Published by on April 23rd, 2008
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By Charles Jay
I have seen many low moments in boxing. But few surpass what I saw in Atlantic City a couple of weekends ago. A fighter named Alfonso Gomez, severely lacking world-class ability, nearly had his head taken off by a real fighter, Miguel Cotto, in a bout that ended mercifully – and I do not use that term lightly – in less than five rounds.
Gomez came from the TV show “The Contender,” but believe me, he was just playing one on the semi-reality TV series that first aired on NBC before being jettisoned and picked up later by ESPN. In terms of REAL reality, it was simply a masquerade.
That was evident to many observers the moment the fight was made, and for the unconvinced, it took only moments from the time of the opening bell. Cotto actually tried to be cute, somewhat abandoning his natural forte of search-and-destroy in favor of doing a little more boxing, as if for the purpose of carrying his vastly overmatched opponent.
It worked for a while, but there’s only so far you can carry some guys. Gomez was gutsy, but he was never in the fight.
The problem is, as viewers, WE were.
This was a farce, not the fault of the New Jersey Athletic Control Board, since it did meet with whatever general standards it needed to for approval.
No, HBO was the culprit here. And shame on them, because this was not a fight that should have been HBO-caliber. Not even close.
HBO’s authority is much more discretionary than any boxing commission. Yes, Gomez had previously picked Arturo Gatti apart on the network. But Gatti had long since been a good fighter. Sometimes I wonder whether the guys who sit in those Time-Warner offices and put these fights on actually give some thought to how they’re going to look in front of an audience that actually pays them a monthly subscription fee.
Apparently the guys at HBO didn’t learn its own lesson from a past error of ignorance when they had the audacity to put another “Contender” non-contender named Peter Manfredo (who by the way, split two fights with Gomez) into a boxing ring with undefeated super middleweight champ Joe Calzaghe in what was actually promoted as a title fight.
As harmless as Calzaghe may look at times, he was more than enough to put someone like Manfredo in grave danger (as that Jack Nicholson character said, “Is there any other kind?”). Seven and a half non-combative minutes later, it was over. And only a history of 115 years of better fights managed to stand between the sport of boxing and total extinction – or so it seemed at that moment.
I say all this in part because we’re not quite finished with “non-contenders” from the reality show. We are about to be served up Steve Forbes, who about five years and 24 pounds ago was a factor on the world scene, as an appetizer before Oscar De La Hoya sits down for the main course for a second time against Floyd Mayweather. Sergio Mora, who beat Manfredo twice and won “The Contender” when it was on NBC that first season, and who later backed out of a middleweight title fight with Jermain Taylor without satisfactory explanation (Thank God) will challenge Vernon Forrest for the WBC 154-pound championship in June.
I’m hoping they’re going to put forth a better showing than their predecessors, and really, it would be almost impossible not to. Just in case, though, I think I’ll do something that is a proven antidote to the kind of agony an awful fight can bring.
Four or five kamikazes. That’s vodka, Triple Sec and lime juice.
Somehow things always look better after that.
(Charles Jay is a veteran boxing writer and columnist who has been a manager, matchmaker, agent, publicist and color commentator in professional boxing. He proudly contributes to Boxing Insider, but is proudly NOT a member of the Boxing Writers Association of America)
