Really, Big Kev's mailbag isn't so bad this week. In fact he's pretty spot-on, I think.
But he did wonder about something, and I think I have some answers. When asked by a reader whether or not Shane Mosley would fight Antonio Margarito if he beat Ricard Mayorga on September 27, Iole said this:
Manny, it’s not IF Mosley will defeat Mayorga. That’s all but a slam dunk. I can’t understand why Mayorga keeps getting these kinds of fights.
What's there to fail to understand?
1. Mayorga makes money. He promotes fights to the best of his ability, talks them up like he's going to take someone's head off, and there remains the remote possibility that he just might. He's bankable.
2. He's easy to beat for a good boxer. We've seen it. Oscar made him look like a total chump, and Forrest deserved the decision in their second fight, even if it was fairly close. Mosley will steamroll Mayorga.
3. Mosley will steamroll Mayorga, and people will watch.
4. Because people like to watch Mayorga.
5. And since he's easy to handle for a top-notch fighter, that means easy payday.
This is hardly the freaking Da Vinci Code.
But to be fair (since again, I think he's solid this week), here's one thing of his I totally agree with, and wish would be said more often:
One of the problems in finding judges is that it’s hard to train them in the pro game. The amateurs use a different (and completely ridiculous) scoring system. It used to be that a judge could do amateur fights and then move up to the pros. That’s no longer an option and now it’s almost on-the-job training. And while I see a lot of scores I disagree with, I don’t think it’s corruption.
Bingo. Judging fights is hard. If you're the type that scores fights while you watch on TV, ask yourself if you've ever watched later and found that you were probably a little off. Maybe you were drunk. Maybe you just weren't 100% in that one. Who knows? But it happens. I know I've done it. God knows I've done it...
Anyway, I'm not saying terrible cards (Hamada's 115-113 Katsidis, Tucker's 120-108 Navarro, those blind mice that judged Casamayor-Santa Cruz, etc.) shouldn't be criticized and looked into. But people aren't fixing fights. The mob isn't controlling boxing. This isn't a pulp novel. Calm down with the conspiracy theories and the corruption.