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The Afternoon After: Story of a hurricane

Esoteric 8 Comments

The past couple years, I’ve done a weekly post with some NFL thoughts and observations, mostly about the experience of watching such an Americana-driven sport. However, I’m not really a football guy, and I’ve found that I often simply don’t have a whole lot to say about the sport itself, especially on weeks when I don’t get to watch many games. As such, I’d still like to give this a go this year, but I’m going to expand it to whatever’s on my mind. Expect it anywhere between Monday and Wednesday.

The war room

Before the hurricane hit the New York area on Saturday, I hauled out to Long Island on Friday night for the annual draft of my main fantasy football league. It’s pretty hardcore: 14 teams, an archaic and esoteric scoring system, two keepers, and it started 16 years ago when the majority of the league owners were in high school together. (I’ve participated for 10.)

I probably would have driven through the hurricane itself to get there since for the first time since I joined my co-owner in the league, we won the whole thing, resulting in an $1,100 payday. We were powered by a well-balanced team and the shrewd first-week waiver-wire pickup of Michael Vick, which I commemorated by wearing his jersey to the draft, to the chagrin of everyone.

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Star cower: Considering Mayweather’s reined-in persona

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 #pause  

About two hours before Tuesday’s promotional press conference for Floyd Mayweather’s return to the ring against Victor Ortiz on Sept. 17, the fans waiting outside were privy to a bizarre scene about a block from the Hudson Theater, as a somewhat unhinged would-be rapper climbed a light pole in the middle of Times Square and wouldn’t come down.

Traffic was diverted for 20 blocks as he did pull-ups and tossed CDs to bemused onlookers. After a couple of hours, he finally descended right around the time Golden Boy ushered everyone in for the presser, reportedly of his own volition.

Maybe he was just tired of the attention.

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For boxing purists, war by the shore trumps last week’s blockbuster

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Marquee event The fact that Manny Pacquiao’s whitewash of Antonio Margarito last Saturday drew anywhere between 1.25-1.4 million pay-per-view buys, depending on who you ask, is a testament to two things: the popularity of Pacquiao, and the effectiveness of the HBO 24/7 program.

Tonight’s Paul Williams-Sergio Martinez rematch in Atlantic City, which I will be attending, has neither of those aspects in its favor. But while last week’s spectacle was valuable in that it showed that boxing could still be a major mainstream draw, the vibe for tonight’s fight from fans and writers actually possesses more excitement.

Last week’s fight was for everyone. This one’s for us.

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Look closer: Images from fight night at Yankee Stadium

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I had the privilege of covering the Yuri Foreman-Miguel Cotto fight for my day job this past Saturday, which I enjoyed a great deal. I hadn’t been ringside for a fight since Floyd Mayweather and DeMarcus Corley way back in 2004, and it was good to be back. It almost made up for all the times I’ve had to work until long after the sun has risen. Almost.

Here are some of my favorite images from the first boxing match at Yankee Stadium in nearly 34 years.

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Courageous Foreman finds there’s beauty in the breakdown

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Blood, sweat and tears  
Yuri Foreman shuffled around the ring in the seventh round on Saturday night, attempting to fight with a badly injured right knee, while most observers lamented what a bad break had befallen the first Israeli world champion.

But Foreman’s injury took his title defense against Miguel Cotto from a surprisingly good match to unforgettable. And in the process, he showed us just what kind of person he is, and established a legacy that extends far past the ring.

Not a bad silver lining, if you ask me.

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Houston, we have a problem: Paulie’s plight illustrates boxing’s ills

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We’ve been advocates of Paulie Malignaggi for over five years here, even interviewing him for the previous iteration of SportsAngle.com. He’s a likable kid, very funny and cocky, but prideful and devoted to his craft, with jabs as fast as his quips. 

Who knew he’d be such a strong voice in calling out what’s wrong with boxing?

Malignaggi fought Houston native Juan Diaz in Diaz’s own city last Saturday night, and essentially Paulie voices his concerns about the sport following his loss on Saturdayacknowledged before the fight that he was going to get a raw deal. Contractually forced to make a catch weight lower than he was used to and fight in a smaller ring that limited his greatest advantage, his speed and elusiveness, Malignaggi made no secret about the fact that he didn’t expect the opportunity to actually win the fight by decision. Essentially, the deck was stacked against him.

His one saving grace was a promise that the fight would be officiated fairly and that the judges would be a varied panel and not just hometown stooges. But as Malignaggi found when he got to Houston, the referee was the son of Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation official Dickie Cole, and the judges included biased Texan Gale Van Hoy, Oklahoman David Sutherland, and Raul Caiz Sr., who Malignaggi called “a gofer for Golden Boy and a guy who’s biased in favor of Mexican-American fighters.”

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Words to live by: Why we love Pretty Boy Floyd

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Floyd Mayweather apparently invented HBO 24/7... just ask him We’ve been strong advocates of Floyd Mayweather here for quite some time – we went to his demolition of DeMarcus Corley way back in 2004 – which isn’t really in our nature. We like fighters like Gatti, guys who are more substance than style.

But Pretty Boy Floyd has both. The man is a tremendous boxer who pays incredible attention to his craft. And you know what? Boxing needs, craves even, his attitude, his willingness to stir things up. As the sport is lapped by Ultimate Fighting and its ilk, Mayweather’s ability to make people tune in to either root for him or root for him to get his head knocked off is invaluable.

Floyd follows the money. And taking a year off was a smart marketing move. During that year,

24/7 premieres Saturday at 10:15 p.m. ET

he had several memorable feuds – of sorts – with WWE wrestler The Big Show, keeping him in the mainstream and the public eye. After a disappointing summer for boxing on many levels, featuring few memorable fights and several notable deaths, people are more than ready for Mayweather’s return, regardless of the fact that he’s facing Juan Manuel Marquez, a very talented fighter who people know virtually nothing about.

As usual, Mayweather has taken up the promotion of the fight himself. HBO’s fantastic 24/7

series – which Floyd actually claims he invented somehow, though I think the word he’s looking for is pioneered – is set to premiere on Saturday, and the preview HBO showed during Boxing After Dark this week featured Floyd at his finest (and funniest):

 

I personally don’t think fighters say anything [about their opponents] because if they lose, people won’t be so harsh on them.

Me? I’m like, ‘F*ck it.’ It is what it is. You coming to get me, come and get me. It ain’t gonna be easy, baby, but you know it. It ain’t gonna be easy.

You have to admire his confidence, even if you bristle at his cockiness. The thing is, until someone actually beats Mayweather – and make no mistake, attempting to hit him is like trying to catch a firefly in your hand – he has carte blanche to say whatever he wants, and even his detractors have to admit that he’s backed it up every single time.

Mayweather destroyed Hatton and clearly outclassed the great De La Hoya. I don’t think Marquez has what it takes to beat him, and it’s a good thing. Boxing desperately needs Pretty Boy Floyd to have something to talk about.

Tough month for boxing gets darker with loss of classy Forrest

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Vernon Forrest (left) trades blows with Shane Mosley

Unlike Arturo Gatti, I don’t know a lot about Vernon Forrest, who was murdered in cold blood in an apparent attempted robbery recently. I’ve seen a bunch of his fights, but he didn’t make the impact on me that Gatti did.

The fact that Forrest was not the star that Gatti was does not make it any less sad what happened to him. In fact, in certain ways it’s sadder, because from all accounts, Forrest was one of the truly good guys in the sport. 

In a sport where often the louder you talk, the more opportunities you get, he rarely talked excessively before fights and was still able to win three world titles, despite the media treating him with disdain for not being a great quote. He represented our country proudly at the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona – to think, all anyone ever mentions from those Games is Oscar De La Hoya. He overcame several injuries that would have ended most careers, persevering after, for example, a rotator cuff tear.

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