One reason that mainstream sports fans have lost enthusiasm for following boxing is that what you see too often isn't what you get. Judges' scores sometimes seem to be outrageous. Title fights frequently are made, and belts taken away, for murky reasons that have nothing to do with athletes' skills. With all the sanctioning organizations, it's impossible to tell who's really a deserving champion. Unlike in other sports, it's hard to know what any given ring performance counts for in the big picture. Last year, a promotion that lasted for a couple of months was built around Bernard Hopkins' farewell fight. The retirement was so elaborately planned, Merrill Lynch would be jealous, starting with Hopkins' tour around the country telling fans it would be his finale, all the way through Michael Buffer's announcement in the ring that it was Hopkins' final fight and a postfight press conference when Hopkins said he had nothing left to prove. It's hard to say how much that theme helped sell the fight. Maybe it didn't matter to anyone. Boxers retire and come back all the time.
But, once again, in a way more highly orchestrated than most instances, viewers were led to believe something about the consequences of a fight that turned out not to be true at all. It wasn't a "Fight to the Finish." It was "never mind." It left boxing once again saying to sports fans: sorry, but what you thought you just saw, that wasn't really what it was.
On Saturday, Hopkins is fighting Winky Wright. The slogan for for the new bout is "Coming to Fight." Anybody ready to believe this one?
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