September 6, 2006 - You will have to excuse me, my column is two days late.
I have been hanging around too many boxers, because I have an excuse for my shortcoming.

Michael Marley, the poster boy of Fight Night News, sent me down to the Nikolai Valuev press conference at the Biltmore Hotel in Downtown Los Angeles to shoot some video of the event.

I must say, the buffet was excellent at the Biltmore, good job Mr. Don King and company.

After a one and a half-hour press conference, I then spent twenty-four hours editing video. If you must know, I am a perfectionist, some may say I am borderline neurotic.

Getting to the point, Stick and Move is two days late because Mr. Marley sent me out to shoot video. The lateness had NOTHING to do with the numerous beers I consumed on Labor Day.

After spending a few hours listening to Don King preaching the greatness of Valuev,
I walked away thinking, "Who cares? Who cares about some seven foot freak and further more, who cares about any of the other three so-called champions of European decent, and who cares about any American heavyweight?"

I sure as hell do not.

The heavyweight division lost its luster, around the time James Buster Douglas beat the hell out of Mike Tyson. Since then, the personality of the division has had all the flavor of a stale Cuban cracker (that is saying something, if you ever tasted a fresh Cuban cracker, they are pretty dry at their best). The action in the ring has resorted to a bunch of guys hugging, posing, and throwing a low number of punches.

When I looked at Valuev, I thought to myself, "a man of this size spells disaster in the ring." Disaster for fans, not necessarily opponents. His punches are as slow, and look sloppy, and that sort of height just lends itself to ugly, hard to watch match-ups.

The heavyweight division is dead. Athletic kids measuring six feet or over and weighing over two hundred pounds in the ghettos of America do NOT, I say DO NOT, find themselves into boxing gyms.

Their athletic prowess is refined on the blacktop basketball courts and football fields of their respective neighborhoods. America is no longer a producer of heavyweight boxers. Hell, why would you want to take lumps on the dome, when you have a million in one shot to hit the N.B.A. or N.F.L.?

Don King can talk up Valuev and he can talk up any other fighter that comes along in the next few years. Bob Arum can try to stir-up the heavyweight pot. Dan Goossen, Lou DiBella, and Gary Shaw can try to market and promote dozens of heavyweights.

Yet as a close friend used to tell me, you can polish a lump of shit, but in the end, it is still a lump of shit.