Believe me, I’m not one to shy away from a good fight and I have the virtual hides of many douche bag boxing shills and “mean” bloggers hanging from the walls of my cement bunker in Central Mexico to prove it. There’s a reason these fakes and phonies have blocked me from their precious social media sites– I have zero tolerance for bull shit. Period.
However much of a “meanie” I appear to be to these guys, though, I’m also more than willing to admit when I’m wrong and issue an apology when needed.
Now, it’s time for my critics and detractors to do the same.
In the unholy Mayweather-Pacquiao debate, which has raged for nearly three years now, I was 100% right. The reluctance to sign the fight has been completely on the side of Team Pacquiao.
With Mayweather freed up for a May 5th date and apparently willing to get down to business, it’s Top Rank promoter, Bob Arum who is backpedaling and finding reasons for the fight not to happen.
Remember, back when Mayweather was first sentenced, Arum was very public about Pacquiao’s plan to fight in early May and plainly stated that Mayweather was a top priority. He even told Lance Pugmire of the Los Angeles Times that if Mayweather had not been sentenced to the 90-day jail sentence, plans were in motion to build a special 45,000 seat arena just for the Pacquiao-Mayweather mega-fight.
Now that Mayweather had his sentence postponed to June 1st, however, Arum’s telling a completely different story.
According to Arum, he has to wait for doctor’s clearance because of the cut Pacquiao suffered in the Marquez fight last November and that Manny won’t likely be ready until the first or second week of June.
That’ll make it seven months to heal a relatively small, insignificant cut. Total and complete bull shit. Not even Miguel Cotto, after being beaten with Antonio Margarito’s brick-wraps, needed seven full months to heal!
There’s other crap floating around and surely more of it is expected shortly as friendly media sources scramble to do damage control before Pacquiao’s next opponent is named.
But back to me.
From the moment I began writing for the now semi-defunct Inside Fights, the attacks from Pacquiao’s legion of faithful, but often tragically gullible, fans have been non-stop. They’ve followed me from gig to gig, taunting me and even clogging up non-Pacquiao stories with nonsense insults. They’ve tried to get me fired, tried to hack my accounts, and even tried to put together some sort of silly boycott.
Yes, I’m bald (balding)…Yes, I’m ugly…Yes, I look like a meth-head.
But, you know what? I’m also right.
Little details have slowly dribbled out to the public over the last several weeks, details which make it obvious to even the dullest of spectators that the hold-up on the mega-fight is coming directly from Pacquiao’s promoter, Bob Arum.
There were a few of us who knew this all along and reported on it honestly and earnestly. Of course, we were drowned out by the endless number of fakes in the media, ranging from the biggest names in the press to the lowliest of bloggers, who wallowed in delusional ideas and were more than willing to serve as public relations pawns to Arum.
For those who are unaware, let me go into a bit more detail about the “experts” who cover boxing.
Very few have actual hands-on experience. Fewer yet have any training in journalism. Most are just starry-eyed fans who get thick-nippled at the idea of spending time with fighters and will lash out like a PMSing teenage girl when their roller coaster ride of self-importance is derailed. Even the biggest names in the boxing media fall into this general description.
And Floyd Mayweather represents the perfect target for the media’s wrath and repressed teenage traumas.
Mayweather talks big, flaunts his riches, and treats most of the media as though they were mere accessories to his fame. Love him or hate him, there’s no pretense of fake respect for the guys holding notebooks and pretending to be big shot experts.
That’s why the media has felt free to post rumors and flat-out lies about the guy with little regard to the fact that their job is, ostensibly, to give fans an idea of what’s really happening in the sport.
Fake stories of Mayweather pursuing bouts with no-hopers like Paul Spadafora and Paulie Malignaggi are circulated at will, even by some of boxing’s most “respected” voices. And you can be sure of phony “Mayweather turned down $100 million to fight Pacquiao” stories with Bob Arum as the sole source every time Pacquiao is looking for his next opponent.
The one or two dissenting voices, who insisted on printing stories that could actually be verified and validated, were drowned in a sea of desperate, petty, star-fucking hacks who didn’t mind pissing on a fighter’s hard-earned reputation and legacy.
Part of the reason I started writing about boxing was because I could not believe the level of disinformation out there and the disregard these assholes in the media have when it comes to absolutely burying a fighter’s hard work and career.
Nobody will ever get an apology from these guys. They’re all too busy patting each other on the back and slobbering over the free swag they get from managers, promoters, and publicists. And, likely, they’ve long abandoned their souls in an effort to satisfy their desperate adolescent angst.
But the fans of the sport should be more level-headed– even those from the deepest, darkest regions of Pacland. To all the critics and serial antagonists who have followed me around and have ridiculously taken the time to leave me the nastiest of comments and the most bizarrely hateful emails, I will be expecting a public apology.
I’m waiting.
You can email Paul at paulmagno@theboxingtribune.com or catch him as he continues in his effort to commit career suicide by actually telling the truth. Paul is a full member of the Burger King Kids’ Club, a born iconoclast, and an ordained minister in the Universal Life Church.
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