By Bart Barry-
SAN ANTONIO – Almost exactly 300 miles north of here Saturday welterweight titlist Errol “The Truth” Spencer strolled through an overmatched Mexican named Carlos Ocampo at – let’s get this right – The Ford Center at The Star, in Frisco, Texas, home of the Dallas Cowboys’ practice field. No matter how highly one regards a prizefighter, nine hours is too much of a roundtrip drive to perform for an exhibition bout, and whatever fears any Texan had of missing out, anyway, got quelled in three minutes.
If you were to draw a circle with a 30-mile radius round the center of Dallas you’d enclose an area called the Metroplex. You’d include both Frisco and a region twice as populous as Los Angeles and 85-percent populous as New York City. You’d also be missing the country’s fourth-largest city, Houston, and its seventh-largest city, this one. Texas is not so much a boxing state, in other words, as an enormous one.
The not-particularly-believable 14,000-paid attendance figure bandied about before the gates even opened Saturday and all through Showtime’s broadcast would be a breathtaking occurrence in, say, Amarillo, but it’s less than breathtaking somewhere within a four-hour drive of 11-million people. Heaven help this column if that reads like an impeachment of Jerry Jones’ math; after all, the owner of America’s Team has his “world” headquarters within the Metroplex, and the principles and integrity of any NFL owner are above doubt. That written, there were some questions about the announced attendance for Manny Pacquiao’s two Cowboys Stadium tilts in 2010, and columnists often have long, selective memories.
However many Texans attended Saturday’s match those in attendance thrilled Errol Spence, and it was joyfilling to see a well-deserving object of affection enjoy such affection.
Let us not let that detract, though, from the fact Saturday’s mainevent sucked.
New rule: When the sacrificial b-side of a homecoming mismatch is seen nervously chewing his gumshield before walking to the ring, the match is immediately reduced to a four-round affair and the champion begins three points behind on official scorecards. Seems fair. These new mercy-feasting rules in no way endanger Spence’s undefeated record, presently or retroactively, and they give commentators some suspense worth shouting at.
Spence was fighter enough to feel ashamed of what happened Saturday and man enough to admit it. Spence wanted real contact; his style demands a certain quotient of mutual abuse to please, and had he known Ocampo would fold so quickly and completely The Truth surely would’ve holstered his best punches at least a round or two longer.
Spence has grown immensely since his first Texas prizefight five years ago in Our Lady of the Lake University Gym, five miles west of where this column happens. Frankly, the odds of Spence filling any arena back then were longer than Ocampo’s odds Saturday. Whisked by what would become the PBC from America’s worst Olympic boxing team – on which, admittedly, Spence was the best fighter – to mostly empty venues like nearby Cowboys Dancehall (neither a world headquarters nor those Cowboys) Spence looked destined howsoever unfairly to follow teammates like Terrell Gausha and Rau’shee Warren to the Sam Watson-less edges of Al Haymon’s roster, off-television.
But Spence had something few other PBC prospects did: A willingness to be hit in order to hit. Everything was rougher about Spence than his stablemates, starting with his accent. Spence was “country” – as they call it round here. His accent was obviously Texan. So was his likability. He was guileless outside the ring as he was inside it. He was such a departure from the promotional antics of the PBC’s signature asset, Adrien Broner, one quickly wondered how long Spence would stay in his managerial arrangement, illfitting as it appeared.
Then Spence went tangential and put himself on a new trajectory for a PBC fighter. Spence visited someone else’s country and won a title by knockout – otherwise known as the right way. Then he began using the names of reluctant PBC welterweights in interviews. Then he washed and wore a PBC mainstay. For this he was rewarded with an illfitting homecoming 50 miles north of his native DeSoto as the headliner of what often felt like an infomercial for America’s Team and its owner – unless you believe a 147-pound man wanted more desperately to be a professional football player than a champion prizefighter.
For goodness’ sake, let them have their fun!
Yes, well, fine – so long as there is boxing to write about. But there isn’t, is there, in large part because of dreadful matchmaking, the sort that makes most aficionados feel like suckers most of the time we open our minds to the PBC brand.
Some of this is Showtime’s fault, you say? Fair enough.
Boxing’s best network now has easy access to every fighter in the world unaligned with promoter Top Rank, which is most of them. Showtime has far too many available fighters and far too few available dates to be cowed into b-sides like Carlos Ocampo. And let us have no more loose talk about mandatories. Errol Spence wishes to be the world’s best welterweight, not merely the IBF’s, and if he’s debasing himself with mandatory challengers it’s because his handlers’ handling of their other welterweight titlists makes Spence worry his share of the welterweight title is his only leverage – which is absurd if true.
A twofight series with Terence Crawford on ESPN – fight 1 in Omaha, fight 2 in Arlington (not Frisco) – would make Spence a household name, regardless of outcomes. Then he could return to Showtime as the new face of the PBC, increasing the credibility of the both his management outfit and its sole remaining broadcast sponsor.
Or Spence can fight Yordenis Ugas or Qudratillo Abduqaxorov in December and Devon Alexander next May.
Bart Barry can be reached via Twitter @bartbarry
