Boxing – Rebecca Romijn and The Tooth Fairy

Periodical friggin INSOMNIA – my nemesis.

But my loss is your gain, because when the 2 AM muse hits I do some of my best scribbling . . .

Tonight’s topic – “How do you know you’ve arrived?”

Off of this theme I will weave in some winning sports betting info for you, though I warn you it may be via a circuitous route – after all, it is 2 AM.

“If I can make it there, I’ll make it anywhere, New York, New York.”

As an actor, how do you know you’ve arrived? When you’ve made it to Broadway. (If you do not understand the difference between being an actor and a movie star I refer you to Peter O’Toole in “My Favorite Year,” he’ll clear the matter up nicely for you. And, staying within the gambling theme of this site, I give you one of its most memorable lines, one I often quote, “Double that bet for me, you toad!”) If you’ve never been to Broadway I suggest you make the trip at least once before you croak (‘croak” in staying with the toad theme started above). Dinner and a show is an unbelievable experience. I’ve done it a many times, in fact, I confess – “Les Miserables” makes it on to my turntable (turntable?) as much as The Stones or Costello.

But, there are two drawbacks to Broadway – the best shows are sold out, which means you have to take a girl, because if you go with your buddies you cannot have the mandatory empty seat between you, although I suspect that even if the theater was only half-full many men would be sitting next to each other anyhow, if you catch my drift. One time, I took my girlfriend to a movie – “Rain Man” – and I noticed that there were a lot of guys at the theater, sitting w/out the afore-mentioned required seat spacing. I commented on it, and she said it was just my imagination, then called me a paranoid, homophobe. When I went to get popcorn I asked lobby boy as he was buttering my kernels, “Hey, is it just me, or are there a lot of guys here tonight?” He told me that Sunday night was “gay night” – through no promotion, or fault, of their own, the theater’s management was slightly disturbed to discover that their joint had become kind of a Sunday night regular spot for gay men. I told him they should have warning signs up, and I told my date, “I’m glad I asked you to join me tonight instead of one of my buddies.”

But I digress. Where was I? Oh yeah, Broadway and two drawbacks.

The second one is this – sometimes the star pulls a sick day and you get stuck with expensive ducats to see an understudy. One time, I went to see “How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying.” Starring in it was a young, pre- ‘Will & Grace’ Megan Mullaly (nice rack) and Matthew Broderick, (and I beg to differ but Sarah Jessica Parker is in no way, shape or form anything even close to attractive). who pretty much sucks except for “Biloxi Blues” with Christopher Walken doing a great Sgt. Toomey. In his place, we got stuck with John Stamos, who sucks more than Broderick, although in his defense I have to say he did get to shag Rebecca Romijn, who is very un-Jessica Parker-like: you know a chick is hot when she’s blue and scaly and you look at her and still think, “Oh yeah, I’d do her.”

But I digress. For the second time. What was the topic? Oh yeah, “When have you ‘made it? ‘”

We’ve covered acting, let’s move to athletics. How do you know you’ve made it in sports? Easy – when you get to the ‘show’ – the big leagues.

The following conversation took place once, when I was a kid: Me: “Mom, my tooth came out.”

Mom: “Save it and put it under your pillow tonight.”

Me: (staring at the grody-looking piece of dead enamel in my hand) “Why the hell would I want to do that?”

Mom: “So the tooth Fairy will come tonight while you’re sleeping, take it and leave you a quarter for it.”

I tossed it in the garbage.

Mom: “What’d you do that for?”

Me: “Oh yeah, sure, that’s what I want, to wake up in the middle of the night and see some Fairy hovering over me. I’d be creeped out in a major way, and probably be scarred forever and suffer from insomnia for the rest of my life (and you were wondering what the hell this paragraph was doing in here, weren’t you?)

But I digress. Times three (Cut me a break, it’s twenty after two in the A.M.!)

Back on topic – when have you made it? In boxing, and to get to the point of this column, you know you’ve made it when you beat the bejeezuz out of some guy and become the world champion. But as a boxing promoter how do you know you’ve made it? When you’ve made a profit off of a promotion? No. When one of your fighters wins a title? No. To truly arrive as a boxing promoter, I say you have to get a fighter a win in a bout in which he gets the crap kicked out of him. You can’t truly be considered to be on King’s level, or Arum’s, or Goosen’s until you’ve hit that milestone. And Golden Boy Productions has arrived.

I blogged a couple weeks ago that when I watch sports I do so with two minds – one rooting on my money in that particular contest, one watching for things I can use to profit off of later. I said on the radio show that when I was ringside at Barrera vs. Marquez I learned something that I thought may serve us well in the future.

There are many ways to, oh, how do I say this, let’s use “pre-adjust the outcome of a fight.”

You can “bribe” either fighter to take a dive.

You can “incent” the ref to take points away whenever possible.

You can “tip” the ring doc to stop it if he gets a chance to.

And of course there is the always popular “you can grease the hand” of the judges.

Or you can do none of the above, and still have the fight in the bag. How? Judges get paid. Judges like to work fights. Judges get picked for fights by promoters (don’t let State rules and Commission requirements confuse you on this issue.) Want to work the next big money fight – and get paid big money – for Don King’s next heavyweight promotion? Then make sure your scorecard favors his heavyweight title contender in this promotion.

The night Marquez beat Barrera, Golden Boy Productions prodigy Demetrius Hopkins was beaten, soundly, by Steve Forbes. The judges scorecards? 118-110, 118-110, 117-111. All for Hopkins. This, despite Compubox’s tally of FORTY more POWER shots landed for Forbes. This, in the face of all the fans who cried, “[email protected]%#” in unison. This, despite ringside scribes and writers who had similar disparaging scores – but all for Mr. Forbes. Those judges secured for themselves future paychecks from Golden Boy Productions. GBP is owned by ODL – Oscar De La Hoya.

As a promoter, Oscar has clearly arrived. De La Hoya is fighting Floyd Mayweather next month.

Do with this info what you will, I’m going back to bed

write by Andrew