Dear Biased Morons
In the wake of such a roller coaster ride for Australian Boxing during the first week of this month, I just wanted to say how great it is that the mainstream sports media in Australia has finally decided to cover local boxing again. The main problem I have with your coverage is what it was that you actually covered. In the past seven days we had one of our own fighters unify the titles in a weight division in which the titles had never been unified in, yet what you covered in detail to those people who aren’t as interested in boxing was a bunch of young, stupid and missguided (and probably drunk) thugs who don’t represent this great sport in any way, shape or form behaving in an appalling manner.
(For those of you who read this and don’t know what I’m referring to, check out the youtube clip below)
My main problem with the way you cover boxing is the bad message you always seem to try and send. It’s very rare that you’ll cover boxing on the news and when you do it’s because of something like this. How is boxing in this country meant to get anywhere when the only time it gets mainstream coverage is because of a rare occurance like what happened on the Central Coast last night? What sort of message does this send about boxing when you show the one card that ends in a brawl out of the countless cards that have gone smoothly that you haven’t shown? It wouldn’t annoy me as much if boxing was shown on mainstream news shows more and shown for the boxing, but your frequent attempts to label boxing as some sort of freakshow I frankly find quite insulting.
Last Sunday we saw Vic Darchinyan accomplish something that only a handful of other Australian boxers have accomplished in winning a legitimate World title, yet this achievement earned zero coverage the following morning on all of the mainstream morning shows. However, every station was quick to show an Englishmen winning his first World title in Formula One. Why would you give so much coverage to a foreigner accomplishing something like that, yet ignore one of our own when he does exactly the same thing. You give Rugby League players who come over to the sport of boxing and fight stiffs more coverage then you gave Darchinyan which I also find extremely insulting.
Imagine if you covered Rugby League’s State of Origin every year in extremely small detail yet showed every local match that had a massive punch-up involved in it? Imagine if the A-League Grand Final got a 20 second wrap-up like Darchinyan’s fight did last Sunday and then you showed a reserve match in Sydney Club Football where the local supporters who didn’t like each other decided to duke it out? This is exactly what you do when it comes to boxing. These other sports have the exact same problems when it comes to local competition, yet it’s only ever boxing that you show when things turn ugly.
Boxing is a very controversial sport and I’m not going to try and claim it isn’t no matter how big a fan of the sport I am, but the way in which you cover it makes it seem like its a place where the lowest of the low gather and carry out some sick sadistic ritual. When you cover the sport with such bias it labels people like me who appreciate the sport like the martial art that it is as freaks who get off on watching violence.
Basically all I’m trying to say is that if it’s alright for you to show local boxing on free to air news where the masses can watch it, then at least have the common courtesy to us boxing fans to show the good part of it at some stage. We have some good quality boxers in this country (who aren’t Anthony Mundine or Danny Green) like Michael Katsidis, Jamie Pittman, Daniel Geale as well as Elomar and Kickett, yet they get less coverage then you’re average Rugby League player who isn’t half the athlete that any of those guys are. Be reasonable and show the sport for what it is, not what you think it is.
Yours sincerely
‘Angry Fight Fan’
PS- if any of you have any rebuttal, my email is angryfightfan@hotmail.com
