KO at the TU highlights local boxing talent – me for the Knick Ledger

Joe Hanks defends title, wins by TKO – Mike Rivest for the Troy Record

My other, non-professional thoughts:

It was actually a really entertaining night. The crowd wasn’t nearly what promoters were hoping it would be, but I think that anything running at the Times Union Center is better than what they’ve been putting on the last few years. It’s a great venue for boxing and a larger crowd would have shown that. I think, given time and the proper star power behind it, boxing at the Times Union Center could really take off.

That’s the good news. Here’s the bad news: some of the fans that were there kind of sucked.

Saturday was my first experience sitting in press row for a fight card. The hard part wasn’t not cheering, it was having to keep my mouth shut while a group of drunken slobs behind me literally screamed racial slurs, cursed up a storm, and made homophobic comments during the semi-main event. All this with children within earshot.

The worst part is that they loudly identified themselves as employees of Professional Fire Restoration Services, a major sponsor of the event. They screamed the owner’s name every time his commercial came up on the screen, then later in the evening while screaming “hit him with the dirty bomb,” “your boyfriend called and wants to know how the fight’s going,” and “let’s go Punjab” at Russian fighter Sahib Usarov, they joked that they were “gonna get fired” by their employer, Daniel “DJ” Johnson. They also, among other things, identified a black fighter as “50 Cent.” At one point during intermission, a few of us left press row and returned to find the top of what looked like a milkshake thrown from their area onto our table. It was really disgusting and unfortunate and, unfortunately, marred some really excellent contests for the people around them.

It just sucks that the crowd, at a disappointing 600 to 800 (if that), was overshadowed and perhaps unfairly represented by what was a very minor but very vocal contingent of drunk, racist, homophobic clowns.

Other than that? Good night of fights. Other thoughts:

• Kevin Rooney looked great. There was a strange moment in the post-fight interview, however, when his father and trainer announced with a straight face that he wanted to get his son to fight four times a month. I asked around after he said that and apparently he’s serious about that, which is borderline insanity and wouldn’t fly with any state athletic commission.
• On the same topic, the reaction Rooney, Jr. got underscores the importance of booking local talent in a market like this. The Albany area unfortunately isn’t big enough to warrant sports for the sake of sports. Also, boxing is a personality driven business. To get people into the house, they need to have some investment. The most sure-fire way to get that is with local brand name fighters. As charismatic as headliner Joe Hanks is, the crowd didn’t care nearly as much for him as it did the local boys on the undercard.
• The judging was consistent, which is refreshing given how wild it can be (see, MMA fans? It ain’t just us). The only score that struck me as a bit wonky was in the semi-main where one judge scored it 98-91 for Usarov. There’s no way Barthelemy lost that many rounds; in fact, it was close enough where I actually had it scored 96-93 for Barthelemy, but it was so close and I was distracted enough by the shenanigans behind me that I couldn’t fault them for going the other way.
• The Escalera/Brooks fight probably should have been stopped sooner than it was. Realistically, Brooks was out of the running as soon as the second round started. He showed a lot of heart and an iron chin, but that really could have been ended a round sooner. It’s one of the things I point to when boxing fans view MMA as barbaric: if this had been, say, an MMA bout, it would have been stopped the first time Brooks went down. Which is why, among other reasons, I think MMA is actually the safer sport of the two. It’s a different context, of course, but food for thought in the discussion of long-term damage to combat sports practitioners.
• As mentioned in the article at the Knick Ledger, Ray J was in the house. Swear to God. I immediately thought of my buddy Brian, as we use “oh for the love of Ray J” as a means of conveying exasperation.
• Usarov/Barthelemy, despite the fans’ apprehension towards it, was a really great and evenly matched bout. More on their reaction later, because it ties into another rant I have to reaction of Nick Diaz’s loss last night to Carlos Condit at UFC 143 and the expectations fans have of combat sports.