R.E.S.P.E.C.T.
By Donald “Braveheart” Stewart
An opinion piece from the only Donald worth listening to…
Full Stop – In British English grammar a full stop is a lengthy pause, in the US, you call it a period. In the UK that tends to suggest feminine products. Here it means a period of time where
I look at something in boxing in a little more depth. I am typing from my perspective of a fan who watches the sport closely. It’s an opinion. It is my opinion. Don’t like it? There are other opinions out there but if you don’t like it then good, debate and democracy are a good thing. If you do like it, feel free to spread the word.
R.E.S.P.E.C.T.
For many, Aretha said it better than any…
R-E-S-P-E-C-T
Find out what it means to me
R-E-S-P-E-C-T
Take care, TCB
And recently in the UK’s premium trade paper, Boxing News’ podcast, the Opening Bell, one of the presenters, Alex Steedman bemoaned the false and heightened negative behavior that boxers indulge in to sell a fight. For him, the hype train is getting boring. For me, it was beyond the pail a long time ago.
Given the number of boxers vying for attention on social media and online it is hardly surprising that dignity and respect becomes much less than attractive if the tickets are not flying out the box office. A bit of needle, some tension in the press conference, steely eyed determination in a stare off and never, ever, shake their hands is what it suddenly has come down to.
Why?
It’s entertaining for an entertainment business. People who buy tickets, in the main, want to spend money seeing something that is dramatic, spicy, and filled with that tension. Nobody wants a chess match in the ring, or so they say.
Genuine boxing fans disagree. Genuine boxers too, but many are suckered into the need to fill each and every social media post with objectionable comments.
Recently that has been a frustration encountered and bemoaned by Sunny Edwards who felt that Jesse Rodriguez was not doing his best to sell their contest. They both happened to be very respectful fighters and whilst not in awe of each other, at least filled with admiration over their records. All Edwards was looking for was some engagement in the social media sphere to sell their fight. All that “Bam” wanted was to win the fight. He did. He also annoyed Edwards by not doing anything more than what he was contracted to do. Seemed to pay off for him.
And whilst it paid off for Rodriguez, it backfired on Dillian Whyte. He took a similar approach in his fight with Tyson Fury, annoying both Fury and his promoter, Frank Warren. In the end Whyte lost and did so by some distance as Fury battered him, though once again, at the end of the fight, embraces, cuddles and outpourings of fighting men with warrior hearts was signaled with the final bell.
And it was that type of utterly false narrative planted by Whyte until he lost, that Steedman, rightly, objected to. The new route to success, through social media fallouts has become the norm, the expected and the most noted in build ups to fights. Boxers spend so much time having “beef” online that they get the fight to a point where promoters can then claim that it is a fight that “everyone wants”. Due to the number of clicks and likes on a post or people following a fighter on Instagram, X or wherever we get hyped up and excited by their opportunity to end this once and for all – but it never is once and for all. One of the biggest grudge matches of the last twenty years – Froch/Groves is back and being advertised as Froch/Groves III.
It’s a live face to face podcast.
Trading on the initial enmity is quite the thing… and they are no longer enemies, but respectful colleagues.
Respect, however, was all in evidence at a recent match-up between Humzah Sheeraz and Liam Williams. Throughout the buildup, the younger Sheeraz was nothing less than respectful to a man he was about to share a ring with but who had so much more experience than him. Sheeraz blasted Williams out in the first round. You could have expected the swagger and the boasts, the arrogance and the name calling, as Williams, for the first time in his career, was treated at the end of fists in a manner he had never experienced. It was the passing of the baton, but straight afterwards, Sheeraz went to a man he idolized, spoke of how he admired him and thanked him for the honor of sharing a ring with him.
It was dramatic, spicy by the ending and filled with great expectations. Sheeraz who, a few years ago, was the biggest villain of all because of a controversial win against Bradley Skeete – it led to Skeete giving up his professional career, so incensed was he at the injustice he suffered – that this was a complete turnaround by a boxer who refused to lie down to the negative views expressed by trolls of his career and his personality. In that conversation of less than a minute, Sheeraz became more than the sum of his performance.
Then again, just announced – Josh Taylor v Jack Catterall II, at the Leeds Arena in April, is a grudge match beyond all grudge matches. These two thoroughly dislike each other. Taylor beat Catterall in Scotland almost two years ago, in a decision which was simply a robbery. Fair play to Taylor, he believes he won the fight and makes decent enough claims about why he thinks so, but for most of us it was a Catterall win. Both have come away and fought since, but this simmering resentment has festered into a rematch which we all cannot wait to see. And we a=cannot wait as the tickets sold out in minutes. Minutes…
Both boxers made sure that it did. The promoter did not need to do much to help out, however, the reason why this should appear above everything else is because it is different and stands apart from the usual. That usual should be a respectful set of pugilists’ happy to share a ring with a challenger and not some foul-mouthed patsy trying to shift a few tickets because their promoter wants them to be more “marketable”. Given the issues that ordinary people see with boxing – drug cheats, scoring riots and infantile behavior of grown adults – it’s important that whilst the sport thrives, we manage its ascendancy properly. That starts with what Aretha said – helpfully, she even spelled it out for us too…
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