Are there true unbiased journalists or boxing experts out there?

[Gandalf]

I somehow enjoyed reading Bert Sugar and Dan Rafael's articles, blogs, interviews, etc. until recently. I got disappointed to see how both of them simply can't hide their "Go Pack...Mayweather is no good" attitude .

Are there true unbiased journalists or boxing commentators/analysts out there? In one way or the other I thought George Foreman was ok as far as I remember.

There was one person Foreman was REALLLY biased towards and that was Oscar De La Hoya.
He seemingly couldn't remove his tongue from Oscar's backside for whatever reason! For example he thought Oscar won the Quartey fight "hands down!" which I found bizarre. Otherwise he generally called fights how he felt he saw them.

I always thought Foreman a nice guy, but for an ex boxer I never found him paricularly insightful. He was not made for commentating really.

[Kirkland Laing]

Thomas hauser is like the Queen Mother of boxing journalists. He's Ali's biographer and a friend of his, written a ton of other boxing books and you'd think he'd be as close to impartial about boxing as you can get. When there was the Mayweather steroids thing going on over Christmas he wrote an article where he listed a whole bunch of known steroid abusers, admitted PED abuse was endemic in boxing, then said anybody accusing Manny, especially the Mayweathers, was a scumbag because there was no evidence of any wrongdoing, then he accused De La Hoya of using steroids and challenged him to release all his previous test results. A whole smorgasbors of contradictions in one article. So if Hauser can't be impartial I don't think any of his younger colleagues can be.

Plus like has already been mentioned Manny is the story in boxing right now and for a wider audience and that insulates him from a lot of legitimate criticism. Mayweather may make great TV on 24-7 but the wider public don't exactly see him as a positive role model or somebody they can admire. With Manny it's different, so you have a bunch of guys desperate to have access/interviews with him and not lose out to their competitors as well as editorial pressure from the guys who employ them to be nice to the guy everybody wants to read about. So it's inevitable you're going to get the kind of biased coverage you do over Manny and the whole PED thing. Unless some actual evidence turns up that's the way it will stay too.

[generalbulldog]

I somehow enjoyed reading Bert Sugar and Dan Rafael's articles, blogs, interviews, etc. until recently. I got disappointed to see how both of them simply can't hide their "Go Pack...Mayweather is no good" attitude .

Are there true unbiased journalists or boxing commentators/analysts out there? In one way or the other I thought George Foreman was ok as far as I remember.

There was one person Foreman was REALLLY biased towards and that was Oscar De La Hoya.
He seemingly couldn't remove his tongue from Oscar's backside for whatever reason! For example he thought Oscar won the Quartey fight "hands down!" which I found bizarre. Otherwise he generally called fights how he felt he saw them.

Oh no doubt he was always praising Oscar to death. I remember in that fight with Quartey when Oscar was going for it in the last round, "He's a brave man, that De La Hoya!," yadda yadda yadda.

Even in the Trinidad and Vargas fights he got a lot of bias reporting from Foreman.

Oscar, great fighter, but please be objective! But in fairness he usually is.

[Chino]

Has any well-known journalist/commentator/analyst/expert/etc. has straight out thrown crap at Manny for refusing to have his blood tested Olympic style and raising suspicion for all of the excuses?

[holmcall]

I am!

[JazMerkin]

Not really, as someone with a journalism degree, I have to say that 90% of boxing journalism would get you thrown out of the NUJ if it was investigated. Jeff Ryan, Bill Dettloff and David Mayo stand alone as ones who actually name their sources (there are a few decent ones here in the UK as well).

Hauser is a talented writer, but he frequently quotes accusations by unnamed sources, which is terrible practice. Part of the problem is that so much of reporting is web-based and very rarely held to account.

An example was last week when BoxingScene posted up an interview with 'Floyd Mayweather' regarding the Pacquiao-Clottey fight, taken from a Filipino newspaper, which itself had taken it from a site that only existed for that day. The following day they discovered that Mayweather hadn't even watched the fight because he and Mosley were filming a promo for their fight in LA at the time. Any decent journalist would have verified the sources before publishing the story. The fact a story someone just made up was actually published by a supposedly reputable newspaper and website is just embarassing.

[ICB]

I somehow enjoyed reading Bert Sugar and Dan Rafael's articles, blogs, interviews, etc. until recently. I got disappointed to see how both of them simply can't hide their "Go Pack...Mayweather is no good" attitude .

Are there true unbiased journalists or boxing commentators/analysts out there? In one way or the other I thought George Foreman was ok as far as I remember.

There was one person Foreman was REALLLY biased towards and that was Oscar De La Hoya.
He seemingly couldn't remove his tongue from Oscar's backside for whatever reason! For example he thought Oscar won the Quartey fight "hands down!" which I found bizarre. Otherwise he generally called fights how he felt he saw them.

What about when George Foreman said he thought, Pernell Whitaker lost to Policarpo Diaz. I literally had my mouth open for atleast a minute. I couldn't believe it, Pernell Whitaker won atleast 10 rounds with 2 knockdowns as i remember, that was the most bizarre comment i've ever heard.

[Fenster]

Interesting thread.

I don't think any journalist is unbiased; the very nature of thier position means they have to provide a wholly subjective viewpoint, often going against the grain simply to provoke a reaction and sell copy.

Furthermore, journo's and promoters spend years cultivating a relationship. The journos want access to the fighters; to get in early whilst they are on the way up, so as they can get into the 'inner circles' when said fighters make the big time. A sort of journalistic 'Train hard, fight easy', if you will.

Promoters equally want the journos involved, to build the interest and momentum around thier stable.

It's because of this mutually beneficial relationiship you find that not many journalists openly pan fighters, as it's biting the hand that feeds.

So, my take is ultimately that the likes of Rafael, Hauser, Rosenthal and Big H simply provide an opinion and that's all it is. It's no more or less valid than my own.

This.

[Fenster]

Thomas hauser is like the Queen Mother of boxing journalists. He's Ali's biographer and a friend of his, written a ton of other boxing books and you'd think he'd be as close to impartial about boxing as you can get. When there was the Mayweather steroids thing going on over Christmas he wrote an article where he listed a whole bunch of known steroid abusers, admitted PED abuse was endemic in boxing, then said anybody accusing Manny, especially the Mayweathers, was a scumbag because there was no evidence of any wrongdoing, then he accused De La Hoya of using steroids and challenged him to release all his previous test results. A whole smorgasbors of contradictions in one article. So if Hauser can't be impartial I don't think any of his younger colleagues can be.

Plus like has already been mentioned Manny is the story in boxing right now and for a wider audience and that insulates him from a lot of legitimate criticism. Mayweather may make great TV on 24-7 but the wider public don't exactly see him as a positive role model or somebody they can admire. With Manny it's different, so you have a bunch of guys desperate to have access/interviews with him and not lose out to their competitors as well as editorial pressure from the guys who employ them to be nice to the guy everybody wants to read about. So it's inevitable you're going to get the kind of biased coverage you do over Manny and the whole PED thing. Unless some actual evidence turns up that's the way it will stay too.

The info in that article about the apparent common drug use in boxing was eye-opening though. If it's so widely known why did Team Floyd bring it up now? Personally I think Pac was in the wrong but it was interesting so many in the "know" thought Floyd was running.

[JonesJrMayweather]

I somehow enjoyed reading Bert Sugar and Dan Rafael's articles, blogs, interviews, etc. until recently. I got disappointed to see how both of them simply can't hide their "Go Pack...Mayweather is no good" attitude .

Are there true unbiased journalists or boxing commentators/analysts out there? In one way or the other I thought George Foreman was ok as far as I remember.

NOPE...they're all biased towards thier favs..as is everyone on this forum. NO matter how objective we all might try to be..we lean towards our favs.

[Nameless]

I somehow enjoyed reading Bert Sugar and Dan Rafael's articles, blogs, interviews, etc. until recently. I got disappointed to see how both of them simply can't hide their "Go Pack...Mayweather is no good" attitude .

Are there true unbiased journalists or boxing commentators/analysts out there? In one way or the other I thought George Foreman was ok as far as I remember.

There was one person Foreman was REALLLY biased towards and that was Oscar De La Hoya.
He seemingly couldn't remove his tongue from Oscar's backside for whatever reason! For example he thought Oscar won the Quartey fight "hands down!" which I found bizarre. Otherwise he generally called fights how he felt he saw them.

What about when George Foreman said he thought, Pernell Whitaker lost to Policarpo Diaz. I literally had my mouth open for atleast a minute. I couldn't believe it, Pernell Whitaker won atleast 10 rounds with 2 knockdowns as i remember, that was the most bizarre comment i've ever heard.

Almost as famous as the Trinidad-Hopkins fight where I did frown on at least 20 occasions.

[Kirkland Laing]

Thomas hauser is like the Queen Mother of boxing journalists. He's Ali's biographer and a friend of his, written a ton of other boxing books and you'd think he'd be as close to impartial about boxing as you can get. When there was the Mayweather steroids thing going on over Christmas he wrote an article where he listed a whole bunch of known steroid abusers, admitted PED abuse was endemic in boxing, then said anybody accusing Manny, especially the Mayweathers, was a scumbag because there was no evidence of any wrongdoing, then he accused De La Hoya of using steroids and challenged him to release all his previous test results. A whole smorgasbors of contradictions in one article. So if Hauser can't be impartial I don't think any of his younger colleagues can be.

Plus like has already been mentioned Manny is the story in boxing right now and for a wider audience and that insulates him from a lot of legitimate criticism. Mayweather may make great TV on 24-7 but the wider public don't exactly see him as a positive role model or somebody they can admire. With Manny it's different, so you have a bunch of guys desperate to have access/interviews with him and not lose out to their competitors as well as editorial pressure from the guys who employ them to be nice to the guy everybody wants to read about. So it's inevitable you're going to get the kind of biased coverage you do over Manny and the whole PED thing. Unless some actual evidence turns up that's the way it will stay too.

The info in that article about the apparent common drug use in boxing was eye-opening though. If it's so widely known why did Team Floyd bring it up now? Personally I think Pac was in the wrong but it was interesting so many in the "know" thought Floyd was running.

I wouldn't say they're in the know, I'd say they're in the business. And their business is to sell papers or, increasingly, to get mouse clicks. They've got tons of commercial pressure from the top to be nice to the guy everybody wants to read about which skews their coverage and makes them all pro-Manny. The bottom line is that all Manny had to do to get the fight on was to accept the drug testing. It could have been done immediately and would have been lost in the overall coverage/hype of what would have been a mega event, Manny wouldn't have lost face over accepting, quite the reverse, he would have looked like he had nothing to hide.

They could even have negotiated a face-saving deal and before the fight was announced got the Nevada Athletic Commission to announce mandatory random drug testing for "megafights" with Floyd-Manny being the first if it got made. So there were ways to do it with no loss of face and/or to make it a non-issue but Manny refused and we got a bunch of ridiculous excuses instead. If a heavily-tatted Floyd had increased his power from 130 to 147 and turned random testing down saying he was scared of needles/superstitious/weakened by losing nine mils of blood etc. I don't think journalists would be blaming Manny for the fight falling through.

[generalbulldog]

Has any well-known journalist/commentator/analyst/expert/etc. has straight out thrown crap at Manny for refusing to have his blood tested Olympic style and raising suspicion for all of the excuses?

Teddy Atlas questioned Manny Pac, supposedly he has an unnamed source that saw Pacquiao email the Mayweathers asking what would happen if he failed the drug tests and if they can keep it a secret for his image.

There you have it.

[DaxxKahn]

Thats a crock of shit.....

[djcione]

Has any well-known journalist/commentator/analyst/expert/etc. has straight out thrown crap at Manny for refusing to have his blood tested Olympic style and raising suspicion for all of the excuses?

Teddy Atlas questioned Manny Pac, supposedly he has an unnamed source that saw Pacquiao email the Mayweathers asking what would happen if he failed the drug tests and if they can keep it a secret for his image.

There you have it.

Is that a joke ?

Pedro Fernandez who runs the RingTalk site on the net has been very critical of Manny for not taking the blood test