a fighter to follow. They’re one of the gang, now. Bring ‘em in, nurture them, and, yeah, school ‘em; but in a nice way. Share your reasons for why you think your fighter was better and share some fights for them to watch after you explain why your guy was as good as you think he was. Seeing is believing. Will they agree with you afterwards?
Probably not. Until he died, God rest his soul, I argued with my Uncle that there was no way Rocky Marciano would’ve whooped Muhammad Ali; but that’s life and that’s what makes discussing boxing so fun with friends. And, believe it or not, that’s what “casual fans” are….friends, for we all share a love of the same sport. Some of us have just loved her longer; but she’s got enough to go around for all of us…..even the newbies.
We were all “newbies” at one time. Just remember that the next time one of them says something that nearly makes you bang your head into the computer. Take a deep breath, think of them as someone sitting next to you at the bar, and come out discussing.
Oh, and keep ‘em up.
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