The boxing media is organic. Constantly changing. Growing, shrinking, fattening up, slimming down. It's a fragile eco-system, that adapts to it's surroundings. Boxing is not a largely watched sport, so in truth, scrambles around for the scraps from the top tables of major league baseball, the NBA, and the NFL.
If you want to know how organic boxing is, look at it's media numbers. It was dominated by American fans up until a few years ago, and in truth, probably still is. But there's a lot more money coming from the UK, South East Asia, and Germany now.
And the boxing media goes, wherever the money is.
The name "Manny Pacquiao" was largely irrelevant until recently. His PPV numbers were low, and web traffic even lower. If you study the very handy "google trends" you'll see that there was only ever any media money in Pacquiao after the De la Hoya fight.
Boxing's organic. It adapts. It jumps on the bandwagon.
You need to understand, that, there is no money whatsoever in publishing. None. Most web sites, in truth, actually lose money, and are reliant on benefactors. And I'm not just talking small fan sites. Big, national, well known sites, will be losing money daily, while I type this.
They have no choice but to chase web traffic. And what's more, to cover their monthly losses, they're reliant on industry benefactors. Bob Arum being the biggest.
What does this create? An environment where neutrality is impossible. And boxing sites, and journalists are little more than an extension of the promotion company.
Not all sites are the same, and can be defined thus.
The mainstream sites
These are sites, that in truth, don't have much interest in boxing, but at the same time, have a duty to report it. They often take stories from agencies like AP (associated press) or Reuters, which are designed to appeal to the mainstream majority. They tend to be neutral, as they have a reputation of reporting fact, but at the same time, their articles are designed to appeal to the mainstream, casual fan, so tend to drip of populism.
Examples - Fox News, CBS
The vested interest sites
Some networks have vested interests in boxing. Usually broadcasting bouts. So tend to have relationships with promoters, and people in the fight game. ESPN is a good example.
This, again, makes neutraility impossible. And ESPN is often just an extension of a fight promotion. Lots of their articles, are attempts to give credibility, to rumours started by the promotion companies. They're, in truth, willing participants in boxing promotions.
ESPN, has been heavily biased towards Pacquiao, for the last couple of years. Mostly because of the lead writer, Dan Raphael's bad relationship with Golden Boy Promotions, and long term friendship with Bob Arum. What I'm saying is, Golden Boy have cut him off, and he's reliant on Bob Arum for any influence or credibility in the sport.
Which means, his articles, a lot of the time, are little more than trying to re-inforce Top Rank media campaigns.
The Pay-per-clickers
Asia has a lot of people in in. A lot of people who are very new to boxing, and hence, quite naieve. Quite a few sites have sprung up, the last few years, that are run completely by amateurs. And when I say amateurs, I mean amateurs. A lot of these guys can barely put a sentence togethor.
But boxing is a cynical sport. And unfortunately, writing something along the lines of "Floyd Mayweather is gay" or "Manny Pacquiao is great" guarantees sites around 50'000 web hits, in less than 24 hours. Which is a viable business
These sites, tend to recruit childish, vindictive, aggressive, dishonest writers, who are more than happy to give up their own journalistic credibility, in order to drive web traffic to the site. In truth, it's a mutually beneficial deal, as the people in question, quite often want a platform to bully, intimidate, and abuse athletes, and fans they don't like.
The prime example is probably Examiner.com. Which has amazingly, managed to create a writing staff, in which every single person, is a passionate Manny Pacquiao fan, with a visible hatred of his biggest rival, Floyd Mayweather. What a coincidence, for a pay-per-click site!
Quality of writing ranges from the bizarre, to the ludicrous. The most legitimate scribe being disgraced, one time Don King hanger on, Michael Marley, who, because of his suspicious support for anything Bob Arum says, or does, has been unable to find work in the mainstream media, for decades.
Mike's a talented scribe, but highly cynical to read. He really stopped being interested, in being respected, or telling people the truth, along time ago, and it seems, prefers just being Asia's favourite son.
At the bottom you'll find pond life like Dennis Guillermo, who is little more than a quite obsessed fan, who thinks supporting an athlete, involves trying to personally bring down their rivals, in any way they can. Luckily, this usually amounts to little more than continuous hate articles, and rather bad rumour-mongering.
The sites struggling to survive
As stated, earlier, most sites run at a loss, and will do pretty much anything to get traffic. The sites that are lucky enough to be supported by neutral benefactors, tend to be more neutral - Boxing Scene, East Side, Fight Hype.
The sites who can't get money from the TV companies, tend to go to the promoters with a begging bowl, while running several highly inflammatory, mentally unstable, man-child writers, to try and draw attention.
Boxing Insider is a a good example. A source of mine tells me that they're heavily dependent on a promoter, financially, and to be fair, 90% of it, is professional. But they can't resist, and in truth, can't exist, without the regular ramblings of the ludicrous "Scoop Malinowski", who has spent the last 9 years, writing hate, and trying to start false rumours about Floyd Mayweather.
I do believe the list of fighters Pretty Boy Floyd has been "ducking, because he knows he will be brutally knocked out by them" is, so far:
Coralles
Castillo
De la Hoya
Hatton
Margarito
Mosely
Cotto
Pacquiao
One of my sources, actually mailed me an e-mail conversation he'd had with the owner of the site, where he was asked why he puts up with the guy. As I recall, his justifcation for running Scoop Malinowski articles, was something like:
"Yeah, I know he's ridiculous, and quite possibly mentally unstable, but he really believes all this, and hes got a lot of regular readers who like this crap".
To cut a long story short, money talks
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