Raging Against the Dying of the Light

June 9^th, 2012.

We can call that the day that the old man sports of horse racing and boxing officially died. While people have been poking and prodding for the past several years, it seems the coroner can now give them an official time of death.

Both sports pretty much had the worst possible outcomes. I’ll Have Another had to step out on Friday and left with the chance of the Triple Crown and left the Belmont as just another horse race while later that night, Timothy Bradley seemed as surprised as anyone else that he was given a split decision victory over Manny Paquiao.  

Two sports in need of good press and a real champion, and both got controversy and conspiracy swirling around them. So let’s start with the horses, or more importantly, Doug O’Neill. 

Yes, the injury may be legit, and probably is, but this would have been the guy getting the credit if I’ll Have Another won. (From his wikipedia page.)

“As a result of medication violations, O'Neill has been nicknamed "'Drug' O'Neill."[10] According to New York Times investigative journalist Walt Bogdanich, O'Neill has had 15 medication drug violations during his career and has been found to have milkshaked horses -- an illegal treatment for fatigue that involves inserting a tube down a horse's esophagus.[11]In a 2012 interview with NPR, Bogdanich criticized a lack of enforcement of drug rules in American horse racing. Bogdanich noted that although O'Neill faced a 180 day suspension for milkshaking, any punishment imposed upon him have would little impact on his livelihood: "He could turn it over to his assistants, his stable, and never miss a beat. The horses keep running. If they win, they keep getting their purses. You know, that's what America lacks that the rest of the world has. They have law and order."[11]In May 2012, after a two-year legal battle, O'Neill was found guilty by the California Racing Board of giving one of his horses "an illegal performance-enhancing mixture." As a result, O'Neill was barred from horse racing for 45 days and fined $15,000. O'Neill "vigorously" denied the charge. [12]”

Conspiracy swirl that I’ll Have Another tested positive for banned substance, but that the governing bodies are allowing the horse to trot away without sullying the sport even further. Is that true? Who knows, and probably not. But taking the horse out of the final leg took the life out of the room quicker than I can come up with a decent metaphor. Saturday’s race went from must see TV to nothing. Worst than any controversy, there was nothing. 

By by unofficial research, 99% of America only watches a horse race three times a year unless they happen to live near a race track. And they probably only watch the last race of the Triple Crown if there is hopes of it. I don’t think this is as bad for horse racing as the Paquiao-Bradley decision is for boxing because it is free to watch the race. But any chance of a revival was stopped dead in its tracks.

Later that night, or more accurately, early Sunday morning, Paquiao-Bradley was underway. I was not watching the fight, but the analysis from ESPN seemed to say that this was all Pac-Man.

Then the hammer came.

Twitter exploded, fans confused, and anyone outside of Top Rank felt they had just seen a robbery take place. Despite all the observations and numbers to indicate Paquiao had bested his opponent, Bradley’s had was raised after a split decision. Within minutes, the rumors began to swirl. Was the fix in? Had the judges been paid? Was Bob Arum behind this shenaniganry? While at least boxing created headlines, plenty seemed soured by a result that seemed to not be about the fight in the ring, but the future of boxing. You can read all you want about how and why boxing got to this point, but the simple fact is that every fan felt like something was wrong. Will people not buy the next Pay-Per-View? Who knows, fans are reactionary. We swear we’re done, then our team, our sport turns a corner. 

Personally, I’m a casual fan of boxing, and this is the type of thing that loses me. Nothing against Bradley, but no one knows who he is. The only reason he ended up fighting Paquaio was because he joined Top Rank, and they needed to trot someone out to make money.

I feel this is worse for boxing because fans can simply not bother to pay for the rematch.  Boxing’s popularity is only declining and alienating fans even further aren’t going to help those numbers. If boxing really wanted to gets itself back in the main stream, they’d have to do a fight how broadcast to draw back in fans and create new one, something UFC has been smart enough to do. 

But considering they can’t get Paquiao-Mayweather to happen because of the promoters worrying more about there short term gains over long term growth, this seems doubtful.

Just like O’Neill, we’ll never know if Arum was pulling strings, or anyone else. Neither was horse racing being put down or boxing taking its final knockout, but we do know that two “old” sports are now fighting harder again the dying of the light.