Shostie: You can call him Ray, you can call him J.

or you can call him Ray J, but you doesn't have to call him...

Boxing is a sport?

Oh for the love of Ray J

Oh, this would be pissing on the sport, but tag-team boxing wouldn't?

Breaking up the matches with a performance once in a while is no worse than a half-time show in a football game. Get over it.

Evander and JJ would be dy-no-mite!

What? It's not?

Damn.

Shostie: You can call him Ray, you can call him J.

That thing was funny for about three seconds.

Rappers team up with boxers can't be any worse than rappers teaming up with MMA fighters. I predict this show will suck mightily and not just because boxing is boring. Remember "The Contender" ? Of course you don't because every fight save one ended in a boring decision. This show will focus primarily on the rappers and their drama and ignore the boxers entirely.

This has been done before


I present you with BET's "Iron Ring" (new window) or if the announcer's speech impediment is to be believed "ION WING" (even newer window)

NewportBarGuy: Boxing, in it's current form, already pisses on the legacy of the sport.

Annnnnd, were done.

Yes subby, it would be a crime to in any way sully the legacy of "two people beating each other's heads in" as a sport.

NewportBarGuy: Boxing, in it's current form, already pisses on the legacy of the sport.

In my opinion, boxing itself hasn't changed much. Boxing has always been one of those things that are way more exciting (and way cleaner) in historical retrospectives than in real life. On ESPN Classic, every fight was a Roman spectacle and a Greek drama. For a perfect comparison of myth to reality, watch "When We Were Kings" and then watch the film of the actual fight. (Both are available on DVD from Netflix.) In the documentary, nobody gives Ali a chance, everyone thinks he's getting his ass kicked during the fight but you can see he's actually being really brilliant, and he makes this amazing, suspenseful comeback. In real life, even the guy calling the bout for TV thought they were even after a couple of rounds, possibly with Ali ahead, and they were already talking about Foreman's untested stamina. Great fight, but not as dramatic and flabbergasting as Norman Mailer makes it sound.

So what happened? A hundred years ago a lot of people boxed. Teddy Roosevelt boxed at Harvard. Ernest Hemingway boxed. It was a normal thing for manly-type people to do. That stopped being true a long time ago. Consequently, almost nobody under 60 who was born in the U.S. has boxed or grew up with anybody who boxed. So they don't watch boxing. People under 40 watch MMA. People under 30 haven't really known a time when boxing was bigger than MMA. They see it as a weird archaic variation of MMA where you add a bunch of rules to make things more boring and even more subjective. I mean, kickboxing is pretty exciting, but boxing? Why?

Finally, Lennox Lewis was the wrong guy at the wrong time for boxing. He put the last nail in the coffin by being the best fighter of his generation in the heavyweight class (the only class that your average Joe off the street knows or cares about) and also the most boring fighter in history. He was a damned good and damned long-tenured champion, but most people know him from that video of the guy putting his hands down and trying to give up and sobbing between rounds and Lewis still being too cautious to hit him.

^ The savior of boxing.

Is he going to fark a Kardashian after the 5th round?

Excuse me?

Ray J is no damn rapper. Money Team, people. Money Team.

oh no, not the good name of boxing!

One Bad Apple: Rappers team up with boxers can't be any worse than rappers teaming up with MMA fighters. I predict this show will suck mightily and not just because boxing is boring. Remember "The Contender" ? Of course you don't because every fight save one ended in a boring decision.

My problem with the contender si that they didn't actually shwo the fights. The edited them all down so they all lokked close.

I am fine with decisions, I am not fine with editing to make it look like a close decision.

NewportBarGuy: FrankTheYank: In my opinion...

Wow, great reply. I'm not really speaking of the boxers. I think the sport certainly does have some talent in it. What I'm referring to is the corporate structure and lack of a unified championship (belt) system. They have all these bullsh*t belts and call every fight a championship fight. They have just denigrated the entire concept of leveling up and having a clear system of who is ranked where on the list. Hell, if those pansies in Tennis can make it work, Boxing should have that as well.

Everyone in the world knew who the top two heavyweight fighters were 20 years ago. We all picked the one we wanted to win and had a huge buildup to a fight. It was just awesome. It also made watching the undercards more interesting because you were looking for the next guy who'd make it to the top. They've just destroyed the whole thing in search of more money but they have killed the sport by doing this.

The only way it can work is if someone with enough money buys up every entity in boxing and unifies the whole damn thing. I doubt that will happen because you are right about MMA, that's where it is for the growth market now. Boxing is as good as dead as a serious sport, in my eye. This is sad because I used to really get excited for those big fights.

You're right about the lack of a unified system. The industry really screwed the pooch on that one. I tried to name the belts and only came up with the WBO and the IBF. Checking my memory against Wikipedia I came across a sad little chart showing how few current "champions" there are by traditional criteria. It's a really bad sign when you realize a sport could learn something from the BCS.

MMA is fragmented, but at least there's one clearly leading "major league" organization now, and there's a lot of competition and rivalry between the second-tier organizations. Back when Pride and UFC were essentially equals, the regional distinction helped fans swallow the unfortunate segregation of fighters. When a guy was under contract to Pride you thought "he's fighting in Japan" instead of thinking "he sold himself to one of two dominant corporations."

Did he really pee on Kim? I've heard that alot but I dont remember it in the video..

liam76:


My problem with the contender si that they didn't actually shwo the fights. The edited them all down so they all lokked close.

I am fine with decisions, I am not fine with editing to make it look like a close decision.


That's another problem. Boxing has become so inherently boring for so long that even a movie about it has to montage 9 out of 12 rounds to make it watchable.

P.S. It's telling that 99% of the people who watched Ocean's Eleven thought that the fighters in the ring were just no-name actors playing a bit part. They didn't even recognize them as real fighters, much less as the heavyweight champion and a top contender.

FrankTheYank: P.S. It's telling that 99% of the people who watched Ocean's Eleven thought that the fighters in the ring were just no-name actors playing a bit part. They didn't even recognize them as real fighters, much less as the heavyweight champion and a top contender.

It's a damn shame that the only time that fight could be made was as part of a movie. And a damn shame that Lewis came in so out of shape against Vitali and got ripped apart. And a damn shame that he didn't want to try it again in better shape.

Vitali vs Lewis would have been one of the great HW fights in history if both were at the top of their game.

I'm a firm believer that you could take either in their prime and they would be no worse than 50/50 vs any fighter from any era.

I think Vitali could beat most every HW that's ever laced them up.

So which one is a rapper?

I don't know why, but I was just reminded of a joke.

What's brown and rhymes with snoop?

Dr. Dre.

Ray J? Isn't he the jackass we have to thank for Kim Kardashian? Or was that some football player she made an amature pr0n with?

I read the article, and still have no idea what the plan is.

They're both broke. Holyfield can't even keep the water on at his mansion, and the bank doesn't want it because of how under water it is.

Boxing hasn't had any type of "legacy" in a solid 35 years.

shakespear: Did he really pee on Kim? I've heard that alot but I dont remember it in the video..

Thats what I am wondering.
Plus there is a thread about R. Kelly now in Entertainment.

/gonna go home and pee on someone.