Does Boxing Coverage Suck Where You Live?

[Diane]

Do you live in an area that has crappy boxing coverage?

Well I do, and I finally decided to do something about it. So, I thought that I would share my story with you, and show that sometimes the little people can get results. So if you get crappy boxing coverage in your area, maybe this will give you the boost to try and change it.

I happen to live in a little dink town in Ohio, and I am located between Cleveland and Youngstown, Ohio (closer to Youngstown, home of Kelly Pavlik). Well the major newspaper in my area is Cleveland's "Plain Dealer", it is the largest newspaper in Ohio, and one of the top 20 newspapers in circulation in the country.

Why am I bringing this up? Because their boxing coverage sucks!!!! They have a small boxing section that comes out maybe once a week, and it usually gets lost in the pages of the sports section. The writer who writes the column, often has bad information, such giving the wrong location or date of a fight, or, announcing a fight as an upcoming fight of the week, after the fight had been cancelled for over a month.

When Kelly Pavlik became the World Middleweight Champion, they again, just had a small section lost within the sports section. To me, this should have been on the front page of the sports section. We here in the Cleveland area, are starving for some type of a championship, our Browns, Cavs, and Indians have brought us close, but always come up short, so here we finally have a champion to celebrate, and they blow the coverage completely.

So yesterday, I was reading an article on Maxboxing.com, and Steve Kim called out the sports editor of the Plain Dealer for not sending someone to Las Vegas to cover the fight. So that little blurb inspired me to do something about it, so I decided to email the sports editor, and let him know how I think their boxing coverage sucks.

Just so you believe me, here is a screen shot of the email I sent the editor on Monday.




So today (Tuesday), I went to go have my morning break at work, and I go to get my sports section from the Plain Dealer, and low and behold, what do I see on the front page of the sports section, a huge picture of Pavlik and Taylor, along with a story on Kelly that takes up about 1/2 of the front page!!!! I kind of squealed when I seen it, and got a big smile on my face. Now I'm not positive that this happened because of my email, but I'm pretty sure it is, because I cannot even remember the last time I seen anything that was boxing related put on the front page of the sports section. I even told, and showed my friends that are into boxing, and they couldn't believe it either, because they know how bad their boxing coverage is.

I scanned the front page. Sorry I have a crappy scanner, and couldn't scan the page all in one, so I had to do it in 3 sections, reduce the size for viewing purposes, so sorry it doesn't match up perfectly, but I just wanted to give you a look at the page.

If you want to actually read the article here is the link.

cleveland.com: Everything Cleveland






So there you go, you never know what can happen when you speak up. I just hope they continue to improve on their boxing coverage.

[Spicoli]

Rep yourway Dannys better half . Thats the way,Be pro-active and put your (our) concerns at there doorstep.Down here The Local papers have always been boxing free...Its all about Football,College,Pro,Highschool, Even Flag football Lol.When Local promoter Les Banono was In buissness and Helping to put the Local scene In the spotlight we had some legs but even at that point the local show were pretty much all about Wayne Boudreaux,Dominick Carter,and dare I mention the always formidable ....Super D John Duplessis.I met Cliff Etienne BEFORE the Tyson Fiasco after his war with L.Brewster In the mall,Alot of Hangers on and More press following Him and He was all over Local papers Front page section,The only time I can remember A pretty large front page article on boxing.I gave up on local press,Only started reading it again after the storm.
Hilarious thing,Under the heading it read something along the lines of "Having survived the mean streets and Prison, Can He be a top fighter at Heavyweight" or some drama like that.......................love the Irony,The answer was Hell no and Now guess where he's at,Yep back In prison
Next to Mississippi and Its mass expansion with the Casino's,We get whipped .

[CutMeMick]

I live in Los Angeles and it's as good as it could be...

[donnydarkoIRL]

Boxing coverage here is pretty disgraceful...
One page a week is about the height of it although we're attempting a resurgence.
I'm actually starting to get into boxing Journalism a little myself and I'm hoping to make a few deelopments with it in the next year or so...

[bikersk]

Man the coverage in this ENTIRE COUNTRY is shit. You don't see fights you don't hear about fighters, the Mundine v Green thing was a bit of a resurgence here but didn't last. Just knowing that Darchinyan lost makes you look like a boxing "expert". The Katsidis V Casamayor fight no-one knows about. It's fucking frustrating.

We used to get great boxing coverage in this place, always on free to air tv on the back page etc. Boxing is in an up phase and i'm hoping it will be the case here too. We just lag about 5-10 years behind the US and other places so fingers crossed.

[leftylee]

For TV as I have:

ITV
ITV4
Setanta 1
Setanta 2
SKY

So I don't miss a thing on the box.

For newspapers it's really good IMO especially as every week Barry McGuigan has a column in the Daily Mirror and when there's a big fight coming up there's always like a 4 page preview and there's always a page on boxing for the majority of the time.

[leftylee]

For TV I have:

ITV (Screens Khan fights and will be screening Froch-Inkin)
ITV4 (Screens The Contender and undercard fights from Khan bills etc)
Setanta 1 + 2 (Screens all big fights)
SKY (Friday fight Night and Big Fight Special)

So I don't miss a thing on the box .

For newspapers it's really good IMO especially as every week Barry McGuigan has a column in the Daily Mirror and when there's a big fight coming up there's always like a 4 page preview and there's always a page on boxing for the majority of the time.

[cpcompany]

Do you live in an area that has crappy boxing coverage?

Well I do, and I finally decided to do something about it. So, I thought that I would share my story with you, and show that sometimes the little people can get results. So if you get crappy boxing coverage in your area, maybe this will give you the boost to try and change it.

I happen to live in a little dink town in Ohio, and I am located between Cleveland and Youngstown, Ohio (closer to Youngstown, home of Kelly Pavlik). Well the major newspaper in my area is Cleveland's "Plain Dealer", it is the largest newspaper in Ohio, and one of the top 20 newspapers in circulation in the country.

Why am I bringing this up? Because their boxing coverage sucks!!!! They have a small boxing section that comes out maybe once a week, and it usually gets lost in the pages of the sports section. The writer who writes the column, often has bad information, such giving the wrong location or date of a fight, or, announcing a fight as an upcoming fight of the week, after the fight had been cancelled for over a month.

When Kelly Pavlik became the World Middleweight Champion, they again, just had a small section lost within the sports section. To me, this should have been on the front page of the sports section. We here in the Cleveland area, are starving for some type of a championship, our Browns, Cavs, and Indians have brought us close, but always come up short, so here we finally have a champion to celebrate, and they blow the coverage completely.

So yesterday, I was reading an article on Maxboxing.com, and Steve Kim called out the sports editor of the Plain Dealer for not sending someone to Las Vegas to cover the fight. So that little blurb inspired me to do something about it, so I decided to email the sports editor, and let him know how I think their boxing coverage sucks.

Just so you believe me, here is a screen shot of the email I sent the editor on Monday.




So today (Tuesday), I went to go have my morning break at work, and I go to get my sports section from the Plain Dealer, and low and behold, what do I see on the front page of the sports section, a huge picture of Pavlik and Taylor, along with a story on Kelly that takes up about 1/2 of the front page!!!! I kind of squealed when I seen it, and got a big smile on my face. Now I'm not positive that this happened because of my email, but I'm pretty sure it is, because I cannot even remember the last time I seen anything that was boxing related put on the front page of the sports section. I even told, and showed my friends that are into boxing, and they couldn't believe it either, because they know how bad their boxing coverage is.

I scanned the front page. Sorry I have a crappy scanner, and couldn't scan the page all in one, so I had to do it in 3 sections, reduce the size for viewing purposes, so sorry it doesn't match up perfectly, but I just wanted to give you a look at the page.

If you want to actually read the article here is the link.

cleveland.com: Everything Cleveland






So there you go, you never know what can happen when you speak up. I just hope they continue to improve on their boxing coverage.

Good Work.

As we say where I come from- Shy bairns get nowt.


Living in japan, boxing coverage on terrestrial TV is almost non existant. We get the odd big fight if it involves a japanese fighter. They have a few big fights on satellite telly and they also have a weekend show which features small club fights and young, up and coming fighters.

[Trainer Monkey]

Sucks and blows
Which is truly sad because the town the papers out of,is the birthplace of former champ Christy Martin

[PRIDE OF BOSTON]

It's not bad. The NewEngland scene has always been decent. Alot of regional fighters and such. As for World level... Well, we get the same as all the US with Showtime, HBO and ESPN... So it's OK but def not the hayday of boxing...

Rep your way!

[Canvasback]

Have to agree, for the most part the media coverage of boxing is terrible. The Boston Globe used to have a sunday column written by Ron Borges, but I haven't seen it since he got in some kind of trouble regarding plagerism of something. Big fights might get and standard AP story, but that's it. Local tv? Forget about it. Football, baseball, basketball and hockey get all the attention. Anytime the sports guy talks about boxing it always seems like he has a smirk on his face.

[Karas]

pretty much, if im too see a fight its that kebab boy Amir Khan. Guy is ridiculously publicised for someone with no professional credentials

[zupg]

It pretty much socks here. I live 10 miles from Youngstown, OH (you know Pavlik's home town) and the coverage around here has pretty much sucked. They just really started covering Kelly a lot more in the past year and a half. Before that you might find something on the back pages of the paper, or a short 5 second clip on the news that Kelly had won a fight, but never any details. And you never hear a word about any other boxers at all. Which is really sad. I remember growing up and boxing was one of the main sports on TV and news. Now you don't hear much at all or you got to pay to see any of the good matches. I like to watch but hate to spend $50 to see ppv or even the extra $15 a month to get hbo or showtime.

[Violent Demise]

I live in Los Angeles and it's as good as it could be...

Agree. LA Times covered the Williams-Quintana fight, by the way

[SMF]

The newspapers out here covers everything from tiddly winks to badminton but never anything about boxing.