Saturday, March 12, 2005
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

BOXING: Reality is, 'Contender' full of pretenders

It's a reality show, they tell us. Over and over they say, `This is real. This is life.' But one of the hosts of this particular brand of reality has more plastic in his face than you'll see at a Tupperware party. And that's real?

The hosts, actor Sylvester Stallone and boxing legend Sugar Ray Leonard, have managed to phony up the most real and basic of all sports.

NBC's "The Contender" is the latest in a disgustingly overdone line of reality shows.

The premise is that 16 middleweights, who haven't gotten a chance, will fight for a berth in the finals in May at Caesars, where the winner gets a $1 million prize. The loser each week gets a trip home.

It's a basic enough concept. But it's hardly real.

Peter Manfredo Jr., who lost to a welterweight in the show's opener, was brought back. So much for the reality of one-and-done. Lose in the NCAA Tournament and you're going home. Get beat at Wimbledon today and you're a spectator tomorrow.

But in executive producer Mark Burnett's world, lose today and -- if he believes you're a good story -- sit tight because odds are he'll find a way to bring you back.

The show is built on a phony premise. In the opening segment Monday, Stallone tells the fighters, "The only difference between you and the current champions is that they got a chance and you didn't."

Right, Sly.

Looks like Stallone is paying these guys so much he didn't have enough to buy a record book. The combined record of the fighters' opponents is 2,593 wins, 3,560 losses and 295 draws.

That doesn't include the 13 opponents of 18-year-old Juan De La Rosa, who is 12-0-1 but has fought 12 of his 13 fights in Mexico. Verified records can't be found for most of his opponents.

But plenty of records are available on Jonathan Reid, who lost to Las Vegan Jesse Brinkley in the show's second episode Thursday. Reid brought a 33-1 record into the show and the other fighters, aware they were on camera, spoke of him reverentially.

They, too, must have missed the records. Reid's opponents were a combined 415-924-54 when he fought them. On July 19, 2003, in his third-to-last fight before "The Contender," Reid defeated Lester Yarbrough, who was in the midst of a 36-fight losing streak dating to 1990.

Reid posted two victories each over Yarbrough, Benji Singleton, who was 21-67-4 and 22-77-4 when they fought, and legendary loser Reggie Strickland, 66-272-17.

At least Reid beat Strickland. Another of the so-called contenders, Brent Cooper, is 0-1-1 against Strickland.

Co-executive producer Jeff Wald defends the show by conceding mistakes but said the producers -- who plan to get into the pay-per-view business -- will correct them. He said the show had a difficult time with the boxing establishment, which wants to see it fail.

"There are some things maybe we shouldn't have done, but the mistakes we made weren't venal, and the things that were done were done with the best of intentions," Wald said.

Perhaps, but how does one explain the cheap shot they allowed boxer Ishe Smith, of Las Vegas, to deliver in the show's opening? Stallone told the audience that "Ishe is disillusioned by the lack of integrity in boxing."

Yet Smith is the man who declared bankruptcy to break his contract with his former promoter and co-managers, whom he owes a cool $115,000. He's the same fighter who has gotten into physical altercations with his mother at weigh-ins. And he's the guy who, in Thursday's episode, broke team ranks and told Reid, an East team member, he wanted to see him knock out Brinkley, his West teammate.

Now there's a guy who sounds like a bastion of integrity.

There are so many other problems with the show -- guys who fought primarily at super lightweight and welterweight are being forced to move up to middleweight -- but it comes down to one unassailable fact:

None of the fighters is good enough even to come close to beating Bernard Hopkins, Felix Trinidad, Winky Wright or Jermain Taylor, the best middleweights in the world.

For the most part, these "contenders" are never-were fighters with propped up records whom Stallone is passing off as the real deal.

And to think they said this show would be different.

Kevin Iole's boxing column is published Saturday. He can be reached at 396-4428 or kiole@reviewjournal.com.