By Tom Luffman

Photo © Javiel Centeno/FightWireImages.com

How many times have you heard the following, “the heavyweight division sucks!”, “the heavyweight division is boxing’s glamour division”, “as General Motors (GM) goes, so goes America.”

Most of us have heard the first two.  If you are older or aware of the history of the American economy then you’ve also heard the last one.  The premise of the comment was that GM employed a certain amount of people that made cars, car parts and the like.  Those cars were then sold in car lots that employed salesmen, office workers, mechanics, managers, and others.  In turn, as the automobile, specifically GM autos such as Chevy, Cadillac, and Buick hit the road and started to break down, even more jobs were created at gas stations and repair shops.

In short, their one company was the largest corporation in America (in terms of its revenues as a percent of GDP), and as a result they were responsible for the livelihood of so many Americans that if they failed as a company it would endanger the economy in our country as a whole. 

However, this notion could not continue if the United States was to continue to grow economically.  So the economy shifted and became diversified to survive and grow.  It had to.  Had the United States not put policies in place to allow this to happen our economy would have become stagnate and eventually regressed.  To put it simple, you can’t put all of your eggs (investment) in one basket, because sooner or later something bad will happen to those eggs and leave you without the money from the investment to implement a new plan of attack.

Enter the heavyweight division playing the part of General Motors. 

The heavyweights have given us some of the biggest memories and names the sport has to offer, such as the Ali-Frazer series, “the long count”, Joe Louis, Jack Dempsey, Jack Johnson, Mike Tyson, Evander Holyfield, George Foreman, and many, many more.  The fact is, if you speak to any sports fan on the street and ask them to name their favorite boxers of all time, you will hear the names of heavyweights. 

However, the days of Mike Tyson dominating the division are long over.  The era of Muhammad Ali floating like a butterfly is sadly gone.  Joe Louis was been laid beneath the good earth before anyone under 25 was born.  The cash cow and talent of days gone by has vanished.  The basket of eggs has deteriorated. 

The attitude of continually parading the current crop the division has to offer as the best of “the glamour division” is like a man sucking a dry well and expecting water to suddenly and inexplicably spring forth.  I’ve heard the definition of insanity as “doing the same things over and over and expecting a different result”. 

When it comes to our love affair with the heavyweight division and our expectations that suddenly a man will show up and be the next Tyson, Ali, or Dempsey we’ve become very close to being insane and our sport and the stars of other weight classes have suffered for it. 

Sure Don King, who promotes most of the “top” heavyweight contenders, can trot out people who weigh over two hundred pounds and wear championship belts, but if you are waiting for the next coming of Sonny Liston then I advise you not to hold your breath.  Personally, I’d settle for the second coming of Ron Lyle or Earnie Shavers.  In any case, this division does not have the makings of one that will be remembered.  Nor should it be.  It’s a down era and that’s ok. 

Lulls happen in all sports. 

The current state of the heavyweight division is not news as it has been written about and discussed ad nausea.  But the clamor stops short of suggesting anything new.  Writers and fans seem compelled to content themselves with the fact that the division is still the glamour division and the glamour division stinks.  That makes absolutely no sense to me. 

The answer is obvious. 

We do not have to suffer year after year waiting for John Ruiz to stop putting us to sleep with his hug-fests or watching Oleg Maskaev… at all.  Our sport just needs to invest in other weight classes more.  Sure we, as a sport, have promoted people like “Sugar” Ray Leonard, Oscar De La Hoya, and others from lower weight classes, but these are the exceptions to the rule. 

In the past couple of years Don King has dug up Shannon Briggs and Andrew Golota from obscurity and put them front and center for title shots against “champions” with the full weight of his media arsenal behind the bouts.  Meanwhile, stars-on-the-rise like 26 year-old, undefeated WBA Welterweight champion Miguel Angel Cotto (28-0 KO’s 23) have been given some coverage, but the man-on-the-street has never heard of him. 

Cotto is the real deal possessing skill and knockout power along with an appetite to challenge himself against the elite fighters of his time.  He is poised to be a superstar for boxing for years to come and is set to make the first defense of his title on March 3rd against Oktay Urkal (38-3 KO’s 12). 

Currently the promotion for the fight is battling the news of Mike Tyson’s alleged addiction to cocaine for headlines.  And losing!  The promotion is not only losing in the traditional press, but also in the boxing media at large. 

I don’t care about the traditional press, let them follow the tabloid events of a retired and troubled boxer; it’s the boxing press’ pursuit of the stale, “Mike Tyson is crazy, disturbed, on drugs, etc…” story that I find intolerable.  Maybe the man needs some time away from the headlines, let him have it.  It would probably do him and the sport of boxing some good.  The media world gets their cues from us, the boxing media, about what to publish.  We’re supposed to be the experts, not them. 

Specifically, we need to promote, talk about, and cover legitimate stars in every division.  I’m not advising a boycott of covering the heavyweights; I’m only stating that those above two hundred pounds should be covered just like the middleweights, welterweights, lightweights and other divisions under the double century mark. 

Let us also do away with the title “glamour division” and make the whole sport the “glamour sport”.  We’re the fans, pundits, writers, and fighters in the greatest, if not oldest, sport in the world.  Given this, how can we not be the top sport in the world?

Well, there are lots of reasons, large and small for our deflated position, but I believe one reason we lag behind obviously inferior sports is because we collectively (press, fans, promoters, etc.) do a terrible job of discussing all of our available talent.

We’ve picked the size of the largest division over the talent of individual boxers that could actually draw a crowd for way too long.  It’s time to spread the love, money, and fame to stars of every weight class and stop the stagnation of the sport we love.

Giving proper recognition to the warriors that deserve it would be a great next step in taking back our position as the greatest sport on Earth.

Tom Luffman is a writer for the Wilmington News Journal.