I really like fights like Jose Pedraza vs. Richard Commey. Fights that don’t essentially characteristic the elite of elite, however which pit two excellent fighters, who desperately want a win, towards each other. Stuff like that makes for the easiest of boxing competitors.
Pedraza and Commey met in Tulsa on Saturday, atop a High Rank on ESPN card, coming off high-profile losses. Pedraza was decisioned by Jose Ramirez in March and Commey was practically shutout by Vasiliy Lomachenko final December. Neither veteran might afford a backward step– they usually scrapped prefer it.
Earnestly fought and stylistically well-matched by High Rank matchmakers, Pedraza-Commey was a deal with on a Saturday night time, one week faraway from Anthony Joshua’s mood tantrum in Saudi Arabia and Tyson Fury’s is-he-or-isn’t-he-retired grandstanding. Generally I don’t need a present, or a showcase, or a blockbuster occasion…generally I simply need a competently fought, aggressive prizefight. And that’s what High Rank offered on Saturday.
I don’t even care concerning the battle ending in a draw. That’s effective. It was shut. The ten rounds of sincere competitors beforehand was adequate. Getting seems to be at prospects Jared Anderson, Richard Torrez, and Tiger Johnson on the undercard was additionally a pleasant contact.
All in all, every thing went down very nicely on Saturday. Perhaps it was only a case of this catching me on the proper time, in the correct temper. However, regardless of the case, you gotta give kudos in addition to kicks within the ass if you happen to’re gonna be an sincere author. So, yeah, huge kudos to the High Rank people for a strong present.
Now for a kick within the ass…
There was a blip of a brouhaha late final week, at the least amongst boxing media nerds, when Devin Haney voiced his displeasure over being left off the Ring Journal pound-for-pound rankings and principally mentioned that they might shove the Ring Journal light-weight belt they awarded him up their collective clenched-cheeks keyster.
“The ring journal might hold their guess,” Haney wrote by way of social media. “You received’t see me with it earlier than or after this battle.”
In response, the good older woman with the ponytail who at present sits as Ring’s Editor-in-Chief, responded with a characteristically self-important, “Then mail it again to us, Champ.”
Haney’s comeback to the comeback is definitely the one salient level to this complete silliness. It touches on why, exactly, the Ring rankings, the Ring belts, and different media awards meant to be taken significantly as “the true factor” could be extra hindrance than assist.
“I’m not obligated to put on the ring journal belt; if I earned it, then I earned it reasonably I put on it or not!” Haney responded. “So to ask for it again simply reveals y’all by no means wished me to have it within the first place!”
A belt or rankings meant to be taken as “actual” issues, however selected by a clique of boxing writers, is simply as obscenely corruptible as a WBC rankings board made up of Mauricio Sulaiman’s buddies and cronies. And if anybody is aware of about boxing writers holding grudges and happening imply woman vendettas, it’s me, somebody who’s angered sufficient of them with the pesky reality to be systematically starved out of the enterprise due to it, at the least for a superb, lengthy whereas. (however that’s a narrative for one more day). Hell, Ring Journal promoting their rankings and bartering their credibility for publicity was a factor that occurred in a lot of our lifetimes, simply Google “Ring Journal Scandal.” Virtually every thing written about it’s from me and from non-boxing writers as a result of, nicely, boxing media reporting on themselves is about as widespread as cops reporting different cops for crimes and misdeeds.
I will not touch upon the pound-for-pound rankings and whether or not Devin belongs there. That pound-for-pound stuff is simply plain dumb to start with, and pound-for-pound as determined by Ring’s editorial board is particularly foolish.
However Ring Journal’s self-importance on this matter, as displayed by their Editor-in-Chief’s “put on it or give it again” angle, is exactly why these media-based rankings and wannabe sanctioning physique substitutes are gigantic shit burgers. With a present boxing media that’s nearly equal elements incompetent and compromised (Yeah, we all know who owns you, “Bible of Boxing” and who’s propped you up, monetarily, to remain afloat), these pompous performs at energy brokerage are completely meaningless and solely add extra chaos to an already chaotic panorama. In case it must be said– fully unregulated substitute sanctioning our bodies, with zero accountability, manufacturing championships and rankings primarily based solely on the whims and agendas of media slugs isn’t any bueno.
Devin Haney vacating the faux Ring Journal belt is, just about actually, like me tossing my cardboard Burger King crown within the trash after I end my Whopper. And it must be handled with the identical stage of significance.
Devoting a superb chunk of this week’s column to the matter in all probability goes towards that declaration, nevertheless it’s necessary that any individual, with some type of soapbox and platform, says this shit out loud, at the least as soon as.
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