In last week’s “…Squared Circle” I shared why I love boxing. This week we will turn to the other side of the coin and share the issues that bother me about the sweet science. To be honest, there isn’t much. The sport is called the “theater of the unexpected” for a reason so you must take most of the bad with the good. But there is one thing that chaps my hide and it can be summoned up with a statement that has been swirling around my head since last week:
The circus has nothing on boxing.
What I mean by that statement, that just like the circus, boxing is full of charlatans. A charlatan is a person who claims to have special knowledge or a skill, a fraud. Basically, a liar.
Boxing is full of them in all shapes and sizes and who perpetuate their lies in all sorts of ways.
For a more recent example, take the bout between Kermit Cintron and Sergio Martinez this weekend. In the seventh round, Martinez connected with a short straight left hook that stun CIntron and sent him to his knees. Cintron was so stunned, that the Puerto Rican believed that he was head butt. As the official counted him out as the bell rang, Cintron began to protest that the hit was from a head butt and he began to protest furiously.
Whether Cintron truly believed that the hit came from a head butt or a fist is the question but he convinced the referee enough to let the bout go on that finished as a draw.
Just as a charlatan at the circus might make you believe that he can guess your exact weight.
Without mentioning last week’s hearing which dealt former Antonio Margarito and his trainer Javier Capetillo a one year suspension each from the CSAC for what the state alleges that the Margarito team knowingly added hard pads to his hand wraps while Capetillo claims it was a mistake, there is a more blatant example of cheating when it comes to the hands of a fighter.
In July of 1983, trainer Panama Lewis had his boxing license permanently revoked by New York for removing some of the 
padding of his charge Luis Resto in his ten round defeat of the then undefeated Billy Collins Jr. Collins Jr., who was badly beaten, suffered a torn iris and blurred vision which ended his career.
In 1986, both Resto and Lewis were put on trial and convicted of illegal assault earning a six year sentence. Each served 2.5 while Collins Jr. committed suicide by driving off a cliff.
The circus has nothing on that.
Possibly the best example of hiding the truth in boxing comes from none other than Top Rank’s Bob Arum. In what has become a classic quote in the annals of the sport, Arum is more widely known for uttering this phrase:
“Yesterday I was lying, today I am telling the truth.”
it almost sounds like poetry, doesn’t it? That was Arum’s response to a reporter’s question regarding Arum contradicting himself. Through out the years, Arum has has been accused of may things including
admittingly bribing the IBF in 2000 to gain a better rating for one of his fighters. But because of his grandfatherly looks and acerbic wit, you can’t help loving the guy.
There is not enough room on the internet to go over why Don King is the truly that, the king of boxing charlatans.
But elite fighters, trainers or even promoters do not have a monopoly on this kind of behavior. Sometimes you don’t even have to look past your backyard to find examples of charlatanism.
It can happen anywhere, even here in San Diego.
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