Yes, yes….The Monday Rant is on a Tuesday this week…I offer no apologies. I just wanted a day off. There’s not much happening in boxing, anyway…but I’m rested and ready to rant some more…So, let’s do this:
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Rant #1
Last week, I took on the mainstream boxing media and made one especially angry enemy.
Writer for MaxBoxing and star of Taco Heaven, Gabriel Montoya, threw himself in the path of the bullet aimed at worse offenders than him, got all bent out of shape and went on a rampage– going from our site’s message board to my personal Facebook page.
After a couple days of seething stalker talk, demanding I issue a retraction of what I wrote last week, I just had to bring this up one last time.
Apparently, of all the crap I wrote, Montoya’s only real gripe was, get this, that I was “way off base on the timeline” of his day. How’s that for clueless?
Well, here’s what I wrote:
Gabriel Montoya works at a site that is at least partially owned by a boxing promoter, Robert Waterman of Knockout Entertainment Ltd. in the UK….He then goes into editorial meetings with the site’s co-owner and head editorial voice, Steve Kim, who most definitely has a strong opinion on many issues…A few times a month, he’s off to cover shows, press pass in hand and free media lunch in belly…After work, Montoya goes for some exercise at Freddie Roach’s Wild Card Gym where he has trained under the watch of Roach’s brother, Pepper Roach…Then off to some downtime on Twitter where he chats up his friends and contacts, many of whom are active professional fighters.
Montoya was quick to point out that he no longer trains at the Wild Card, ever since being called on it by a reader. However, he now trains at Justin Fortune’s gym, another pro gym..which is pretty much the same thing.
This just underlines the point that he doesn’t really get it. He just doesn’t understand the conflict of interest generated by training and socializing alongside someone who he may have to cover down the line. Most of these mainstream writers, who like being a celebrity more than a journalist, ascribe to the same code of conduct, so I’m not just singling Montoya out. It’s just that, again, the self-obsessed Montoya seems to think every topic is about him. By the way, there’s no truth to the rumor that he was up in arms about the way I slighted him in my 8th grade report on the Civil War.
As for the actual timeline of his day, well, I don’t know the exact chronology of his daily routine. That was never the point. I’m sure that at some point he has to pick up Steve Kim’s dry cleaning and polish Kim’s mirror. But, other than the issue of the gym, which is a moot point since he still trains at a pro gym, everything I said is 100% true.
The reason this started in the first place was because Montoya jumped into a conversation about the sad state of mainstream boxing journalism and, really, started his usual routine of “You guys are ignorant, let me tell you how you should think.”
It’s likely that Montoya was just looking for yet another medium on which he can tell everyone that he’s a “fight writer.” Apparently, not even Twitter, Facebook, and his own space on MaxBoxing could satiate his thirst for self-congratulation…If an architect spent so much time telling the world that he was an architect, he’d never get a house built.
After doing some background work, I’ve discovered that his arrogance and self-importance is pretty much his trademark at this point. Regardless of what he says in his mailbag segment, where he can go back and edit his attitude, the guy seems to have utter disdain for the fans and their intelligence. It shows…Go back and listen to the available podcasts and YouTube videos where you can actually hear the frustration at having to deal with the ignorant masses.
That’s the last I’ll say on this (even if he stalks me again on Facebook), until Montoya writes something worth commenting on. Steve Kim towel boys don’t interest me that much.
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Rant #2
Booking Winky Wright-Matthew Macklin for the undercard of the Juan Manuel Marquez-Erik Morales PPV is a stroke of pure genius.
Nobody wants to see JMM-Marquez, but with Macklin on the bill there’s suddenly a UK market for this card. Throw in the Mexican rights and you get a card that has already paid for itself even if the US buy rate is equal to the paid attendance of Timothy Bradley-Devon Alexander in the Silverdome.
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Rant #3
Speaking of Bradley-Alexander, there seems to be a disagreement between The Examiner’s penny rolling tub of goo, Michael Marley, and ESPN’s hot dog rolling tub of goo, Dan Rafael, on the paid attendance figures thus far.
Marley claims 339, Rafael claims about 2,000. Both cite unnamed sources and, because Michigan doesn’t release this sort of info to the press, we’ll never know who is actually telling the truth. Based on history, gut instinct says that Marley is much more likely to be on the wrong end of the facts, but his number actually sounds right this time.
I’d be surprised if the paid attendance was as high as 2,000 about two weeks from the fight and with relatively little promotion in the recession-battered Detroit area.
The right thing to do, since the live gate is obviously of little importance to anyone involved, would be to sell the tickets at 10 bucks apiece and hustle as many customers through the door as possible.
An empty house and sad echoes throughout the stadium for boxing’s first major fight of 2011 would not be a good thing at all.
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Rant #4
And we close out this week’s “ravings” with a positive rant.
So far, two shows into the season, Friday Night Fights has done an excellent job in producing quality shows.
Boxing fans don’t need names to be happy. All we need is quality, well-put together match-ups. It doesn’t take a million dollars to put on a good show…all it takes is someone who knows how to book fights and cares enough for the fans to avoid the easy route of just booking name fighters against scrubs.
Ok, that’s enough ranting for this week…if you’re one of those hardcore fight fans who can talk boxing every day of the year, sign up at our message board. Lots of smart fans and interesting debates are always going on, even when there’s no boxing action to speak of.
Oh yeah…and a belated Happy Birthday to The Greatest, Muhammad Ali. A true man both inside and outside the ring.
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