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Martinez-Barker: A Night at the Office Gets Complicated…HAUSER

In many sports today, the great athletes are getting younger. In boxing, the other end of the age spectrum is being extended. Sergio Martinez is 36 years old. In a sport with multiple phony beltholders, he’s the real middleweight champion of the world.
On October 1st, Martinez defended his championship against Darren Barker in Atlantic City. Sergio was a 20-to-1 betting favorite. The prevailing view was that it would be just another night’s work. Then things got complicated.
Martinez won “Fighter of the Year” honors in 2010 by virtue of victories over Kelly Pavlik and Paul Williams. He began 2011 by knocking out Sergei Dzinziruk in impressive fashion.
But too often in boxing, the right connections matter more than ring performance. The supersized purses continued to elude Martinez. He was placed on a back-burner by HBO. In May of this year, he was approached by third parties who told him that he would be better off without his adviser Sampson Lewkowicz and promoter Lou DiBella. The lobbing peaked in early June, when Sergio was in Los Angeles for the June 4th match-up between Julio Cesar Chavez Jr and Sebastian Zbik. It was suggested to Martinez that he could get a $2,000,000 sighing bonus if he signed with another promoter. Other inducements were offered.
The maneuvering troubled Martinez, who has a strong sense of loyalty to Lewkowicz and felt that DiBella had done a credible job on his behalf. It also raised issues of tortious interference with contract, since Sergio’s promotional agreement with DiBella extended until February 12, 2012.
On June 14th, Martinez put the matter to rest, signing a six-fight contract extension with Lewkowicz and DiBella. Then, with no big-money opponent in sight, he signed to fight Darren Barker.
Barker, age 29, is a likable man with little pretense about him. He hails from London and was advertised as the “undefeated British Commonwealth and European middleweight champion.” His nickname is “Dazzling Darren” and he came into the bout with a 23-0 record against opposition of questionable provenance. To the American public, he was a fungible challenger.
Barker said all the right things during the build-up to October 1st: “If the fight was a formality and the favorite always won, boxing wouldn’t be much of a sport, would it? . . . As much as I respect Sergio, I believe I have what it takes to pull a massive upset . . . He’s underestimating me. If he wants to do that, fine. I’ll make him pay for taking me lightly and looking past what’s right in front of him . . . There’s not many things in life that I’m good at, but boxing is one of them.”
In recent years, the United Kingdom has produced champions like Lennox Lewis, Joe Calzaghe, and Ricky Hatton. It has also produced challengers like Michael Jennings and Gary Lockett. The prevailing view was that Barker fit into the latter category and didn’t pose much of a threat to Martinez.
Sergio gave his opponent the respect that he was entitled to as an undefeated professional fighter. “When I came to the United States,” the champion offered, “nobody knew me and people thought I was nothing as a fighter. I had to prove myself the same way that Barker wants to prove himself now.”
Still, the feeling at the final pre-fight press conference three days before the fight was that Barker couldn’t win without help from Martinez. In that vein, it was noted that the champion had a deep bruise beneath his left eye, courtesy of a punch thrown by sparring partner Israel Duffus.
And there was another potential problem. More on that later.
On fight night, Martinez entered dressing room 119 at Boardwalk Hall shortly after 8:00 PM. The first televised fight of the evening (Andy Lee vs. Brian Vera) was scheduled to start at 10:10. The earliest that Sergio would be called to the ring was 10:20. An eleven o’clock starting time was more likely.
Martinez sat on a folding metal chair with his feet propped up on another chair in front of him. Sanctioning body officials and HBO personnel moved in and out of the room. He had a smile and gracious word for each of them.
At 8:30, the room emptied out as most of Team Martinez left to watch a preliminary bout between heavyweights Magomed Abdusalamov and Kevin Burnett. Abdusalamov, a Martinez stablemate, was 9-and-0 with nine knockouts. Burnett, once considered a prospect, had lost three fights in a row and been reduced to opponent status.
Sergio and three others were now the only people in the room. There was relaxed conversation. Word filtered back that Abdusalamov had won on a first-round knockout. Team Martinez returned from ringside: Sampson Lewkowicz, trainer Pablo Sarmiento, cutman Dr. Roger Anderson, and cornermen Cicilio Flores and Russ Anber.
The mood in the dressing room was light. Heavy metal music played at low volume in the background. By nine o’clock, Sergio had been sitting for an hour, no more active than if he’d been at home watching a ballgame on television.
Anber began wrapping Martinez’s hands, left hand first. Sergio sipped from a cup of Starbucks coffee that he held in his right hand. Sometimes in the dressing room before a fight, he eats nuts and dried fruit. A can of mixed nuts was within reach, but he ignored it.
Anber finished wrapping the left hand, and Martinez nodded in satisfaction.
“Excellent or fucking excellent,” the cornerman queried.
Sergio smiled. “Fucking bueno.”
At 9:30, the right hand was done. Martinez took off his sneakers and put on his boxing shoes. Sarmiento moved a chair beside him and they engaged in quiet conversation.
The preparation continued. Sergio shadow-boxed in the center of the room for several minutes. Then he lay down on a rubdown table in the adjacent shower area. Flores stretched his legs and massaged his upper body for five minutes.
More shadow-boxing.
The HBO telecast began.
Martinez put on his protective cup and trunks. Anber gloved him up. From now until the fight was over, Sergio would unable to tighten his shoe laces, go to the bathroom, or even help himself to a drink of water. The only thing he’d be able to do with his hands was fight.
More stretching exercises.
At 10:20, with Lee vs. Vera in round three, Martinez began hitting the pads with Sarmiento; his first strenuous exercise of the evening.
During the last week of training camp, Sergio had strained a muscle in his left leg. Now, he appeared to be favoring the leg. It wasn’t a debilitating condition. But it was the sort of thing that could shade matters a bit. The straight left hand and overhand left are Martinez’s power punches. If he had trouble planting and pushing off his left foot, those punches would have less power than is normally the case. If the condition worsened during the fight, his timing might be affected.
The padwork ended. Martinez sat down. Flores draped a white towel over the fighter’s head and another across his chest. Roger Anderson put Vaseline on his face.
More padwork.
Flores helped Sergio into his robe. There was nothing to do now but pace back and forth and wait. A heavily-favored champion going to the ring is like a police officer responding to a 911 call that a man with a gun is running down the street. No matter how careful and well-prepared the cop is, something bad might happen.
There were some vocal Barker fans in the arena, but the crowd of 4,376 was largely pro-Martinez.
The first round was quiet and belonged to Sergio on the basis of a ten-to-five edge in punches landed. But it was a good round for the challenger in that it raised his confidence level a bit. Round two was more of a same. Then the momentum shifted.
If a fighter isn’t right in the ring, he’s the first person to know. Then his opponent figures it out.
Martinez’s modus operendi is to stand just outside of punching range with his hands down. As the opponent readies to punch, Sergio moves in and gets off first. More than most boxers, he fights with his legs. And he lures opponents into his power. Fighting aggressively against him opens a boxer up to counterpunches.
With that in mind, Barker moved cautiously forward for most of the fight, hands held high in a defensive posture. But in round three, he started jabbing more effectively and became more aggressive, landing several lead right hands. Martinez’s nose seemed to bother him. It bled from round four on and looked to be broken.
Sergio regained the initiative in round five. He also won six and seven, fighting the way he often fights; hands down, drawing Barker into punching range before getting off first. But his timing was off. He appeared to be lunging with his punches rather than moving with the fluidity and grace that characterize his art. And the blood in his nose was affecting his breathing.
Twenty-two seconds into round eight, Martinez’s right heel got entangled with the instep of Barker’s left foot and Sergio fell hard to the canvas. Referee Eddie Cotton correctly ruled it a slip. Sergio rose slowly and his corner held its collective breath as he tested his left leg.
Then Barker came on again, doing damage in rounds eight and nine. The challenger was fighting as well as he could. With more power, he might have been able to turn the fight. But he was a heavy underdog for a reason.
Round ten was the biggest round of the fight for Martinez. Halfway through it, he landed a sharp straight left that shook Barker and had him holding on. Forty seconds later, a solid jab landed just right and staggered the challenger. Darren covered up, and, over the next twenty seconds, Sergio fired a barrage of thirty-three unanswered punches before Barker fired back.
The champion came out confidently in round eleven. Barker was weary; his left eye was closing. Now Sergio was measuring his opponent. Seventy-seven seconds into the stanza, a right hook landed partially on Barker’s upraised left glove and partially just above his ear. The challenger went down, struggled to rise, and was counted out.
“I can’t remember the punch,” Barker acknowledged afterward. “I remember, my legs just fell from under me. I was trying to get up, but couldn’t.”
The judges had Martinez ahead 99-91, 97-94, and 96-94 at the time of the stoppage. This writer scored it 96-94, giving Barker the third, fourth, eighth, and ninth rounds.
In truth, Martinez looked flat. After a number of scintillating outings, his performance was less-than-spectacular, more workmanlike than inspired. But he did what a champion is supposed to do, digging deep and gutting it out to win on a night when he was less than his best.
“I must be realistic,” Sergio said at the post-fight press conference. “It was a tough fight and a close fight.” He paused, then added, “It is never an easy fight. There is never a small enemy in the ring.”
As for what comes next; Martinez symbolizes the conundrum that boxing finds itself in today. Boxing fans know how good he is. The rest of the world has no idea who he is; let alone, how good.
Sergio can compete in two weight divisions without sacrificing speed or power. He’s a “small” middleweight, who could go down to 154 pounds with relative ease. As DiBella points out, “He weighed in for Barker at 158 after eating all week like Gary Shaw.” But the fighters with names that generate big money don’t want to get in the ring with him.
Martinez is beatable. Before fighting Barker, he’d faced moments of doubt in each of his five previous fights. At times, Kelly Pavlik, Sergei Dzinziruk, Kermit Cintron, and Paul Williams (twice) fought with him on even terms. But he’s a gifted athlete with a fighting heart. And he can punch. In his last three outings, he has knocked out three opponents with a composite record of 99-and-1.
In sum, Martinez is a symbol of excellence in boxing. “I don’t know how many more fights I’ll have,” he told Gabriel Montoya recently. “But I know I can fight for more. I’m going to continue to work until my body says no more.”
Sergio will be 37 years old in February. He doesn’t have that much time left. Boxing fans should get to know him better before he’s gone.
Thomas Hauser can be reached by email at thauser@rcn.com. His most recent book (Winks and Daggers: An Inside Look at Another Year in Boxing) has just been published by the University of Arkansas Press.
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Avila Perspective, Chap. 323: Benn vs Eubank Family Feud and More

Next generation rivals Conor Benn and Chris Eubank Jr. carry on the family legacy of feudal warring in the prize ring on Saturday.
This is huge in British boxing.
Eubank (34-3, 25 KOs) holds the fringe IBO middleweight title but won’t be defending it against the smaller welterweight Benn (23-0, 14 KOs) on Saturday, April 26, at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in London. DAZN will stream the Matchroom Boxing card.
This is about family pride.
The parents of Eubank and Benn actually began the feud in the 1990s.
Papa Nigel Benn fought Papa Chris Eubank twice. Losing as a middleweight in November 1990 at Birmingham, England, then fighting to a draw as a super middleweight in October 1993 in Manchester. Both were world title fights.
Eubank was undefeated and won the WBO middleweight world title in 1990 against Nigel Benn by knockout. He defended it three times before moving up and winning the vacant WBO super middleweight title in September 1991. He defended the super middleweight title 14 times before suffering his first pro defeat in March 1995 against Steve Collins.
Benn won the WBO middleweight title in April 1990 against Doug DeWitt and defended it once before losing to Eubank in November 1990. He moved up in weight and took the WBC super middleweight title from Mauro Galvano in Italy by technical knockout in October 1992. He defended the title nine times until losing in March 1996. His last fight was in November 1996, a loss to Steve Collins.
Animosity between the two families continues this weekend in the boxing ring.
Conor Benn, the son of Nigel, has fought mostly as a welterweight but lately has participated in the super welterweight division. He is several inches shorter in height than Eubank but has power and speed. Kind of a British version of Gervonta “Tank” Davis.
“It’s always personal, every opponent I fight is personal. People want to say it’s strictly business, but it’s never business. If someone is trying to put their hands on me, trying to render me unconscious, it’s never business,” said Benn.
This fight was scheduled twice before and cut short twice due to failed PED tests by Benn. The weight limit agreed upon is 160 pounds.
Eubank, a natural middleweight, has exchanged taunts with Benn for years. He recently avenged a loss to Liam Smith with a knockout victory in September 2023.
“This fight isn’t about size or weight. It’s about skill. It’s about dedication. It’s about expertise and all those areas in which I excel in,” said Eubank. “I have many, many more years of experience over Conor Benn, and that will be the deciding factor of the night.”
Because this fight was postponed twice, the animosity between the two feuding fighters has increased the attention of their fans. Both fighters are anxious to flatten each other.
“He’s another opponent in my way trying to crush my dreams. trying to take food off my plate and trying to render me unconscious. That’s how I look at him,” said Benn.
Eubank smiles.
“Whether it’s boxing, whether it’s a gun fight. Defense, offense, foot movement, speed, power. I am the superior boxer in each of those departments and so many more – which is why I’m so confident,” he said.
Supporting Bout
Former world champion Liam Smith (33-4-1, 20 KOs) tangles with Ireland’s Aaron McKenna (19-0, 10 KOs) in a middleweight fight set for 12 rounds on the Benn-Eubank undercard in London.
“Beefy” Smith has long been known as one of the fighting Smith brothers and recently lost to Eubank a year and a half ago. It was only the second time in 38 bouts he had been stopped. Saul “Canelo” Alvarez did it several years ago.
McKenna is a familiar name in Southern California. The Irish fighter fought numerous times on Golden Boy Promotion cards between 2017 and 2019 before returning to the United Kingdom and his assault on continuing the middleweight division. This is a big step for the tall Irish fighter.
It’s youth versus experience.
“I’ve been calling for big fights like this for the last two or three years, and it’s a fight I’m really excited for. I plan to make the most of it and make a statement win on Saturday night,” said McKenna, one of two fighting brothers.
Monster in L.A.
Japan’s super star Naoya “Monster” Inoue arrived in Los Angeles for last day workouts before his Las Vegas showdown against Ramon Cardenas on Sunday May 4, at T-Mobile Arena. ESPN will televise and stream the Top Rank card.
It’s been four years since the super bantamweight world champion performed in the US and during that time Naoya (29-0, 26 KOs) gathered world titles in different weight divisions. The Japanese slugger has also gained fame as perhaps the best fighter on the planet. Cardenas is 26-1 with 14 KOs.
Pomona Fights
Super featherweights Mathias Radcliffe (9-0-1) and Ezequiel Flores (6-4) lead a boxing card called “DMG Night of Champions” on Saturday April 26, at the historic Fox Theater in downtown Pomona, Calif.
Michaela Bracamontes (11-2-1) and Jesus Torres Beltran (8-4-1) will be fighting for a regional WBC super featherweight title. More than eight bouts are scheduled.
Doors open at 6 p.m. For ticket information go to: www.tix.com/dmgnightofchampions
Fights to Watch
Sat. DAZN 9 a.m. Conor Benn (23-0) vs Chris Eubank Jr. (34-3); Liam Smith (33-4-1) vs Aaron McKenna (19-0).
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Floyd Mayweather has Another Phenom and his name is Curmel Moton

Floyd Mayweather has Another Phenom and his name is Curmel Moton
In any endeavor, the defining feature of a phenom is his youth. Philadelphia Phillies outfielder Bryce Harper was a phenom. He was on the radar screen of baseball’s most powerful player agents when he was 14 years old.
Curmel Moton, who turns 19 in June, is a phenom. Of all the young boxing stars out there, wrote James Slater in July of last year, “Curmel Moton is the one to get most excited about.”
Moton was born in Salt Lake City, Utah. His father Curtis Moton, a barber by trade, was a big boxing fan and specifically a big fan of Floyd Mayweather Jr. When Curmel was six, Curtis packed up his wife (Curmel’s stepmom) and his son and moved to Las Vegas. Curtis wanted his son to get involved in boxing and there was no better place to develop one’s latent talents than in Las Vegas where many of the sport’s top practitioners came to train.
Many father-son relationships have been ruined, or at least frayed, by a father’s unrealistic expectations for his son, but when it came to boxing, the boy was a natural and he felt right at home in the gym.
The gym the Motons patronized was the Mayweather Boxing Club. Curtis took his son there in hopes of catching the eye of the proprietor. “Floyd would occasionally drop by the gym and I was there so often that he came to recognize me,” says Curmel. What he fails to add is that the trainers there had Floyd’s ear. “This kid is special,” they told him.
It costs a great deal of money for a kid to travel around the country competing in a slew of amateur boxing tournaments. Only a few have the luxury of a sponsor. For the vast majority, fund raisers such as car washes keep the wheels greased.
Floyd Mayweather stepped in with the financial backing needed for the Motons to canvas the country in tournaments. As an amateur, Curmel was — take your pick — 156-7 or 144-6 or 61-3 (the latter figure from boxrec). Regardless, at virtually every tournament at which he appeared, Curmel Moton was the cock of the walk.
Before the pandemic, Floyd Mayweather Jr had a stable of boxers he promoted under the banner of “The Money Team.” In talking about his boxers, Floyd was understated with one glaring exception – Gervonta “Tank” Davis, now one of boxing’s top earners.
When Floyd took to praising Curmel Moton with the same effusive language, folks stood up and took notice.
Curmel made his pro debut on Sept. 30, 2023, at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas on the undercard of the super middleweight title fight between Canelo Alvarez and Jermell Charlo. After stopping his opponent in the opening round, he addressed a flock of reporters in the media room with Floyd standing at his side. “I felt ready,” he said, “I knew I had Floyd behind me. He believes in me. I had the utmost confidence going into the fight. And I went in there and did what I do.”
Floyd ventured the opinion that Curmel was already a better fighter than Leigh Wood, the reigning WBA world featherweight champion who would successfully defend his belt the following week.
Moton’s boxing style has been described as a blend of Floyd Mayweather and Tank Davis. “I grew up watching Floyd, so it’s natural I have some similarities to him,” says Curmel who sparred with Tank in late November of 2021 as Davis was preparing for his match with Isaac “Pitbull” Cruz. Curmell says he did okay. He was then 15 years old and still in school; he dropped out as soon as he reached the age of 16.
Curmel is now 7-0 with six KOs, four coming in the opening round. He pitched an 8-round shutout the only time he was taken the distance. It’s not yet official, but he returns to the ring on May 31 at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas where Caleb Plant and Jermall Charlo are co-featured in matches conceived as tune-ups for a fall showdown. The fight card will reportedly be free for Amazon Prime Video subscribers.
Curmel’s presumptive opponent is Renny Viamonte, a 28-year-old Las Vegas-based Cuban with a 4-1-1 (2) record. It will be Curmel’s first professional fight with Kofi Jantuah the chief voice in his corner. A two-time world title challenger who began his career in his native Ghana, the 50-year-old Jantuah has worked almost exclusively with amateurs, a recent exception being Mikaela Mayer.
It would seem that the phenom needs a tougher opponent than Viamonte at this stage of his career. However, the match is intriguing in one regard. Viamonte is lanky. Listed at 5-foot-11, he will have a seven-inch height advantage.
Keeping his weight down has already been problematic for Moton. He tipped the scales at 128 ½ for his most recent fight. His May 31 bout, he says, will be contested at 135 and down the road it’s reasonable to think he will blossom into a welterweight. And with each bump up in weight, his short stature will theoretically be more of a handicap.
For fun, we asked Moton to name the top fighter on his pound-for-pound list. “[Oleksandr] Usyk is number one right now,” he said without hesitation,” great footwork, but guys like Canelo, Crawford, Inoue, and Bivol are right there.”
It’s notable that there isn’t a young gun on that list. Usyk is 38, a year older than Crawford; Inoue is the pup at age 32.
Moton anticipates that his name will appear on pound-for-pound lists within the next two or three years. True, history is replete with examples of phenoms who flamed out early, but we wouldn’t bet against it.
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Arne’s Almanac: The First Boxing Writers Assoc. of America Dinner Was Quite the Shindig

The first annual dinner of the Boxing Writers Association of America was staged on April 25, 1926 in the grand ballroom of New York’s Hotel Astor, an edifice that rivaled the original Waldorf Astoria as the swankiest hotel in the city. Back then, the organization was known as the Boxing Writers Association of Greater New York.
The ballroom was configured to hold 1200 for the banquet which was reportedly oversubscribed. Among those listed as agreeing to attend were the governors of six states (New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, and Maryland) and the mayors of 10 of America’s largest cities.
In 1926, radio was in its infancy and the digital age was decades away (and inconceivable). So, every journalist who regularly covered boxing was a newspaper and/or magazine writer, editor, or cartoonist. And at this juncture in American history, there were plenty of outlets for someone who wanted to pursue a career as a sportswriter and had the requisite skills to get hired.
The following papers were represented at the inaugural boxing writers’ dinner:
New York Times
New York News
New York World
New York Sun
New York Journal
New York Post
New York Mirror
New York Telegram
New York Graphic
New York Herald Tribune
Brooklyn Eagle
Brooklyn Times
Brooklyn Standard Union
Brooklyn Citizen
Bronx Home News
This isn’t a complete list because a few of these papers, notably the New York World and the New York Journal, had strong afternoon editions that functioned as independent papers. Plus, scribes from both big national wire services (Associated Press and UPI) attended the banquet and there were undoubtedly a smattering of scribes from papers in New Jersey and Connecticut.
Back then, the event’s organizer Nat Fleischer, sports editor of the New York Telegram and the driving force behind The Ring magazine, had little choice but to limit the journalistic component of the gathering to writers in the New York metropolitan area. There wasn’t a ballroom big enough to accommodate a good-sized response if he had extended the welcome to every boxing writer in North America.
The keynote speaker at the inaugural dinner was New York’s charismatic Jazz Age mayor James J. “Jimmy” Walker, architect of the transformative Walker Law of 1920 which ushered in a new era of boxing in the Empire State with a template that would guide reformers in many other jurisdictions.
Prizefighting was then associated with hooligans. In his speech, Mayor Walker promised to rid the sport of their ilk. “Boxing, as you know, is closest to my heart,” said hizzoner. “So I tell you the police force is behind you against those who would besmirch or injure boxing. Rowdyism doesn’t belong in this town or in your game.” (In 1945, Walker would be the recipient of the Edward J. Neil Memorial Award given for meritorious service to the sport. The oldest of the BWAA awards, the previous recipients were all active or former boxers. The award, no longer issued under that title, was named for an Associated Press sportswriter and war correspondent who died from shrapnel wounds covering the Spanish Civil War.)
Another speaker was well-traveled sportswriter Wilbur Wood, then affiliated with the Brooklyn Citizen. He told the assembly that the aim of the organization was two-fold: to help defend the game against its detractors and to promote harmony among the various factions.
Of course, the 1926 dinner wouldn’t have been as well-attended without the entertainment. According to press dispatches, Broadway stars and performers from some of the city’s top nightclubs would be there to regale the attendees. Among the names bandied about were vaudeville superstars Sophie Tucker and Jimmy Durante, the latter of whom would appear with his trio, Durante, (Lou) Clayton, and (Eddie) Jackson.
There was a contraction of New York newspapers during the Great Depression. Although empirical evidence is lacking, the inaugural boxing writers dinner was likely the largest of its kind. Fifteen years later, in 1941, the event drew “more than 200” according to a news report. There was no mention of entertainment.
In 1950, for the first time, the annual dinner was opened to the public. For $25, a civilian could get a meal and mingle with some of his favorite fighters. Sugar Ray Robinson was the Edward J. Neil Award winner that year, honored for his ring exploits and for donating his purse from the Charlie Fusari fight to the Damon Runyon Cancer Fund.
There was no formal announcement when the Boxing Writers Association of Greater New York was re-christened the Boxing Writers Association of America, but by the late 1940s reporters were referencing the annual event as simply the boxing writers dinner. By then, it had become traditional to hold the annual affair in January, a practice discontinued after 1971.
The winnowing of New York’s newspaper herd plus competing banquets in other parts of the country forced Nat Fleischer’s baby to adapt. And more adaptations will be necessary in the immediate future as the future of the BWAA, as it currently exists, is threatened by new technologies. If the forthcoming BWAA dinner (April 30 at the Edison Ballroom in mid-Manhattan) were restricted to wordsmiths from the traditional print media, the gathering would be too small to cover the nut and the congregants would be drawn disproportionately from the geriatric class.
Some of those adaptations have already started. Last year, Las Vegas resident Sean Zittel, a recent UNLV graduate, had the distinction of becoming the first videographer welcomed into the BWAA. With more and more people getting their news from sound bites, rather than the written word, the videographer serves an important function.
The reporters who conducted interviews with pen and paper have gone the way of the dodo bird and that isn’t necessarily a bad thing. A taped interview for a “talkie” has more integrity than a story culled from a paper and pen interview because it is unfiltered. Many years ago, some reporters, after interviewing the great Joe Louis, put words in his mouth that made him seem like a dullard, words consistent with the Sambo stereotype. In other instances, the language of some athletes was reconstructed to the point where the reader would think the athlete had a second job as an English professor.
The content created by videographers is free from that bias. More of them will inevitably join the BWAA and similar organizations in the future.
Photo: Nat Fleischer is flanked by Sugar Ray Robinson and Tony Zale at the 1947 boxing writers dinner.
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