Columnist Dean Juipe: No big surprise here … Boxing is doing just great now

Dean Juipe

Friday, March 12, 2004 | 10:35 a.m.

Dean Juipe's column appears Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday. His boxing notebook appears Thursday. Reach him at juipe@lasvegassun.com or (702) 259-4084.

No matter how old you are and how many years you have followed sports, there has always been one constant. And it has nothing to do with the Chicago Cubs' inability to win a World Series.

It's the complaint, perpetual and insistent, that boxing has never been worse than it is today.

It's a phrase with Methuselahian characteristics, emanating from the first radio broadcasts of fights and extending through the era of black-and-white TV and well into the big money and pay-for-view bouts of recent times. It's a phrase that is simply always in vogue.

But it's nonsense.

In fact -- and in spite of what you have heard, read or had implied -- boxing is healthy and vibrant. It is especially hot in Las Vegas right now.

Beyond a fight Saturday between Shane Mosley and Winky Wright that is expected to draw 10,000 fans to the Mandalay Bay Events Center, at least five other significant cards are already on the city's 2004 schedule. (And one, featuring Erik Morales vs. Jesus Chavez, has already occurred.)

If boxing were doing poorly or if the sport's acknowledged capital had lost its zest for fisticuffs, Cory Spinks wouldn't be fighting Ricardo Mayorga April 10 at Mandalay Bay, Roy Jones Jr. wouldn't be fighting Antonio Tarver May 15 at Mandalay Bay, Juan Manuel Marquez wouldn't be fighting Manny Pacquiao May 22 (or possibly May 8) at the Orleans, Oscar De La Hoya and Bernard Hopkins wouldn't be in separate features June 5 at the MGM, and De La Hoya and Hopkins wouldn't be squaring off Sept. 18 at the latter site.

These are all multimillion-dollar events, some with extravagant purses such as the $40 million De La Hoya could rake in for his two appearances.

That money wouldn't be there if boxing was hurting or if the public was inclined to rebel.

The sport, which for years has craved the occasional unified champion, currently has an unprecedented three such champions in its ranks (Spinks, Hopkins and Kostya Tszyu) and will have a fourth after Mosley and Wright unify the three titles at 154 pounds. This is the most visible sign of a growing trend that many would say was long overdue: champions fighting champions.

Things are so robust for boxing that not only is De La Hoya building his own vault, but onetime superstar Felix Trinidad is coming out of retirement for a megafight (likely vs. Mosley) in the fall.

In addition, the much maligned but always interesting heavyweight division is in the process of an upgrade as an army of contenders vie for the belts Lennox Lewis abandoned or misplaced when he recently retired. Heavyweight title fights -- with or without Mike Tyson -- inevitably draw attention and right now no fewer than four are on the schedule.

Government intervention? Tyson going berserk? The feds raiding the Top Rank offices? ESPN wavering on its commitment to televising weekly cards? These are all considerations of varying importance, yet the bottom line in boxing remains the same: There is a market for the sport that is close to insatiable no matter how many fixes, scandals and frauds are perpetuated in the name of creating the next superstar.

When Mosley and Wright enter the ring Saturday at Mandalay Bay, a roar of excitement and a jolt of electricity will shiver through the building. Boxing will be back, not that it ever left and not that it will ever escape its seedy underside.