Anaheim vs. San Francisco was not the dream World Series of every California baseball fan, let alone the fans’ favorite nationwide.
But at least the Angels and Giants had to slug their way through a rugged regular season and playoff schedule to earn their place in the championship round.
That’s a lot more than can be said about the current state of boxing title fights.
There are two overriding reasons why boxing fans often do not get the best or most logical opponents in title bouts.
First, there is the overabundance of sanctioning bodies that dictate different “mandatory” challengers for the title belts they have bestowed on their champions.
Second, when titleholders choose to ignore those “mandatories,” they and their promoters often steer away from the most qualified challengers in favor of the most lucrative fights.
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Roy Jones Jr. is widely considered to be the world’s best boxer, having swept to titles in divisions from middleweight to light-heavyweight. But lately he has made a very comfortable living fighting virtually unknown “mandatories.”
Can anyone name the last three challengers he faced in the ring? If you said Clinton Woods, Glenn Kelly and Julio Cesar Gonzalez without looking it up, you might need to get out of the house more.
Heavyweight champion Lennox Lewis has often bypassed the “mandatories” and even given up one of his title belts, looking for bigger paydays.
That means fighters who have become best known to the biggest potential audience. But those boxers didn’t always get that way through their skills or through anything that has to do with boxing. Sometimes, their reputations linger far beyond their best fights.
Hence, Mike “Moneyman” Tyson, still among the hottest draws in boxing despite his diminished skills, got to leapfrog a lukewarm field of heavyweight contenders for a title shot against Lewis this year.
Having demolished Tyson, Lewis appears tempted to retire rather than take the downsized paydays of title defenses against Chris Byrd or Kirk Johnson, or even Wladimir Klitschko and John Ruiz, who hold other heavyweight title belts. Lewis might consider a Tyson rematch if it brings a significantly bigger payoff.
Much of that money comes from pay-per-view television. As much as TV may dictate scheduling of events in other sports, that influence is minimal compared with how much TV controls title fights.
That’s why talented champions such as super-welterweight Winky Wright and unbeaten welterweight Vernon Forrest can’t get the quality bouts they deserve.
Promoter Bob Arum admits that he and his top client, super-welterweight champion Oscar De La Hoya, are choosy about whom to fight and name recognition and TV drawing power are key factors. They are focusing on rematches against Shane Mosley and Felix Trinidad, not only to avenge De La Hoya’s only two losses, but also because both (assuming that money can lure Trinidad out of retirement) are better draws than the likes of Forrest and Wright.
In many ways, talent the most obvious, Forrest and Wright are like Anaheim and San Francisco. But unlike boxing’s myriad ways to avoid pitting the best against the best, baseball cannot ignore the Angels and Giants and arbitrarily pit the New York Yankees against the Los Angeles Dodgers because they represent the biggest markets and will likely produce the best revenues and TV ratings.
Ideal vs. real
Ideally, boxing could offer fans a few terrific matchups if the best had to fight the best.
For starters, Jones could meet Bernard Hopkins at a weight between 160 and 175 pounds. Or Jones could fight unbeaten Dariusz Michalczewski, a true 175-pound light-heavyweight, while Hopkins could take on undefeated middleweight Harry Simon. At a weight between 147 and 160 pounds, De La Hoya could fight either Forrest or Hopkins.
Other possibilities: Floyd Mayweather vs. Acelino Freitas in a battle of undefeated junior lightweight champions. Welterweight champion Forrest vs. junior welterweight champion Kostya Tszyu at a weight between 140 and 147 pounds.
For now, the answer to which of those we will actually see is “none of the above.”
Instead, Jones is talking hot and cold about moving up to challenge heavyweight titleholder Ruiz. That is a potentially boring test of whether slow, grappling brawler Ruiz can catch Jones or whether quick, elusive Jones can hurt Ruiz.
Mayweather is set for a Dec. 7 rematch against Jose Luis Castillo, who gave him surprising trouble the first time. Tszyu is set to fight James Leija on Jan. 18. Meanwhile, indecisive Hopkins seems determined to squander the momentum he gained by knocking out Trinidad a year ago.
A few good fights
Led by a Nov. 23 rematch of the Micky Ward-Arturo Gatti junior-welterweight clash May 18 that was boxing at its courageous best, two featherweight bouts next month promise to be highly competitive.
Marco Antonio Barrera takes on Johnny Tapia on Nov. 2, and Erik Morales faces Paulie Ayala on Nov. 16.