ESB Flaunts Cluelessne ss. Again!

Like most knowledgeable boxing fans, I avoid the rantings of East Side Boxing and Boxing News 24. Both websites are run anonymously, with no one willing to own up to either ownership or management. Even if you e-mail them, the responses are just as anonymous. Both operate on the low cost strategy of printing virtually anything submitted to them by readers, paying nothing for often crappy content and flattering those selfsame contributors at the same time, making them followers. The result is an endless stream of ill-informed opinion, fanboy rants, and often illegible screed, punctuated only occasionally with something intelligent or original.

Because of this I usually ignore these two websites, but sometimes my Google news alerts deliver one of their steaming piles into my inbox. So it was with The Case Against The Boxing Purists by Philip Green, who in his first rant for East Side Boxing has produced an archetypal example of why both websites should be consigned to the spit bucket and forgotten.

Green’s beef is clearly against those who thought Erislandry Lara won what was a very close fight against Canelo Alvarez (Alvarez got the Split Decision nod), which he has transferred into a beef with “boxing purists” who appreciate boxing’s more technical side, especially it’s “not getting hit” defensive aspects. Apparently, Philip Green is the only other man on the planet who thinks Levi Martinez’s score of 117-111 is justified, and standing alone with the ridiculed judge has made him dig in his heels instead of question his assumptions.

This much is the only thing that stands out with clarity in Green’s poorly constructed argument, since while Lara is a gifted boxer-puncher, he is not the type of fighter any “purist” would choose as a standard bearer for defensive technique. He is not a Floyd Mayweather, whose defensive prowess has carried him to the pinnacle of the sport; Lara is also not a Paulie Malignaggi, who relies almost entirely upon his slick skills in the ring. In missing that Lara is not the kind of defensive grand master that some boxing purists adore, Green has also misunderstood that both Alvarez and Lara are boxer-punchers, albeit of different stripes. That reveals an understanding of the sport of boxing so obviously and fundamentally flawed that his editorial could never have been published by a self-respecting website, but as we know very well, East Side Boxing has no self-respect.

Furthermore, Green clearly has no idea what a boxing purist is or what one appreciates, and I can say this because I am one, I picked Canelo Alvarez to win, and I thought he won the fight by a narrow margin, just like most observers did. If a boxing purist dwells on defensive technique, it is because that is the side of boxing that casual fans (like Green) don’t understand, and something that is increasingly neglected in gyms these days. I routinely see prospects nowadays who clearly were not taught some of the things I considered fundamentals 25 years ago. Many of these guys are all-offense, and their offense isn’t even that great.

But that is something Green and most of the other ranters at East Side Boxing and Boxing News 24 don’t understand. If a fight fan wants to dwell in a forum by the ignorant, of the ignorant, and for the ignorant, that’s fine with me. If they don’t, they should go elsewhere for their news and information. I just wish Google would understand the difference and stop delivering stinkbombs from East Side Boxing to my inbox.

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