Night of the Tomato Cans
There was a time within the last 100 years where boxing was one of the biggest sports in America. Now, thanks to the UFC, it isn't even the country's favorite combat sport. If you want to know why, look no further than Saturday night's fight card at the Pontiac Silverdome.
The main event is, without question, a big deal. It matches two undefeated stars - Timothy Bradley and Devon Alexander - with the winner becoming the legitimate champion of the junior welterweight division. This is a pay-per-view quality fight that will be shown nationally on HBO.
Unfortunately, no one seems to care. Ticket sales are reportedly very poor, and there is zero buzz about this fight in the Detroit area. In contrast, when UFC came to town a few weeks ago, the Palace was packed with one of the craziest crowds I've ever seen.
You could argue that ticket sales would be better if either fighter was from Detroit - Alexander is from St. Louis and Bradley is from Palm Springs - but there weren't any local guys on the UFC card. The problem isn't with the main event - it is with everything else.
At the UFC card, there were two main events. One lasted 21 seconds and the other one wasn't particularly interesting, but no one left the Palace thinking they had been cheated out of their ticket price. The reason was the undercard - all nine fights were competitive matchups, and several of them turned out to be quite entertaining.
At the Silverdome, that isn't going to happen.
According to BoxRec.com - a very reliable source for boxing records and schedules - there are currently nine fights planned for the undercard of Alexander-Bradley. Of the nine, there is one that might be competitive. The other eight are all designed to pad one fighter's record with an easy victory.
You may think I'm exaggerating this, so I'm going to go through this, fight by fight:
1) James De La Rosa vs. Germaine Sanders. De La Rosa is 20-0 and being built up as a credible fighter. Sanders has lost his last five fights, and hasn't won since 2007.
2) Julian Williams vs. Torrence King. Williams is at the start of his career, and has won all four of his fights. King is 1-7. He won the first fight of his career, back in 2008, and hasn't come close since.
3) Darryl Cunningham vs. Alberto Mercedes. Cunningham, a Detroiter, is a fixture at the cards that run at the Royal Oak Music Theatre every few months. He's 36, and he's generally given an easy fight against someone with a terrible record. Because of that, he's cruised to a 21-2 record. Saturday, although the venue is bigger, the matchup is the same. Mercedes is 1-5 in his last six fights, and the one win was over Ivan Ledon. Ledon came into that fight having lost nine in a row, including a knockout by, you guessed it, Darryl Cunningham at the Royal Oak Music Theatre.
Cunningham's last fight tells this whole story pretty well, actually. On Nov. 12, he beat Rubin Williams in a lopsided 10-round decision. Ten years ago, Williams was on the other side of this scam - he was being built up as the next great Detroit fighter. He won his first 14 fights, never beating anyone with any particular ability, and then got knocked out in the first round in a fight in 2003. Thanks to some careful matchmaking, he rebounded to win his next seven fights, giving him a record of 21-1.
That was enough to get him a title shot against Jeff Lacy - the first legitimately good fighter Williams had ever faced. He never had a chance. Lacy dominated the fight and knocked Williams out in the seventh round.
With that loss, Williams lost all the credibility he had earned by his misleading record, and he moved to the losing side of the game. Since the start of 2008, he's 0-12 and now serves as Music Theatre fodder for the likes of Cunningham.
OK, digression is over. Back to the Silverdome card:
4) Andre Gorges vs. Angel Hernandez. Gorges, who has the distinction of being one of the few pro fighters from Baghdad, is 10-1. Hernandez - not the much-maligned umpire of the same name - has lost his last five fights and been knocked out in three of them.
5) Kendall Holt vs. Lenin Arroyo. In this case, the fight isn't about padding Holt's career as much as it is about saving it. He's a pretty good fighter who lost the WBO championship to Bradley in April of 2009. He didn't fight again for almost a year, and then got pounded by little-known Kaizer Mabuza. Now, 10 months later, he's trying a comeback. He shouldn't have much trouble with Arroyo, who has lost seven straight, including one to James De La Rosa (see fight #1).
6) Marcus Olivera vs. Demetrius Jenkins. Olivera is 20-0. Jenkins has lost 10 straight, including one to Darryl Cunningham (see fight #3). You're probably getting the hang of this by now.
7) Vernon Paris vs. Emmanuel Augustus. Paris is 23-0. Augustus was once described by Floyd Mayweather as the toughest opponent he had ever faced. Unfortunately, that fight was in 2000. He's now 36 and has lost his last four fights.
Kertson Manswell vs. Bermane Stiverne. You have no idea how many tries it took me to spell those names correctly. This, I'm sure, will be the fight that the promoters try to sell as the top of the undercard. Manswell is 20-0 and Stiverne is 19-1-1. It is also, I'm sure, the biggest fight ever between fighters from Trinidad & Tobago (Manswell) and Haiti (Stiverne). On paper, I suppose this looks like a fight between two up-and-coming fighters, but they are both in their 30s. I don't think the Klitchsko brothers are worried about either of them.
9) Julio Diaz vs. Pavel Miranda. Diaz is a former champion, losing his title to Juan Diaz in a 2007 fight best known for driving the announcers crazy. He has only gone 3-2 since then, but he at least gives the undercard a little more name recognition. You are probably expecting me to tell you that Miranda has lost his last five fights, but he hasn't. He's lost four of them, and fought a draw in the fifth. He hasn't won since 2008.
And that's the problem with boxing. Like the UFC card, the main event is important whether or not it is any good. Unlike the UFC card, there isn't anything else. You aren't going to get the pagentry that you got at the Palace and you certainly aren't going to get the competitive fights. There might be an upset somewhere on the card, but the only fight that isn't a literal mismatch - Manswell vs. Stiverne - features two thirtysomethings that weigh a combined 500 pounds. Don't hold your breath for a Fight Of The Year candidate.
Bradley-Alexander might well be a great fight - I'm going to be there and I'm very much looking forward to covering it. I just wish the rest of the card didn't showcase the ugly side of boxing quite so well.