The old adage, “There’s no cheering in the press box” or, in boxing’s case, “press row,” does not always apply to the fight game. Oftentimes foreign press has been known to root for its fighters, blatantly standing and clapping for its countrymen during the course of a fight.
Openly, as the epic welterweight clash between Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Manny Pacquiao approaches, with the grandeur illusion its somehow close to what Joe Frazier and Muhammad Ali was on March 8, 1971, boxing media, managers, trainers and TV execs and announcers covering the fight have to be objective. They need to play the political game.