They’re Sending Bad Signal

They just don’t get it. I refer to the Yuppies, Madison Avenue types, Ivy Leaguers, TV producers, agents and account executives who run the sport of boxing these days. Into the ground.

They’re the ones who bribe off-shore commissions to sanction every fight as a “title” fight, invent new divisions, create new authorities. There was a day when every schoolboy in America--and elsewhere--knew exactly who the heavyweight champion of the world was. He didn’t come in quadruplicate. There wasn’t one for every jurisdiction, every sponsor.

They treat the sport today as just another television show, just another sitcom, something tied to ratings, pay-per-view, the sporting aspects subordinated to the fiscal aspects.

But now, they’ve come up with the granddaddy of all meddles. Here’s their latest wrinkle:

They have observed from their charts that the last few Mike Tyson fights have been non-fights. They have resulted in one-round knockouts. This translates in their minds that the viewer is not getting enough for his money.

So, they took a meeting and came up with this doozy: If a fight ends in an early knockout, the viewer doesn’t have to pay full price. He pays only for the part of the fight he sees. If the fight goes only one round, he pays only $9.95, not the full $49.95. He then pays $9.95 a round to Cablevision. Only if the fight goes the limit--or at least beyond five rounds--does the consumer pay full freight.

Of all the things wrong with this brainstorm, the worst by far is, these guys don’t know their fight crowd. They got it all wrong.

First, let me let you in on Ghoulus Americanus, the All-American, full-blooded fight fan. He doesn’t want full-route fights at all. He wants blood and gore. He wants manslaughter. He wants unconsciousness.

You know what fight fans used to do at those fights in which the participants proved skilled at self-preservation, deft at slipping punches, surviving, dancing out of harm’s way? They would start to sing, “Let Me Call You Sweetheart.” They would jeer and heckle and implore, “Somebody knock somebody down!”

Your fight fan wants mayhem, not ballet. Listen to him at any fight. He’ll yell, “Kill ‘im!” as he sees one gladiator start to knock the other rubber-legged. “Lookit that eye!” he’ll yell as blood streams down a cheek. He loves blood. “Get that other eye, Louie!” he’ll plead.

He wants somebody slammed to the floor. He’s the blood brother to the baseball fan who wants the home run, the football fan who wants the long bomb. He wants his guy to drive the green in golf, serve the ace, make the tackle, put the quarterback on a stretcher.

What was the greatest fight in history? Dempsey-Firpo, right? Went about a round and a half. Dempsey got knocked out of the ring. Firpo got knocked down whenever Dempsey was upright. Think anybody wanted his money back?

Take any Joe Louis fight. Bum-of-the-month campaign. Opponent lasted 2 minutes 20 seconds. The public loved it. The Brown Bomber, right? Sellout. Everybody went home happy. Joe Louis doing what he does best. You wanted to see it.

You went to see Caruso sing high C, you went to see Joe Louis flatten a guy with one punch. Think any of them wanted their money back? Wanted Joe Louis to be in a 15-round gavotte? Then, they would have wanted their money back.

The fight game almost foundered in the Depression ‘30s. Why? Because fans didn’t get their money’s worth? The heavyweight title fights were 15-round bores. Sharkey-Schmeling I. Sharkey-Schmeling II ended in a foul call.

The fight fan’s reaction? A held nose. Close, decision fights were about as popular as scoreless ties in football. A dance with your sister.

Quite apart from the aesthetics, consider the economics, the pitfalls, if you will.

Cablevision is a New York cable company with about a million and a half subscribers in the Long Island, Boston and Cleveland areas. They figure 10% would be a good “buy” for Tyson-Holyfield. Now, they will get $9.95 per viewer if the fight ends, as projected, in one round. They will get $49.95 if it goes six or more rounds. That’s a difference of $6 million in the take, the way I read it.

The problem here is, someone not as honest as you or I might construe the difference in the take as a powerful stimulus to make sure the fight goes as long as you can make it.

I mean, if the notion were to catch on with other cable operators and the projected worldwide audience of 1.8 million for this fight were to be given the same option of paying by the round, the difference between the take on a one-round fight and the take on a fight six rounds or more would be $72 million.

The opportunities for skulduggery there are so considerable that the Nevada Athletic Commission has barred a repetition of this offer of pay-per-round for pay-per-view. I mean, the temptation to remind the knockout puncher of the difference a too-zealous pursuit of his art could mean to the box office--$72 million in that case--might impel him to “carry” his opponent, a fistic version of shaving points.

You’ve seen the scene in the movies. The guy in the Homburg hat with the scar on his cheek buttonholes the fighter and says, “Lefty, the little girl still takes the bus to school on the same corner every day? Too bad if something should happen to her, ya know? Now about this fight Saturday night. . . . “

The chief executive officer of Cablevision, James L. Dolan, is quick to exult over his noble idea.

“Cablevision’s $9.95 per-round price guarantees value to our customers, and they are responding with the greatest enthusiasm for any pay-per-view event in many years,” he crows.

I got news for him. There are those in there attracted by the potential savings. But not your basic “He’s all yours, Louie!” fight mobster. He’s buying because it’s Tyson-Holyfield, not Tyson-McNeeley, Tyson-Seldon or Tyson-Some-Other-Nobody.

He doesn’t care whether it’s a long or short fight so long as somebody gets knocked cold. Fight fans don’t want long fights, they want violent ones. Don’t forget they are the spiritual successors of the guys who went to see the Christians and the lions. I don’t have to tell you who they rooted for there.

Cablevision pays the master fee to Showtime no matter how long the fight. But I don’t have to tell you what might happen if the idea were to catch on in a large scale. You would never see a short fight again. How far from there is it to “You would never see an honest one again”?