By Bart Barry-
SAN ANTONIO – From a suite at AT&T Center, home of the fivetime worldchampion Spurs, boxing looks like nothing so much as the jiggling tattoos on Chris Arreola’s back.
The media section far below is three tables deep. Behind it are another seven or eight rows of seats of tickets sold as ringside, or more likely given away to valued sponsors of the promoters’ primary businesses. Three press tables deep for a card in an arena whose capacity exceeds by 2,000 MGM Grand’s. Few media tables as there are, the majority of those situated in the media section bear the nervous salesy look of the publicist, the favordoer, the tweetdeck profiler.
Omar Figueroa’s imperfections are heavier than his weight. The seriousness of his craft is the imperfection most notable – increasingly notable as the seasoning of his opponents increases. Figueroa is a high-school dropout’s Juan Diaz, or Juan Diaz if he’d spent 11th grade goofing round with his buddies at allnight diners instead of studying for midterms. Diaz hit no harder but committed more fully, and that commitment improved his balance, and Diaz, notetaking at the classroom’s front, not penning poetry to lasses in the back, understood where his feet belonged and where his shoulders best complemented those feet.
Figueroa has no meaningful jab – a bit like sending a young poet in the world without he memorizes the alphabet. Because Figueroa did not learn to jab, he makes a nervous sort of waggle with his cross, when he’s orthodox, and then he crossesover, rightfoot behind righthand, and finds himself a southpaw – discovers, really; it doesn’t look altogether premeditated – and begins waggling his now-southpaw jab, squares his feet, and hopes to harass an opponent to enervation.
Antonio DeMarco, battered six years ago by Edwin Valero, razed simply by Adrien Broner in 2012, and plying his craft more than three years removed from a victory over anyone you know, is decisioned by Figueroa on Saturday, yes – outbusied but not beaten down. DeMarco, in fact, bears the relaxed countenance throughout of an old mechanic; he knows his role, knows his wage, and knows his craft too well to let a bursting valve spray him with harmfulness. There isn’t a moment DeMarco experiences peril during Figueroa’s 36 minutes of assault.
The match is not suspenseful. Behind me, the suite fills with spirited and lubricated realty talk – the roomful of alpha gorillas sorting out what’s what in homepricing, homebuilding, tiling, carpeting, and expiring childsupport garnishments. It’s a pleasant distraction, frankly; theirs is the perfect comportment for a match that hasn’t 30 seconds’ suspense, and it makes me wish such conversations were allowed on pressrow, the sacred gathering spot for a species uncannily aware of its coming extinction.
There’s nothing serious about our sport as a PBC presentation. It is staged. The production quality in the arena is fantastic; a team of graphic artists and video specialists (and venture capitalists) in search of a subject. The digital glistening of a yellow lightsource hitting a reflective black surface, over and over and over, distracts my eye during rounds in which everyone knows what will happen.
The official attendance number comes in above 5,000. From a suite above every occupied seat – the upperdecks wear black curtains, as does the back quarter of AT&T Center’s 18,581 seats – my guess is 3,500. The suite’s salesman estimates 10,000, and the suite’s veteran trainer says 2,000. The official number is inflated, then, but not garish. Attendance figures are guidelines, but public gatherings are relative and reflexive things; performers affect and reflect congregants’ collective enthusiasm as something often called “energy” – which is decent a contemporary catchall as any. The energy of AT&T Center is measurable in flickers so few and slight they get tallied by hand. Despite diverse musical interludes, plenty of flashing indicators, and a backlighting stage that glows enormous, the South Texas crowd, one likely comprising someone who knows someone who boxes or boxed, in every occupied seat, is not roused.
The walkout bout outdoes itself. Even before US Olympian Terrell Gausha, who is decidedly awful, decisions a helpless lad named Said El Harrack, the arena is emptied. If there are 300 persons still within AT&T Center by the third round of Gausha-El Harrack, it’s only because arena staff’s hourly, not salaried.
I arrived at 7:09 PM, 21 minutes before NBC took the air, and there were hot music and cool lights and no boxing and less interest. Confirmation bias is possible: If the PBC survives, I forecast, it will be as a made-for-television spectacle conducted in venues no more authentic than Hollywood backlots. PBC contractors will compose what press there is – a great seat, and $50 for a night of Facebooking – the 2,000 seats visible by cameras will contain rafflewinners and gymrats and locally stationed military, and two undefeated fighters will not be matched.
“The reason NBC is here is because now everybody wants in boxing,” says a guy from suiteback.
The statement pierces the area’s otherwise cacophonous and sincere speechmaking about estate commissions and bargain rates for squarefeet of tile, and it does so with a sincerity of its own: If prizefighting means more to you than entertainment, if it is a fever that defines some part of your identity, the PBC’s timebuying is not ineffective. You derive affirmation from your sport’s presence on network television; your coworkers still ignore your passion, sure, but the PBC at least makes them channelsurf round it, which is greater mind than they’ve paid boxing since the 1980s.
Bart Barry can be reached via Twitter @bartbarry