Jones not enticing us with this hook

Roy Jones Jr.'s willingness to wear a Pirate costume is example of how far a fighter will go to sell a show.

Bernard Hopkins' "Executioner" outfit reflected his demeanor in the ring and set him apart. Photo by Ed Mulholland / Fightwireimages.com


In case you’ve missed it, Roy Jones and Jeff Lacy are fighting one another Saturday night in Biloxi, Miss., on pay-per-view. Both guys have seen better days; Jones because he’s 40, or thereabouts, and Lacy because, well, depending on whom you ask, either Joe Calzaghe ruined him or he never was much to begin with.

Whatever the case, it’s a reasonably interesting matchup that might prove entertaining, and given the current state of the contestants, it‘s not a big surprise that the fight came together: Who else is there for them to fight?

What is surprising is that Jones showed up for the initial press conference in full pirate regalia, including a plastic hook in place of his left hand. The card is named “Hook City,” a reference to Lacy’s left hook moniker and Jones’ own left hook, which was once one of the most feared punches in the business. According to him, it still is.

“I have the best left hook in the game,” Jones said at the press conference. “Jeff Lacy has a very good hook. So, when you get a challenge like that, how can you say no? You can’t, not where I come from. I don’t know any decent person who could, straight up.”

That Jones said this while in full pirate costume – while Lacy was dressed appropriate to the century – is stunning, considering that in his salad days, Jones was loathe to promote a fight at all and if he showed up for press conferences, it typically was several hours late.

It’s evidence too of the lengths to which fighters will go to promote themselves or an event, particularly if, as is the case here, the fight hasn’t generated a great deal of buzz or isn‘t likely to, for whatever reason.

Whole careers have been built around a fighter’s shtick. Think Hector Camacho’s eccentricity, or Jorge Paez’s penchant for shaving public service announcements into his scalp. Naseem Hamed’s act frightened and appalled an entire generation of purists, but also made him a millionaire several times over.

George Foreman embraced the fat, cheeseburger-eating, self-deprecating persona thrust upon him by a suspicious media and made it work for him. Bernard Hopkins’ executioner motif was memorable, and Ricardo Mayorga still gets a little mileage out of his alleged cigarette habit.

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David Haye’s mouth and boorish behavior have gotten him opportunities disproportionate to his accomplishments, and club fighter Emanuel Augustus’ “Drunken Master” act has made him a cult hero. Of course, legends Muhammad Ali and Archie Moore were using shtick to sell tickets maybe before the word existed.

But does the show business stuff really work?

“Some think that a fighter who is willing to provide shtick is valuable to a promotion. They figure that if he does something ridiculous enough, SportsCenter or a network affiliate news program will air it,” Donald Tremblay, former director of public relations for Main Events, told RingTV.com.

“I never agreed with that line of thinking,” Tremblay said. “In fact, it used to aggravate me any time the idea was raised for one of our promotions. Boxing has enough credibility problems without fighters purposely making fools of themselves. Plus, I think it's been done so many times before that it doesn't elicit the same response anymore.”

Tremblay cited the time Mike Tyson and Lennox Lewis brawled at the press conference announcing their fight. He said to this day people tell him they think the melee was staged. It wasn’t.

Even when a scripted event gets good mainstream media coverage there’s no guarantee the fight will sell, Tremblay said. He shared a story about the build-up to Lewis’ title defense against habitual fouler Andrew Golota.

“When we promoted Lewis-Golota in 1997,” he said, “we held a press conference in New York and had Lewis' then-manager, Frank Maloney, hold up a dummy and point to wear it was legal to hit people and where it was not. Lou Duva got up and said, ‘We know where we are supposed to hit; Show 'em, Andrew.’ Golota got up and punched the dummy in the chest so hard that Maloney fell off the chair he was standing on.

“People laughed; the New York network news programs ran it. I even had people who weren't boxing fans telling me they saw it on the news. Lo and behold, despite the coverage of the gimmick, the pay-per-view was an absolute disaster. Let's just say it received south of 300,000 buys.”

The other problem with reliance on an inordinate amount of shtick is that it can magnify the damage done by an otherwise forgivable loss. One of the great examples is Hamed’s loss to Marco Antonio Barrera.

Another can be found in former Olympian and one-time prospect Anthony Hembrick’s June, 1990 televised one-round kayo loss to Booker Word in North Carolina. By itself, the loss wasn’t so bad. It can happen to anybody.

The problem was that it followed an over-the-top dance routine put on by Hembrick and his corner. You can watch it for yourself here (warning: violently funny): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hTTXSJiYiss

It remains to be seen whether or not Jones’ willingness to dress up like Captain Hook will sell any tickets. I suspect it won’t. If you buy or attend the fight, it will be because you’re a Jones fan or a Lacy fan or because you’re intrigued by the matchup.

As Tremblay said, “Bottom line is that nobody is buying a ticket or a pay-per-view because one fighter is a clown. Either the guy can fight and people like the matchup or not. Save the hi-jinks for the WWE.”

Some random observations from last week:

All right, I’ll say it: I had to work very hard to understand what the hell Pernell Whitaker and Mark Breland were saying in the studio on Friday Night fights, and not just because my iPod has made me hard of hearing. After a while, I gave up. Clearly, the two paid a big price for their long careers in the ring. It’s just as clear they regret nothing. That’s what counts. Good for them. …

Aren’t any of the fights on ESPN2 between guys who have been about the same size as one another throughout their careers? …

Teddy Atlas and Joe Tessitore had completely different ways of pronouncing the last name of Sergi Ganjelashvili on Friday night. I have no idea which one was right. …

I’ll bet your next paycheck that Gabriel Rosado has no recollection whatever of the hard time he gave referee Russell Mora after Mora stopped Alfredo Angulo from putting him in a coma. Concussions are funny that way. …

Speaking of Angulo, if there’s a more stoic guy in this business, I haven’t seen him. He’s so impassive he makes Miguel Cotto look like Richard Simmons. …

Just when you thought this trend of big fights at catch weights was succeeding at keeping some money out of the hands of the cretins who run boxing’s so-called governing bodies, along comes Jose Sulaiman, chief cretin himself, with a solution: the “WBC Diamond Championship belt.” Look at that. Problem solved.

According to the WBC’s press release, which reads as if it were written in crayon, “… this belt will play a very important role in modern boxing, as the fights between elite boxers called ‘catch weight‘ fights, have not been a complete success, due to the fact that the advertising is only done for fans to know who is the best between two fighters and nothing is at stake (italics mine).”

It labors on, “The WBC will propose that the promotion renders homage to the two greatest fighters of such division, as they will be showcased in (sic) the belt.”

Here’s the translation: Nobody cares about catch weight fights because there are no titles on the line. To remedy that, the WBC will “sanction” said fights, for a fee of course, and that way the promoters can advertise them as “title” fights.

That way, for example, you can care about Manny Pacquiao-Miguel Cotto!

How utterly revolting. Watch it take off.

Bill Dettloff can be contacted at Dettloff@ptd.net