Misinformation is foreign money in boxing.
This shouldn’t come as a shock to anybody even remotely conscious of how the enterprise operates and the way, on a really associated facet notice, how the media (and, now, social media) is commonly used to regulate narratives.
Right now, I’m simply going to be specializing in one such incident, however you can look by way of any main boxing information website and (accurately) level out that just about all the pieces is strategically planted there to sway public discourse by somebody within the enterprise with a vested curiosity in getting their “facet” seen in a optimistic gentle.
The entire current Canelo/Premier Boxing Champions (PBC) story, although, is the above actuality, instances 100.
Again in early February, self-described “Worldwide Agent, Dealer, & Marketing consultant” and “boxing lifer” Rick Glaser, who has lately constructed a point of profession momentum as a really vocal Anti-Al Haymon/PBC social media voice, began speaking up the “deep monetary turmoil” contained in the PBC group. This, regardless of the beforehand introduced partnership between the corporate and Amazon Prime Video.
In the true world, Glaser is greatest identified for his work in illegally rolling again odometers as a used automotive salesman. Within the boxing world, some have really accepted his phrase as “insider” reality.
So, when Glaser seized upon the chance of an upcoming “massive announcement” from Saul “Canelo” Alvarez to insist that the Mexican star can be asserting his cut up with PBC one battle right into a reported three-fight deal (as a result of an completely “broke” PBC couldn’t assure his purse), method too many individuals accepted this as one thing aside from wishful considering.
As issues would prove, Canelo’s announcement was merely an affirmation of a re-signed cope with TV Azteca in Mexico.
About two weeks later, although, information shops started reporting that Alvarez had “cut up” from PBC and was now headed again to earlier broadcaster DAZN.
Glaser and his band of true believers took victory laps. Victor Conte e-newsletter author and one-time ESPN add-on Steve Kim (who has been a long-time Al Haymon-obsessed antagonist) touted Glaser as a “hero” who “stood steadfast towards all naysayers” and was now totally “vindicated.”
Besides…not.
Just a few days later, it was confirmed that Alvarez can be preventing fellow Mexican Jaime Munguia on Might 4, beneath the PBC banner on a pay-per-view occasion obtainable by way of Amazon Prime Video, with DAZN (Munguia’s broadcast house) granted the rights to additionally promote the battle on their platform.
This information set forth a few weeks of scorching debate amongst followers as to what had really occurred between the time Canelo “cut up” with PBC and when he apparently “got here again.”
Glaser would take a deep dive into fantasy land to elucidate his wild incorrectness, spinning a story on Twitter/X about DAZN lead promoter Eddie Hearn having “extremely insulted” Alvarez supervisor/coach Eddy Reynoso throughout negotiations, thereby killing the potential for an unique cope with DAZN and facilitating Alvarez’s return to PBC.
And, yeah, some folks really purchased that, too.
Simply this previous week, nevertheless, Reynoso, himself, lastly introduced the reality to gentle.
“It was mentioned many instances that we left PBC…We by no means left PBC,” Reynoso instructed ESPN Deportes in a video interview. “We’ve got the approval of Mr. Haymon that if we will’t finalize something with one among their fighters, we will negotiate with any firm. Which is what we did and PBC can be concerned. We’ve got a dedication to PBC in September. Generally they (PBC) don’t have the most effective fighters for Canelo. We are able to speak with Eddie Hearn, High Rank, with any fighter, folks of Saudi Arabia too.”
So, right here’s the guidelines of what’s what on this complete state of affairs:
– Canelo by no means “left” PBC. “Leaving” can be meaningless, anyway, in a deal the place Canelo has the appropriate to barter elsewhere at any time.
– Canelo by no means “got here again” to PBC (as a result of he by no means really left).
– None of this was ever about funds, PBC being broke, or cash not put “in escrow” by “guarantors” as Glaser had insisted.
– The mainstream boxing media had gotten the story incorrect as nicely.
Really, beneath all of the nonsense and partisan beefing, we see a reasonably good pro-fighter association in place between Canelo and PBC, an organization which has been blasted by its critics as being non-cooperative in making cross-company fights. The Mexican star can just about come and go as he pleases, with, presumably, PBC having first dibs on making him a battle provide.
This Reynoso revelation (and a earlier revelation from Canelo) highlights the fact that the tales planted within the media and social media about this alleged cut up had been solely fictitious. And also you’d be naive to assume that there weren’t agendas behind this fiction being pushed to the general public.
I might count on nothing much less of a convicted hustler with an anti-Haymon/PBC ax to grind like Glaser or a man like Kim, who’s been engaged in some weirdo race/tradition conflict by way of (of all issues) boxing. Screws and nuts will probably be screws and nuts.
You possibly can’t actually be mad at informal boxing fandom, both. Most easily don’t know sufficient in regards to the interior workings of issues to have a legitimate viewpoint or be capable of decide reality from bullshit. And if their solely supply of information is from media and social media? Properly, yeah, good luck being knowledgeable.
However the precise “actual” media that DOES have a basic understanding of how issues work and ought to be cautious of passing alongside misinformation? Disgrace on them. Then once more, when lots of these media folks work for corporations owned by PBC’s direct competitors, like, for instance, the Golden Boy-owned RingTV/Ring Journal, perhaps a few of that “they need to’ve identified higher” might be “they DID know higher, however ran with the story anyway.” Hell, I’ve heard unsubstantiated rumors about Glaser really serving as a “supply” to a minimum of a few the big-shot media voices.
However let’s be sensible right here. It’s arduous to generate profits in boxing media and most everybody seeking to pay payments and put meals on their household’s desk with media gigs has needed to flirt with battle of curiosity. Boxing corporations are actually the one ones handing out something resembling substantial paychecks. It’s as much as every media member to determine how far that impacts their work. In my case, I do freelance nuts-and-bolts battle previews for PBC. On the identical time, although, I’ve criticized the corporate’s enterprise mannequin when essential and have gone Magno-deep in blasting sure PBC fighters– like as soon as evaluating Deontay Wilder’s boxing type to that of a drunken tranny preventing at 2 AM in a Dunkin Donuts parking zone or remarking that Jermell Charlo, in his one-sided loss to Canelo, carried himself with the traumatized reluctance of somebody who had simply been jail raped.
I don’t care which is your “favourite” boxing firm or your “most hated” boxing company– though having a “favourite” or “most hated,” in and of itself, is fairly silly, in my view. It’s a bit like pledging endlessly loyalty to Burger King by way of proxy conflict with McDonald’s. Shoppers do themselves an incredible disservice by blindly siding with a model and declaring forever-war on that model’s competitors.
Personally, I do not care if any of those guys exit of enterprise. My life doesn’t change one bit with the rise and/or fall of PBC, High Rank, Golden Boy, and so forth. For me, that is about being proper, being appropriate, being truthful. It’s about talking on points when you have got the precise details straight or, on the very least, have a marginal understanding of what’s really happening.
As for the followers searching over this media/social media mess, making an attempt to make sense of all of it?
Widespread sense goes a good distance. If somebody’s complete shtick is “I’m out to get such and such firm, drive them out of existence,” why the hell would you consider any “information” they “break” relating to that specific firm? And if a smear is handed alongside by these with the identical “out to get them” leanings and/or by media folks working for the goal’s direct competitors, once more, why would you not come to the conclusion that, perhaps, what you’re listening to is to be questioned?
On the finish of the day, the boxing world can be a complete lot brighter and happier if boxing followers simply adopted boxing, like they used to do.
Followers want to depart the “my firm vs. your organization” self-sabotaging nonsense apart. They should disregard the media/social media voices stirring that shit up for private achieve and/or to fulfill some deep-seated psychological points.
And Rick Glaser wants to return to promoting used automobiles, the place his bull-shittery solely impacts one shopper at a time and never a complete trade.
Obtained one thing for Magno? Ship it right here: paulmagno@theboxingtribune.com
