Al Bernstein On Boxing: Sorry To Disagree, But...

[amat]

A few years ago in one of the FNF threads everyone was making their own Teddy analogies, it was a great thread. Awesome stuff and yeah Al Bernstein is 100% right and an awesome writer.

[Gandalf]

That was a really enjoyable article. Bernstein is right in most of what he says. The Internet is important for boxing as coverage beyond that in the printed press is marginalised or else not covered at all. There might be a lot of dross, especially within message boards, but outside of that credible analysis does exist. The Internet is actually my only source of information for boxing, I have no alternatives...but all in all I think it serves me well and gets the job done.

[Kirkland Laing]

I think it's a fair bet the Teddy Atlas doesn't spend a lot of his life on his computer, if indeed he has one. If he has read any message board postings about himself then it's likely that this won't have made him see the boxing part of the internet in a positive light. He sounds like an old grandad getting upset about how things aren't the same as they used to be. And come on, we all know he's always wrong about fights so why is it a surprise that he's wrong about boxing and the internet?

The internet is the best thing to happen to boxing as far as creating and maintaining a fan base since Ali. In Britain I'd get exactly zero regular media coverage of any fight that wasn't British apart from megafights like Oscar Floyd. I'd only ever see what Sky can make money out of, there'd be no streams or Youtube or downloads of everything else to watch. But to be fair to Teddy he's involved in the business and isn't able to appreciate this and as far as the net goes I'd be amazed if he even has an email address. Probably in a few years if he's still punditing he'll come out and say, yeah, actually I'm looking at boxing stuff on the internet now and maybe some of it isn't so bad. Or maybe he gets the boot from ESPN and in a few years he's doing a column for Bloody Nose Boxing.