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Foreword
The internet has changed sportswriting, particularly when it comes to writing about boxing. Very few newspapers or magazines now have a writer on staff who understands the sport and business of boxing. Meanwhile, the number of websites devoted to the sweet science keeps growing. Some of these websites are quite good. Others are awful. Reprinting a press release with a new lead is not journalism. Simply voicing an opinion without more is not journalism.
As Carlos Acevedo—the author of this book—wrote in another forum, “Boxing is immune to critical consensus because of the number of fanboys who pretend to be journalists. No other sport has such an unsophisticated mediascape covering it.”
Acevedo was born in the Bronx in 1972 and now lives in Brooklyn. He was drawn to boxing as a boy, grew up reading The Ring, and recalls being captivated by Larry Holmes, Marvelous Marvin Hagler, and Marvin Johnson. Decades later, when the internet gave a platform to anyone with a computer and modem, he decided to write about the sweet science.
Acevedo's journey as a boxing writer began in 2007. Two years later, he founded a website called The Cruelest Sport. Since then, he has written for numerous print publications and websites, including Hannibal Boxing (his current primary outlet), MaxBoxing, Undisputed Champion Network, Boxing Digest, Boxing World, Remezcla, and Esquina Boxeo.
“I love the fights and the narrative that comes with them,” Acevedo says. “Each fight is a story unto itself; a drama that exposes character and offers the ideal of self-determination.”
I'm not sure when I first became aware of Acevedo's writing. I do remember laughing out loud years ago while reading his description of promoter Gary Shaw, who Acevedo opined “deserves credit for tenacity, like certain insects that become immune over time to Raid and Black Flag.” I first quoted him in my own writing in 2011 in conjunction with less-than-stellar refereeing by Russell Mora and Joe Cortez.
“Incompetence is usually the answer for most of the riddles in boxing,” Acevedo wrote of Mora's overseeing Abner Mares vs. Joseph Agbeko. “But Mora was a quantum leap removed from mere ineptitude. He was clearly biased in favor of Mares and, worse than that, seemed to enter the ring with a predetermined notion of what he was going to do. Mares had carte blanche to whack Agbeko below the belt as often as he wanted.”
As for Cortez's refereeing in Floyd Mayweather Jr. vs. Victor Ortiz, Acevedo proclaimed, “Cortez, whose incompetence has been steadily growing, is now one of the perpetual black clouds of boxing. Why let Cortez, whose reverse Midas touch has marred more than one big fight recently, in the building at all on Saturday night?”
Acevedo doesn't have a big platform. He doesn't have a wealth of contacts in the boxing industry or one-on-one
