Boxing Ombudsman: Missing You Like Candy

The Worlds Ombudsman se gusta el boxeo.

I am tired of the casual, unchallenged references by people that "boxing is in a decline." You can find such references to boxing's death on blogs and mainstream sites alike, and almost always it is accompanied by no statistics or even explanation: Boxing is in a decline, everyone knows it, and mixed martial arts (MMA) is so much more popular.

First - its not - boxing is by far still the more popular sport and is quite healthy. And second, there may be no sport with as many intriguing but under-publicized characters as there are in boxing.

Boxing is popular. Last month's Mosely-Margarito fight brought nearly 21,000 fans to the Staples Center in LA - the largest crowd to see any sporting event in the building's history (and this is the building where the Lakers play their home games). Boxing matches regularly get well over 1 million PPV buys (including a record of 2.4 million) while MMA's largest ever is 1.3 million. What about remuneration? Margarito and Mosely made $2.3 million and $1 million respectively for the aforementioned fight (although keep in mind that De La Hoya has made $45 million off of his fight with Floyd Mayweather). By comparison, the recent George St. Pierre - BJ Penn MMA fight paid those fighters $600,000 and $125,000 respectively. In 2008, Floyd Mayweather Jr. was the fourth highest paid athlete in the US - between Lebron James and Kobe Bryant.

And that is just in the US. Around the world, boxing is thriving. In Mexico, boxing regularly gets better TV audiences than soccer -- and as for live audiences in that country - 136,000 people saw Julio Cesar Chavez fight Greg Haugen in 1993, one of the largest crowds in history, for any sport. In the UK, Ricky Hatton drew 55,000 to Manchester Stadium for his fight with Juan Lazcano and believes that he will be able to break 136,000 given the right venue. Meanwhile, Manny Pacquaio is quite literally the Michael Jordan of the Philippines.

In addition to being the best sport to pre-game to on a Saturday night, boxing also has some incredible storylines. Many of these story lines are routinely ignored by the mainstream US media, which is the driving force behind the claim that boxing is declining. Refuse to cover enough stories, and maybe the prophecy will be self-fulfilling. But not yet.

Here are 5 boxers that have intriguing stories... if the press were doing its job, all but Miranda would be household names in this country in the same way that Lebron James, Tom Brady and Derrick Jeter are.

1) The Ageless Bernard Hopkins. The Philadelphia native was sentenced to prison by his 18th birthday for countless muggings and burglaries. Upon leaving, he told the skeptical warden "I ain't coming back." After deciding that boxing would be his salvation, he had his first fight in 1988...and lost. Twenty years later, he is considered one of boxing's all-time greats. This past October, at age 43, as many boxing pundits were predicting his retirement, Hopkins shocked the world when he upset 26 year old previously undefeated middleweight champion Kelly Pavlik. How can you not love this? The only age gap that surprised me more was today when I learned that my girl Mandy Moore is engaged to Bryan Adams. Weird.

2) The Columbian Slumdog Millionaire, Edison Miranda. Miranda was abandoned by his mother at one month old and essentially grew up as a street child in Buenaventura, eating stray cats and stealing to survive. At age 9 he was able to save enough money to search for and locate his mother in the countryside, only to have her reject him again. Back in the city, he began boxing at a local gym because they would let him sleep there. Fast forward 10 years -he's making six figures to knock people out of the ring. Speaking of rings, at least Freida Pinto is still available - go to hell Bryan Adams.

3) Manny Pacquaio, The People's Champ. The Pacman rose from poverty to be widely considered the pound-for-pound best fighter in the world as well as easily the most widely recognized celebrity in the Philippines. Pacquiao has funded countless medical clinics, schools and infrastructure work in poor areas in the Phillipines, including at one point coming back from a fight and actually handing out money to thousands of people in a poor neighborhood. So popular is Pacman, that he has already acted in movies, starred in a video game, appeared on a postage stamp and run for congress. In December he moved up significantly in weight to fight Oscar De La Hoya. Most experts predicted an easy win for the bigger De La Hoya, instead it was one of the most surprisingly one-sided fights in recent memory, as Pacquaio utterly dominated the fight, likely ending De La Hoya's career. Pacquaio is scheduled to fight Ricky Hatton in May. There have been no discussions, to my knowledge, about a future fight with the other People's Champ, Paul Wall. Paul Wall, incidentally, is the jeweler behind Mandy's engagement grill. Fact.

4) Ricky Hatton, the Everyman. Hatton, a fighter from Manchester, England, has a band of soccer-turned-boxing hooligans who follow him all over the world, drunkenly singing, pounding drums and blowing horns. Sometimes they show up at events having nothing to do with boxing and do this. Hatton, himself, is just as amusing. Accused of drinking and eating too much between fights, Hatton regularly shows up for weigh ins (and even matches) wearing a fat suit and calling himself Ricky Fatton. For reasons known only to him, he calls himself an honorary Mexican and wears a sombrero when entering the ring while Blue Moon, the Manchester City song, plays on the loudspeakers. Also, he is nasty - 45 wins with only one loss (to Floyd Mayweather). Speaking of nasty, I'm still having trouble stomaching the Mandy Moore - Ryan Cabrera news. Cabrera's twin brother, Steelers place kicker Jeff Reed, is reportedly handling bachelor party duties.

5) Pretty Boy Floyd Mayweather. One of the best boxers ever and one of the most polarizing figures in all of sports, Mayweather is undefeated, untied and technically retired. But his love of money and royal treatment lead most pundits to believe that he'll be back, probably to fight Manny Pacquaio, if Pacman can beat Hatton. How much does Floyd love money? Here's him counting sweaty packets of money he keeps in a drawer and putting them in a big duffel bag, just because. My favorite part is that at one point Floyd, apparently worried that a viewer may have just tuned in and become confused and disoriented by what he or she was seeing, helpfully says "Thats seven hundred thousand... in a bag." And that's exactly what you're seeing...just bringing everyone up to speed. Is this jewels in a satchel? Is this travellers cheques in a box? Is this gold bullion in a rucksack? What is this I'm seeing? No no no...this is seven hundred thousand...in a bag. From Dancing With The Stars, to bizarre outings with 50 cent (you'll notice Ryan Cabrera mc-ing in that clip -- come ON Mandy) Mayweather loves attention and will likely be fighting soon - stay tuned.

In conclusion, I challenge any singer on the current Billboard Adult/Contemporary Top 40 to a slap fight. You hear me Jason Mraz?