Illusions of Boxing
Boxing is a sport that relies on fanatics and gullies absorbing the drama and heartfelt stories, so they anticipate and watch combat inside of a squared circle. The fight itself isn’t the main focus when these big events get put together because people are bored with just having fighter A fight fighter B because they are supposed to. If fighter A had an altercation with fighter B in an airport back in 2008 and/or fighter B’s father died before he ever seen him win a belt, proves to be more entertaining. Promoters have traded in realism for perception a long time ago and they prey on any angle they can use to entice, and it’s a great recipe that works.
The problem that arises when these schemes are at their best, is that the fans can’t see any signs of the puppet master and they take everything as reality. The faulty outcomes, the suspect matchmaking, the over the top antics are all part of the show. These shows are put together by the promotion companies and major networks to create an event that is deemed a must-see by the masses so they can generate an income, or at least raise the stock of a fighter to be used in a future show.
Once they are at an elite level, fighters take on certain opposition for a reason, and it’s not just the fact that the other fighter deserves a chance, which is not the case a lot of the time, but because it will do something for their career or how they’re viewed by the media. Example: Marcos Maidana defeated Adrien “The Problem” Broner and landed a fight with the P4P King Floyd “Money” Mayweather. It seems that Maidana earned a shot at Floyd because he defeated the great Broner, but Broner was not great! Floyd knows this, and so does a lot of other fans, but Broner was riding off of an illusion that he was the next big thing, so Maidana beating him now gives him the illusion. The fact of the matter is, Maidana is no better than he was when he lost to Amir Khan, so Floyd easily defeated him by boxing and moving just like Khan did. But Maidana defeated Floyd lite, so he had a chance, right? NO, Broner acts like Floyd, he talks like Floyd, and rubs people the wrong way like Floyd, but he does not fight like Floyd! May 3rd was an illusion that Maidana had the skills to beat a fighter like Floyd, and that he doesn’t have to have a fighter stand in front of him for him to have a real chance.
I am in no way saying that all fights are script written altercations that play out in perfect harmony because every fighter has a chance when they climb in the ring. Hasim Rahman wasn’t supposed to defeat Lennox Lewis back in April of 2001, he was supposed to lose and setup the initial matchup of Lewis and Mike Tyson, but he, or Lewis’s training, derailed the plan by knocking Lewis out. They got it back on track after Lewis knocked Rahman out in the rematch, but for a moment, the plan had been shattered. There are plenty of scenarios where the plan was foiled, but this is boxing, so even a foiled plan can turn into a motivation for starting another chapter.
