411 Boxing Fact or Fiction 01.14.10: Pacquiao, Mayweather, PPVs, Title Belts, Print Magazines, More

Posted by Ryan Bates on 01.14.2011

Should anyone care about Manny Pacquiao or Floyd Mayweather until they fight each other? Is Showtime outperforming HBO? Should boxing magazines be kept alive? Should fans boycott unworthy PPV's? 411's Ramon Aranda and Patrick Cassidy debate these topics and more in this week's 411 Fact or Fiction: Boxing!



Welcome to a late, but great, Fact or Fiction! Ramon is on the sunny streets of Mexico, and Patrick Cassidy is just now recovering from his New Year's hangover, so I decided to get the two of them together to sit down and look at a list of New Year's Resolutions the boxing public can make in 2011 to do their part to improve the sport. Do they agree or disagree? Let's find out!

1. We, the boxing public, resolve to support fighters who value legacy over sanctioning belts.

RAMON ARANDA: FACT. Title belts do hold prestige and obviously serve as a nice bargaining chip but with repulsive organizations like the WBC and WBA passing out "championships" like they were holiday turkeys on Thanksgiving, holding a title doesn't necessarily make you a legitimate top-5 fighter in a weight class. I respect fighters who have gotten to a point in their careers where what they accomplish inside the ring and who they fight against is more important to them than a belt.

PATRICK CASSIDY: FACT. Aside from a few young fighters who are looking to make a name for themselves, I can't fathom why we still pay any attention to these quasi thugs who run the sanctioning bodies who are nothing more than for profit mills that produce cheap trinkets. I mean the WBA has three different champions in one division! It's time to throw away these relics. I know Muhammad Ali, Sugar Ray Robinson, and Duran because of the fighters they beat not the belts that they carried.

SCORE: 1 for 1

2. We, the boxing public, resolve to support Showtime fights more so than HBO, as they consistently put on better fights in 2010.

RAMON ARANDA: FACT. Not to mention that at this point, Showtime seems to be smarter with their money than HBO is at this juncture. SHO had a great 2010 campaign that included not one, but two meaningful tournaments that are set to conclude this year. HBO consistently acts like a promoter at times and apparently can't tell the Klitschko brothers apart to boot.

PATRICK CASSIDY: FICTION. While I believe that the good people at Showtime routinely produce the better cards than HBO, the ugly fact is that they just don't have the budget to make the major fights that HBO can. Martinez/Williams would not be possible on Showtime without it being put on Showtime's PPV unit. Showtime's parent company, Viacom needs to invest the proper funds into it's organization and then I'll be ready to spurn HBO.

SCORE: 1 for 2

3. We, the boxing public, resolve to invest our hard-earned dollar in keeping traditional print boxing magazines alive.

RAMON ARANDA: FACT. As much as the sport needs to keep evolving itself, there should continue to be a place for print magazines...so long as people continue to read them of course. Being both an online and a print (Primer Round Magazine) journalist, magazines are still a necessary option that caters to the non-digital crowd and those who travel. I personally still find plenty of time to read whether I'm on public transportation, in a waiting room or on the can (yeah I said it).

PATRICK CASSIDY: FICTION. While I have a lot of respect for the print journalists in our sport, I can't help but believe that traditional print media is largely dead. Right now, the two most prominent journalists in boxing are Steve Kim and Dan Rafael who both work on the internet. Let's embrace the natural evolution of journalism and accept that the internet is the future.

SCORE: 1 for 3

Let's switch it up!

4. We, the boxing public, resolve to actually boycott overpriced, unworthy pay-per-views, instead of just talking about it.

PATRICK CASSIDY: FACT. I already boycott any card that doesn't excite me but that probably has more to do with me being a college student rather than out of real moral principle. However it's time we stand up and make it financially imprudent for companies to put these fights on overpriced PPV cards. At the very least they can knock down the price for less desirable cards.

RAMON ARANDA: FACT. Fact Fact Fact! As a writer, it's my job to watch as much boxing as possible and report it to you, our readers. However, a year doesn't go by without a handful of awful cards that have no business on PPV. Fans generally will cry foul yet some of these PPVs still sell well and we're forced to see similar cards put on in the future. Case in point, if fans want to see less of these unworthy shows, stop buying them! Promoters react less to public perception and more to dollars and sense. Voicing disgust is more powerful when fans speak with their wallets.

SCORE: 2 for 4

5. We, the boxing public, resolve to not care about Floyd Mayweather until he fights Manny Pacquiao.

PATRICK CASSIDY: FACT. I resolve to not care about Floyd Mayweather till he shows proper respect for the law, woman, and the working man. I've always been a big fan of Floyd the fighter but Floyd the person is making that much more difficult. Get his life in order and start fighting some live bodies and I'll be back.

RAMON ARANDA: FACT. Floyd may be the best, or the second best in the world...we just wont know until he fights Pacquiao. However at this point, I just don't care about him until he straightens out his personal life and gets back into training. His recent shenanigans are both annoying and laughable which is a shame because he truly is one of the greats of his generation.

SCORE: 3 for 5

6. We, the boxing public, resolve to not care about Manny Pacquiao until he fights Floyd Mayweather.

PATRICK CASSIDY: FICTION. Although we certainly want the fight it's kind of hard to blame Manny when Floyd's personal life is in disarray and hasn't shown any real desire to fight. I hate the Mosley fight but I understand Arum's reasoning for the fight and I'll eventually succumb and buy the fight because Pacquiao is just too talented to ignore.

RAMON ARANDA: FICTION. Before people start bickering about why I said Fiction to this question, I'll make it very simple: Manny Pacquiao does his talking in the ring. Unlike his counterpart who has recently been doing his fighting in and around his home against common citizens. I will say one thing about Pacquiao though....start fighting opponents people really care about this year...Mosley is not one of them.

SCORE: 4 for 6

More agreeing than disagreeing from these two, but what do you think the boxing public can do to help boxing in 2011? Are these guys' statements Fact or Fiction?