WAIL! BACK ISSUES . . . THE CBZ JOURNAL March 2002
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Rinsing Off the Mouthpiece
By GorDoom




The CBZ’s inimitable - & long absent - DscribeDC, called me up last night & proceeded to rant about what a whore & a shill Bob Costas is for NBC & The Olym-Pits ... While I agree with Dscribe about Costas, after all, he has stated more than once, on national television, his absolute distaste for boxing. Yet he was ready & eager to man the microphone (for a lucrative fee), as the PPV compromise candidate for the regular Showtime & HBO announcers on the original April 6th broadcast date for the still dicey; Lewis -Tyson lash-up.

I told Dscribe that no matter how unctuous Bob Costas may be, he was missing the point, which is why the hell was he bothering to watch the Olym -Pits in the first place? You wanna talk about whores & shills? Bob Costas is small potatoes ( pun intended ), let’s focus on the International Olympic Committee.

Boxing fans have long known about the absolute corruption of The Olym - Pits. The egregious disservices done to Evander Holyfield in ‘84, Roy Jones Jr. in ‘88 & Floyd Mayweather in ‘96, let all aficionados of the sweet science know that the corruption in professional boxing was equally mirrored in the supposedly simon pure, Olym-Pits.

Obviously, for the multi-cultural myriad of athletes participating, the Olym-Pits is a glorious moment in their lives. & they well deserve every accolade & dead president they can squeeze out of the experience. The Ol’ Spit Bucket's problem is not with the athletes who have devoted years of their lives for this one brief moment ...

It's with the greedy swine who have run this noble endeavor with all the grace & style of frenzied, ritalin crazed, used car salesmen during a midnight madness sale - as they rushed to bribe, corrupt & coerce anything in their holy path to experience the simon pure stench of amateur athletics in Salt Lake Freakin’ City ...

All this Olym-Pit glory is filtered through a gaping maw of raw corporate greed that makes the NFL’s Super Bowl a seemingly modest festival of avarice & hyperbole in comparison ...

So dear readers, at this juncture you’re probably wondering what the hell is the point of this rant? After all, this is a Boxing Magazine, not a magazine devoted to that quadrennial dwarf tossing contest that is The Olym - Pits.

The Bucket’s point is this: I’m sick beyond pukeage about hearing that boxing, as Red Smith so famously wrote is, “The red light district of sports”. That may be true, but at least boxing doesn’t equivocate, it’s up front about it. But are the seedy grifter's, con men & skells that populate boxing any worse than the absolute hypocrisy that is The Olym - Pits?

Boxing has been a favorite whipping post for the media & politicians for decades. & granted, much if not most of the harsh criticism is justified. But stacked up against the IOC, it’s obvious that the Jose Sulameins, Don Kings & Bob Arums of boxing, aren’t the Lone Rangers of corruption in sports.

Corruption is the pervasive reality of all organized sports ... To give just one example that barely skims the endemic malignancy that permeates all of sports culture: Major League Baseball has a commissioner who also happens to own the Milwaukee Brewers franchise. As the owner of the Brewers, he elicited an illegal loan from the owner of The Minnesota Twins organization to help keep his team afloat. A few years later as the “distinguished” Commissioner Of Baseball - while still owning The Brewers - he decides the sport needs contraction to survive. One of the two teams he wants to eliminate is the Twins, who reside in neighboring Minnesota. Is it just coincidence that by eliminating The Twins he will expand The Brewers hard core Mid -West following? ...

The stench of collusion, or as the media likes to pc it, “synergy”, permeates every aspect of our lives. Politics, TV, media, film & music have been “contracted” to the point where everybody has a tight grip on everybody else’s ‘nads ...

The IOC, NFL, MLB, NBA & NHL, are all giant corporations with extremely effective, well oiled PR machines behind them. Boxing on the other hand is not corporate other than the TV side. When for instance the NFL has an image problem with the media, they unleash their hordes of flaks to spin & damage control any unsavory story that’s brought to light.

Boxing doesn’t have those kind of resources. Boxing is basically run by Buccaneers who plunder & ravage the sport much like the Barbary Coast Pirates shanghaied the high seas. The difference between boxing & the other major sports is that the corporate models have better haircuts, wear suits & use deodorant.

But no matter how much deodorant they use it can’t hide the reek of their corruption ... & when it get’s down to nut cuttin’ time & displaying the viscera, what the hell IS the difference between Enron & The IOC???

***


I am pleased to announce the long overdue recognition that the CBZ's incredibly diligent historian, Tracy Callis deserves. Tracy is now the Director Of Historical Research for the CBZ. After his long & meritorius service, he truly merits this.

Tracy is also a member of long standing with the International Boxing Research Organization, known as IBRO for short. Dan Cuoco who is president of IBRO is also a long time contributor to the CBZ. The stalwarts efforts both of them have made for us is something that my partner, Michael DeLisa & I will always be in their debt for.
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