Danny Geale’s article yesterday in which he presented his thoughts on footballers boxing was done in a thoughtful, non-aggressive way that had the best interests of boxing in mind.
It’s a shame that his article was wide of the mark.
In the article Geale writes “footballers that take up boxing are stealing the headlines from other fighters, real fighters, around the country”.
“They come in and during the lead-up to their fights pretty much use up whatever media has been allocated to boxing for their fight”.
What Geale and others that share his view need to realise is that with internet there is an unlimited amount of media space but boxing like other sports does not have a right to any media.
Just because boxing exists doesn’t mean that the sporting public has to care. The Alex Leapai v Kevin Johnson fight in April 2012 is a classic example of this.
This fight should have been televised. Leapai is proabably Top 2 – 3 HW in Australia and Kevin Johnson is world class but there wasn’t enough public interest to make it happen.
Geale also states that “every time Sonny Bill steps into a boxing ring he is taking money out of a dozen fighters pockets.”
This statement is just plain wrong and I’m surprised that Geale even believes this.
In that statement Geale assumes that the sporting public has a ‘boxing budget’ and that if Sonny Bill wasn’t fighting somehow the public would have spent that money on another boxer.
For some reason Geale believes that the sporting public is obligated to pay a boxer’s way just because they train hard. If this was the case, netball players would be cruising around in BMW’s.
The lack of boxing media coverage have got less to do with football players and more to do with boxing struggling to staying relevant to the sporting public.
In the NRL or AFL, the game is so relevant to the sporting public that the game sells itself. For boxing this isn’t the case. If we were in Cuba or Mexico maybe it would be a different story.
If anything footballers bring attention to the sport which it would not have normally got. It’s up to the sport of boxing to try use that extra attention to feed and grow the sport.
Later in the article Geale goes on say “they get in there against average guys who they know they will beat, which isn’t in the spirit of the sport. They are offering a contest which amounts to little more than a boxing exhibition.”
This comment probably resonates with the public’s perception but if they took a closer look at records of fighters like Alex Leapai and Lucas Browne they would be suprprised.
Alex Leapai has fought and knocked out Hiriwa Te Rangi twice. First was when Te Rangi was a 0-7 and second when his record was 0-12.
Then there was Oscar Talemaira who Leapai has fought and knocked out three times. Talemaira’s record for those three fights were 2-7, 3-18 and 3-20.
Lucas Browne’s last six opponents have a combined record of 3-2-31 for their last six fights which is pretty ordinary. And if you want to see a classic case of dodgy hometown refereeing check out the Alex Leapai v Travis Walker fight, which was an epic barnburner.
Leapai dug deep to pull out the win but the stoppage was very shonky.
I’ve just used Leapai’s and Browne’s record because they have both recently been bagging Sonny Bill Williams about his boxing efforts which is a massive case of the pot calling the kettle black.
I’m a huge fan of the fight game and hope that every boxer that has talent and trains hard has an opportunity to do well in the sweet science, but to claim that part time fighters are stealing the opportunity from other boxers is simply not true.
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