The High Tech Golden Era of New York City Area Boxing
By Robert Brizel, Head Real Combat Media Correspondent
New York, NY (May 12th, 2013)– New York City and Madison Square Garden and The Felt Forum have always been synonymous with boxing. Now add to the above the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, and you’ve got a better game. Actually in New York City we have BB King Blues Club & Grill, Roseland Ballroom, Aviator Arena, Resorts New World Casino at Aqueduct Racetrack, Cordon Bleu Nightclub, and Paradise Theatre Bronx as the latest hot spots for boxing. There’s also The Paramount Theatre on Long Island.
Heavyweights. New York city has Vinny Maddalone. America has Bryan Jennings and Tony Thompson at the serious level. Nowadays though, boxing is not defined by big heavyweights alone. The Klitschko brothers are dual heavyweight champions and money marquee names in Europe every time they defend their world titles. Here in the Continental Americas, the other divisions rule to rise for the moment.
In America, Floyd Money Mayweather is ‘sitting on top of the world’ (so the popular radio tune goes). New York City has welterweights like Gabriel Tito Bracero, Dmitry Salita, Sadam Ali and more. New York City has female boxers, New York city has one-handed boxers. Benny Leonard died in the ring here, and Jake ‘The Raging Bull’ LaMotta still lives here. There are even fighters from the obscure location of Staten Island. I know this to be true. I actually covered a boxing card on Staten Island at the Hilton, and had to take the Staten Island Ferry past the Statue of Liberty to get there, and even got picked up by the Hilton Hotel shuttle.
Whether boxing and Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) eventually combine in New York City and New York State, I cannot say for sure right now, but I hope so. Since boxing is no longer what it once was outside of the highly publicized Golden Gloves tournaments and ‘Pretty Boy’ Floyd, all will benefit if MMA is approved in states like New York and New Jersey. Boxing and MMA could combine and create a wider audience, and put on a more dynamic media show which boxing alone by itself simply cannot do anymore. You need to sell tickets and pay-per-view nowadays.
So why do I say “We are now in the high tech Golden Era of professional boxing?”
Quite simply because-we are. Barclay’s Center is at the center of boxing and sports rebirth in New York City-if you could call it that. There is a ‘new wave’ wave of boxing promoters and boxing fighters who are also promoters in the boxing scene. Getting involved in sports like boxing is the ‘in’ thing to do, and the ‘in’ place to be.
It’s fun working the smaller boxing cards, taking pictures, moving around the ring, and writing stories in the smaller and friendly environment which prospects cards bring, which is far better than being a motionless back row bimbo on major cards who the television commentators make fun of. I always felt-era not withstanding-the reporter has to get up, go out and find the story rather than the story coming to him or her. To that end I have always left the abode of my home where I write most of my stuff a few times a month, to bring publicity to the sport I write about, know and love, where I feel I can bring boxing favorably publicity and make a difference.
Thank goodness for the local promoters and the new promoters today, the local promoters and new promoters who give kids a chance to get off the streets, have a purpose of bettering themselves through boxing, and do something productive with their lives. The local and new promoters who give reporters the flexibility to do their own thing. This is because the new style reporter doesn’t sit like a muted mummy at ringside, waiting for Hall of fame consideration. A true reporter has to work an event in the new day, like the good old days, and take their own pictures too, perhaps a concept the old school narrow minded reporters still don’t understand.
In the New York City area (which includes Long Island, Westchester, Atlantic City and Newark), the high tech golden era of New York City area boxing is now here. Precisely what it means, I cannot say, but I am happy to be a part of the show which will bring the sports of boxing and MMA into the next century, win, lose, draw or pin. Times they are a changing. However, I don’t believe computer digital rock’em sock’em robots will ever replace the human aspect of boxing. The thrill of victory, the agony of defeat, the ABC Sports adage of the late Jim McKay, still rings true today. Outside of Las Vegas, so far as boxing is concerned, New York City is hot.
The only aspect of the high tech golden era of boxing in the New York city area I do not like is the concept of the video instant replay. boxing and baseball have a great deal in common in that these two sports were among the last to survive on the human aspect without videotape appeals and reviews during sporting events. It is the human aspect of getting calls wrong which makes baseball and boxing interesting, and short of a fatality I would say leave boxing and baseball the way they are, and don’t ruin their creative aspects. Not everyone agrees, unfortunately.
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