Boxing's Worst Enemy Not MMA

Sports Commentary

One of the late great comedian Richard Pryor's many riffs on a favorite sport of his and mine, boxing, was about his short-lived days as a Golden Gloves fighter. He recalled one bout where he looked across the ring and watched in fear as his opponent was readying to do battle by punching himself in the face.

Pryor muttered something like: "He don’t give a (expletive) about his damn self, so I know he don’t give a (expletive) about me."

I was reminded of that bit in the wake of last week’s news that mixed martial arts signed a deal to be on CBS some Saturday night very soon. Imagine that: MMA (a euphemism for human cockfighting) on free TV. It’s a natural progression from "Cops", I suppose.

What was really unfortunate, however, was that announcement went unaccompanied by a similar revelation from boxing.

MMA isn't beating up boxing. Boxing is beating up boxing, just like that lug Pryor saw in the opposite corner.

To be sure, boxing is in the midst of one of its finest runs right now since a period from the late '70s to middle '80s, when Sugar Ray Leonard, Roberto Duran, Thomas "Hit Man" Hearns and Wilfred Benitez were household sports’ names just like baseball, basketball and football stars. It's just that nobody knows the fight game's bright talents now and the reason is simple.

The fights from just over a generation ago were, for the most part, on free network television, just like MMA’s soon will be. Today’s boxing matches that measure up to the ones Leonard, Duran and Hearns staged are on pay-per-view, like last Saturday’s rubber match between Israel Vasquez and Rafael Marquez for the WBC super bantamweight title. That's a shame.

Vasquez vs. Marquez III was as thrilling as their first two bouts, featuring non-stop action, little clutching, one knock down and a standing count in the 12th round with Vazquez pounding Marquez into a corner to win the round and retain his crown. The two fighters entered the ring with a combined record of 79-8 and 64 KOs.

And Vasquez-Marquez came on the heels of Kelly Pavlik-Jermaine Taylor II in which Pavlik, as genuine and likeable a personality as you’ll find in all of sports right now, put on a boxing clinic to defeat Taylor for a second time (the first time he got off the canvas to knockout Taylor) and retain the WBC and WBO middleweight belts.

If boxing wants to prosper again, it needs to showcase itself on free TV again, just like it did in the ‘70s when it was a staple of ABC’s Wide World of Sports. It needs to do so regularly, not just once every blue moon as it did last year with Antonio Tarver and some Albanian cat no one but his parents knew named Elvir Muriqi. And it needs to put up a legitimate match, not Tarver-Muriqi, but Vasquez-Marquez, Pavlik-Taylor, or Floyd Mayweather-Miguel Cotto, if the former, who is the boxing’s best pound-for-pound, will agree to fight the latter.

(The only matches boxing should want to keep on pay-per-view are those involving heavyweights, its one-time bellwether division. And it should charge some truly exorbitant price in hopes that as few people as possibly see any patty cake from a Klitschko.) In short, boxing needs to steal back this page from MMA, which MMA stole from it.

There is no question that MMA is causing boxing all manner of problems. Like Barack Obama’s tussle with Hillary Clinton, MMA is stealing some of boxing’s base and, most worrisome for boxing, is attracting the youngest fans of pugilism who now think of Kimbo Slice as some of us did Marvin Hagler. There is no comparison. There is nothing sweet about brawling, which is essentially what MMA is.

MMA proponents would have you believe their relatively newfangled sport is more attractive pugilism because it has steered clear of some of boxing’s pitfalls, like having far too many weight divisions and nearly as many organizations, all of which make for a muddled picture. While MMA isn't rife with as many unnecessary weight classes as boxing, it is mangled by myriad organizations, some of which even have different rules, if you can call them that.

Indeed, there is nothing scientific about MMA when some of its organizations allow stomping, kneeing and elbowing and don’t use judges. Sometimes watching MMA is not unlike standing on a Bourbon Street corner any night when New Orleans is hosting a big event. Sooner or later, you will see a couple of knuckleheads slugging and kicking it out before falling to the pavement in a bloody heap. Hence, "Cops" Mardi Gras.

Boxing has everything it needs right now to take back the momentum it lost, or squandered, during the stranglehold Mike Tyson had on the sport. He was, no doubt, great for it, at least until he began to unravel. (Now Tyson thinks Jamie Foxx should play him in a biopic. Wrong. Tyson should play himself in reality TV. How about "Cops" Mike Tyson?)

There is more evidence in recent bouts that boxing is more poised now than in many a year to seize the public’s attention again. The Mayweather-Oscar De La Hoya bout last year set a record for pay-per-view buys. ESPN’s "The Contender" series, a reality-meets-documentary-meets American Idol show about the dreams of boxers, became a hit. HBO’s 24/7 shows going inside the preparations of fighters for some of its marquee events have been engaging.

That’s what boxing has in its corner right now. If it reacts as it should to MMA’s coup, it won’t buckle as if struck by a potential knockout punch. It’ll shake it off like a wake up slap in the face.

Kevin B. Blackistone is a regular panelist on ESPN's Around the Horn, an XM Satellite Radio host and a frequent sports opinionist on other outlets like National Public Radio and The Politico. A former award-winning sports columnist for The Dallas Morning News, he currently lives in Hyattsville, Md.