The times they are-a-changing. Once upon a time, the fan site "Bleacher Report" was an innocent little site. Launched by a friend of mine, I can offer some unique insight to it's early aims and objectives.
The idea was for it to be a forum, for aspiring writers, who struggled to break into the mainstream, to show their talent, and to form business partnerships with the mainstream media, to provide these writers with mainstream exposure.
That nobel mission statement exists to this day on most sport pages on the site. But it's a distant memory in regards to boxing.
Asia now loves boxing. Asia = money.
I've received several messages, over the last year, from contacts from inside the site. Updating me on recent moves. It seems that the rules have not so much "changed" in regards to the boxing page, but they basically don't apply any more.
I've been told that the "front page" Editor (who decides what they publish) of the Bleacher Boxing page, who was appointed about a year ago, is such a notorious troll, alledgedly, that, according to my sources, he actually continued flooding it with anti-Mayweather rhetoric ,under a psuedonym, for months after he was appointed. And only stopped doing so, after being challenged by angry users, for his complete disregard for editorial bias.
The "community leader" who basically keeps an eye on the page for the Editor, is I'm told, according to the messages I have received, an Asian-American Pacquiao fan, based in LA.
The page's copy, looking at it briefly myself, appears to be completely dominated by a Filipino Pacquiao fan called "Leo Reyes", who hasn't posted an article, that hasn't been about either Manny Pacquiao or Nonito Donaire, in over 7 months.
Worringly, I've been told that the site alledgedly protects Mr Reyes heavily. Not allowing any open comment on his articles. No matter how polite. I've been told that anyone who criticises Leo Reyes articles, on his page, and question the repetition, get banned.
My source claims, the community leader "King J", alledgedly, does this personally. Without consulting the management, or the sites own rule book. What's more, my source claims that King J doesn't actually ban people officially - as he doesn't want it to be official. He just makes sure their accounts can't post comments any more, alledgedly.
What this means is, according to my sources version of events, the pro-Pacquiao editorial team of the site, are alledgedly blocking users from posting, even though they haven't broken any of the rules that they signed up to when joining the site. Purely on the grounds of their sporting loyalties.
Commercial censorship basically.
It will be interesting to see if I hear anything else from users of the site, and their experiences with it
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