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Why Choice Of Berto For Mayweather Is OK

Writing about the emerging news that Andre Berto had been selected as Floyd Mayweather’s September twelfth opponent, the Sweet Science’s own Frank Lotierzo deemed anyone who buys the fight on pay-per-view “a complete and utter fool.”
Lotierzo, always forthright and never dull, has the courage of his convictions. I admire that.
But I did not agree with him and I thought, with the date looming large as does each and every Mayweather combat, I might say so, and say why.
First though, I would like to get the obvious out of the way.
I would most like to see Mayweather fight Gennaday Golovkin, a mission impossible worthy of a p4p #1. Failing that, I would like to see him in a rematch with the victor of the fight between Miguel Cotto, the lineal middleweight champion, and Saul Alvarez, still the #1 contender to Mayweather’s lineal light-middleweight claim. Barring that, a rematch with Pacquiao would be reasonable (and remains a distinct possibility) most especially as Manny remains Mayweather’s #1 contender at welterweight. Failing that there are good matches to be made at welterweight against Amir Khan or Kell Brook, or against the perennially ignored potential Mayweather opponent Timothy Bradley. Bradley actually reads like a perfect Mayweather opponent– he can’t punch, he comes to fight, he has a high profile in America based upon decision he did not deserve – but is hamstrung by promotional issues.
Whatever the details, Mayweather hasn’t delivered us any of these fights for his last, second-to-last, or latest fight depending upon which version of the truth you prefer, he has instead delivered us Berto. It is not a decision which has been well received by either press or, judging by the weight of objections groaning from various internet message-boards over the past few weeks, the public.
I was immediately reminded of Roy Jones Junior’s 1995 match with the ordinary Antoine Byrd.
Jones was, like Mayweather, coming off a disappointingly one-sided contest with fellow pound-for-pounder in James Toney. A case can be made for these two being, like Pacquiao and Mayweather, the two best fighters on the planet at the time of their confrontation and if it was so, that may have been the first time since Billy Conn’s 1941 confrontation with Joe Louis that the p4p top two climbed into the same ring. Note that if we do not acknowledge the claim of Toney and Jones to be pound-for-pound numbers one and two, Mayweather-Pacquiao may have been the first such contest in more than seventy-five years. In the wake of his enormous confrontation with Toney, Roy Jones did not select as his next opponent the brutal and direct Englishman Nigel Benn, nor his prancing stylistic pole and countryman Chris Eubank, his #2 and #3 ranked contender respectively. He didn’t leap up to light-heavyweight to take on Virgil Hill, nor did he invite to step up the killing puncher that was Gerald McClellan. He instead matched Byrd.
Byrd had lost three straight in 1991 and 1992, decisioned by Lindell Holmes and Tim Littles, knocked out in just four rounds by 12-8-3 journeyman Larry Musgrove. He did stage a recovery of sorts in 1993 and 1994 but if the truth is told there was little to qualify him for his shot at Roy outside of an inexplicably high ranking bequeathed upon him by one of the alphabet mafia. Just as Berto is inexplicably ranked #1 by the drunken WBA, so Byrd was stationed for a title shot by IBF who for some reason thought it was important that the man who vanquished the 9-4 Eduardo Ayala get in the ring with Jones immediately.
What Jones did essentially was this: he fought one for the industry, against Toney, and then he fought one “for himself” against Byrd. What I mean by that phrase is that he fought a fighter who posed no real threat to him, for easy money, having earned that rope with the earlier contest, that monumental pound-for-pound confrontation with Toney. Beating Toney was easy for Jones. He didn’t really get hurt, he won any round he chose to contest and he had “Lights Out” sitting in his corner between rounds staring blankly into the middle distance as Bill Miller offered up the best he had. Nevertheless, in the parlance of the sport he had earned a soft one. Byrd proved just that, buckling under pressure and punches in less than a round.
Instead of complaining, the crowd was ecstatic. This, briefly, is why Mayweather-Berto is going to do very good business. Mayweather, like Jones, is brilliant. He is the best fighter of his generation and has spent the majority of the past ten years sat atop the pound-for-pound list, a fighter who, despite a defensive style generally anathema to great financial success, has crossed over to become the single biggest dollar machine the sport has ever produced. People love him, hate him and love to hate him. Just as seeing Jones beat an overmatched opponent was of huge appeal to a 1995 fight crowd, so seeing Mayweather outclass Berto is going to be of huge appeal to the 2015 fight crowd. In what remains the last bastion of pure capitalism in modern sport, the bottom line will speak very loudly in defence of this fight (for all that it will not be as successful as Floyd’s other more recent efforts).
Of course, there are differences between the Jones-Byrd situation and this one. Jones was a relative newcomer to the upper-echelons of boxing and there was still a great deal of curiosity wedded to that expectation, and while the expectation remained unsatisfied, the curiously was fulfilled. His fistic youth spared Jones the increased scrutiny Mayweather is suffering. Second, Byrd was ranked; he was ranked at #10, but he was ranked. Berto isn’t ranked, not by anyone with any good sense. In fact he doesn’t even make it into the Fightnews top fifteen at the weight, although he does appear in one or two fan-driven rankings systems available online, and has since before the Mayweather fight was made. I personally would be given to arguing that Berto is probably more prepared for Maywether than Byrd was for Jones. Furthermore, Berto has lost only to solid opponents; Byrd managed to lose to a journeyman. But it must be acknowledged that an argument can be made for Byrd being a better fighter than Berto. Fortunately, boxing history is awash with examples of the one-for-you, one-for-me culture that there is no particular pressure on this example.
Muhamad Ali followed his monumental confrontation with George Foreman against a fighter who had the word “Bleeder” in his nickname, Chuck Wepner. Ali was all but wrapped up in a deal to take on #3 contender Ron Lyle but reneged to take on a fighter who had had his face transmogrified into loose lamb’s liver by the bones of Sonny Liston five years previously. Ali was to be paid $1.5m, around $6.6m adjusting for inflation. When he was asked why he had selected Wepner as an opponent he answered “because he’s white.” But there was no torches and pitchfork assault upon Ali; nobody pointed and laughed at his opponent. There was a tacit understanding that having just settled completely the matter of who the best in the world was, he was entitled to a soft fight for pay, despite the fact that the Louisville Lip was already talking retirement.
Joe Calzaghe rewarded himself for his excruciatingly difficult victory over Bernard Hopkins with a pancaking of a shot Roy Jones, Roman Gonzalez spoiled himself with Rocky Fuentes after annexing the world flyweight title against Akira Yaegashi, Wladimir Klitschko gift-wrapped the chanceless Alex Leapai for his own consumption after a one-sided but crucial encounter against Alexander Povetkin; this is a list almost without end.
Where it does end, is with a group of fighters so unusual and singular in its pursuit of tough competition that we even have a name for it: we call it “old-school.” Guys like Juan Manuel Marquez and Manny Pacquiao and Carl Froch who, up to a point, seek out the toughest challenges available. These guys eschew the one-for-me one-for-you model in favour of determined domination. It is this type of attitude that we are demanding of Floyd Mayweather.
Is that reasonable? I think, probably, yes. I don’t find it unreasonable. Nevertheless, only a blind man could fail to see that the anonymity in debate provided by the internet in combination with Floyd Mayweather’s disgusting behaviour outside of the ring has created something of a perfect storm of criticism; still, it is fair to point out in return that he is, for better or worse, the flag-bearer for our sport and the best paid athlete in history. That he is fighting Andre Berto, a fighter rather less good than previous Mayweather victim Robert Guerrero, is not satisfying to me. He is an unsatisfying opponent, but I do not defend him as an opponent – what I defend is Mayweather’s right to fight an unsatisfactory opponent. He’s a one-for-me one-for-you guy. Trace it back:
After taking on and stopping Victor Ortiz, a soft defence for pay, Mayweather stepped out of his weight-division and his comfort-zone for a difficult fight against Miguel Cotto up at light-middleweight. He then gifted himself Robert Guerrero to pick up a few million, perhaps to fund his gambling habits, before taking on Saul Alvarez in a fight that generated much hype. Devon Alexander victim Marcos Maidana was supposed to be a soft one, but when Mayweather was unexpectedly run close – and we must never forget that that can and will happen – he re-matched the Argentine in a fight that happened to discharge his responsibilities to boxing. Then, he fought Manny Pacquiao. Pacquiao was a universally recognised pound-for-pounder who was also Mayweather’s very clear #1 contender for the lineal title in his possession. Winning was easy, but this was a fight, despite the fact that it came several years too late, that boxing was crying out for. It was very much an industry match.
Now, Berto.
What astonishes me about the bitterness aimed at Floyd Mayweather is the lack of historical perspective. Yes, the fight is poor, but people seem to expect some sort of retrospective punishment to be inflicted upon Floyd for the temerity of having made it. That will not happen, and it won’t happen because Mayweather hasn’t done anything odd. He’s done what Joe Louis did after knocking out Billy Conn in that desperate 13th round all those years ago and found a Lou Nova to play patsy for him next time out. It is no more his fault that Pacquiao couldn’t extend him than it was Louis’s fault that Billy Conn could. That is what happens in boxing when styles mesh and abilities clash.
What is key is not what Mayweather is doing now, but what he does next. A second soft defence would be inexcusable and not in keeping with the normality of boxing’s recent history. But if he fights Pacquiao, then Berto, then the winner of Cotto-Alvarez or Pacquiao again, people in fifty years will understand absolutely what they are looking at: a fighter who mixed the good opposition with bad, the same as almost every fighter who has ever lived, regardless of their standing.
Lotierzo is right to peg the number of pay-per-views bought in America as being a significant in influencing Mayweather’s next move, though I suspect an unlikely failure will induce a huffy retirement and inevitable comeback rather than any change in matchmaking policy, a policy which is likely to come to an end sometime soon anyway. Should a visitation from Marciano’s ghost render this fight Mayweather’s last, he is one of a multitude of champions to go out on a soft one. If the great Italian-American’s bones remain undisturbed and Mayweather pushes for 50-0 against a second chanceless opponent, this will be a break with that matchmaking policy and then you can hand me a pitchfork because I’m in.
In the meantime, I don’t think we should treat this as anything other than what it is:
Normal.
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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 until 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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