When you mention the name Thomas Hauser in 2011, the reaction you have received from the inner circle of boxing would have been received by heavy praise. His work is second to none whether it involves his investigative columns on the inner workings of HBO or the New York State Athletic Commission, chronicling a fighter’s every trace before heading into a major fight, or his critically acclaimed novels and books about boxing. However, if you were to ask the same people that very same question after March 1st of this year, the reaction would probably get a different reaction.
The reason for change in reaction was because Hauser was hired by HBO as a consultant. The backlash Hauser received was negative because the inner boxing circles felt that HBO silenced its biggest critic by giving him a job. Hauser however disagrees. “I was approached by Ken Hershman (HBO Sports President) for the position. I’ve been an admirer and a critic of HBO Sports. I had a choice; sit on the outside and criticize after the fact, or I could work cooperatively on the inside to try and make the sport better. I made my decision and I went with the latter,” said Hauser on a phone interview with ThaBoxingVoice.com.
Most people that share this view only remember Hauser for his work that negatively spoke on the issues at HBO. Hauser has done quite a bit of work that didn’t touch on HBO negatively. Hauser states, “I’ve been privileged enough to write articles on some of the faces of boxing that work for HBO like a Jim Lampley or a Larry Merchant. I’ve also been fortunate enough to be allowed in the locker room of some of today’s best boxer’s just moments before the heat of a fight. It’s been my pleasure to do the work I have done with fighters like Sergio Martinez, Roy Jones Jr, Evander Holyfield, Paulie Malignaggi, Bernard Hopkins, Kelly Pavlik and others; all on HBO telecasts. So to call me out and say things like I am the HBO police is unfair when I have done columns that weren’t in a negative light on HBO.”
Hauser knew there would be criticism when taking the job with HBO and was fully prepared for the backlash. At the same time, he feels the ones that are outing him as a sellout and are associating the word gag order to his name should worry less about him and more about themselves. On the topic of the gag order Hauser feels, “That’s silly. Let those so called journalists do the job themselves. People who were most critical of me getting the job at HBO said that I understood the job at HBO in depth and said I was capable of planning for the future of what the sport should be. Now if I was all that, wouldn’t it make sense for me to take the job at HBO? These writers can talk about gag orders, but they don’t have one on them, let them write about HBO; the good and bad. Don’t sit back and complain that Hauser is not doing it anymore. For years I wrote investigative articles about New York State Athletic Commission and got things changed and I went on to other things. That is what this is, a personal change at HBO, let’s see how things go.” “Some people just cannot accept change.”
One writer who has been critical of Hauser taking the position with HBO was Yahoo Sports’ Kevin Iole. With the news of Hauser taking the position, Iole responded with a column and within that column he stated, “It’s a dark day in journalism; HBO silenced one of the few men with the sources and courage to take on the sport’s biggest power.” Hauser response to that was, “Well Kevin is certainly entitled the opinion. That was the last sentences of the final paragraphs in Kevin’s article. The first sentence in the article was Hauser is one of the few boxing writers who write with depth with a long range view of the sport. Now if I was writing with depth and a long range view of the sport, wouldn’t it make sense for HBO to hire me? Every network needs someone with depth and long range view of the sport. People need to stop thinking of me as the HBO Police because I’m not.”
While Hauser may not be the HBO police, he is a voice within the organization that has a new person in charge and one that has reached out to Hauser for his opinion on numerous topics. One of those topics is the use of replay in the sport of boxing. Unfortunately something that may seem so simple is very complicated. Hauser explains, “I have spoken with about 24 different people like Keith Kizer, referees fighters, and television producers to see what was practical and what wasn’t. How many football writers know all the replay rules? It’s pretty interesting to discover when an official goes under the hood, what most people don’t know is that for every single game and stadium, four people are outside a stadium in a truck looking at every angle and setup those replays for the official to review. Can boxing afford that? Certainly commissions don’t, but maybe HBO or Showtime can. But what’s practical? Having different set of rules for different networks? We can’t just shoot from the hip when it comes to issues like that.”
One issue Hauser is ready to tackle and is already practical to him is to make the public aware of who the best boxers already are. With the number of belts floating around all the waists and shoulders of plenty of boxers on television, Hauser feels what most boxing fans feel, that there are too many belts. “One of the biggest problems with our sport is that nobody knows who the champions are. If you ask 50 people who the heavyweight champion of the world is how many will actually know that Vitali (Klitschko) is the WBC champion, Wladimir (Klitschko) is the WBO, IBF, and WBA heavyweight champion? How many people know that Alexander Povetkin is WBA regular champion? There was time where everyone knew who the best heavyweight in the world was even when it wasn’t the one of the greatest heavyweight like James Braddock or Floyd Paterson; but people know who they were,” explained Hauser
Hauser’s resolution is simple, use a model made famous by college football and basketball which is a rankings system. “We have a panel consisting of writers and matchmakers and bunch the 14 best fighters in the division and have a hypothetical round robin tournament where every fighter went on to face each other. We’re talking about over 1000 fights and of those fights, if the fighter was predicted to win a fight, he would receive one point, if the fight was too close to call, both fighters would receive half a point and then tally the points and rank those fighters 1-14. In essence, when you have this system, instead of saying the two fighters are fighting for the interim WBA middleweight champion, you can have a scenario where the fight would be pushed as the #1 middleweight in the world versus the #4 middleweight in the world. When we ranked the middleweight division Sergio Martinez finished #1 with Gennady Golovkin closely edging out Dmitry Pirog for the number two spot. It’s no coincidence that HBO is going to televise a Pirog fight this summer and EPIX will televise a Golivkin fight. Those are numbers people can understand not the 80 number of belts floating around,” said Hauser.
With a format similar to the rankings of college sports, it will require the best to fight the best and the final outcome would lead to some losses on a lot of boxer’s records. This notion that has been embedded in most boxing fans is that you’re only as good as your last fight and that having the all-important 0 in the loss column can make or break your boxing career in terms of exposure. Hauser however says, “I hate that I absolutely hate that. The way you judge a record shouldn’t be about how many wins and losses but instead should be about the quality of opponents and how you have done against them. When you look at great fighters, they are judged by their record, longevity of their great careers and who they fought. One reason Ali was great was because of who he fought, he fought (Joe) Frazier three times, Sonny Liston, George foreman, Larry Holmes and Floyd Paterson.” Soft touches and easy fights is also something that Hauser wants to rid the HBO network of. There are too many of fighters today that want the easiest possible fight for the most money available. I understand that from a managerial point of view but if that’s what they want, let their promoter put up the money, choose a venue and put it on an independent show or pay-per-view. Networks along with the promoters should encourage exciting competitive fights. (Arturo) Gatti didn’t win all the time, but he gave you exciting fights.”
The knock of most boxing detractors is about the best fighting the best and that other contact sports like mixed martial arts have brought more excitement than boxing in recent years. According to Hauser; UFC, the prime promotional company that sometimes goes head to head with some of boxing’s events is not really a factor in the decline of the popularity of boxing. “Studies show UFC takes away more fans from pro wrestling than it does from boxing. Their model is silly. It does very good in a dominant position as a novelty but in boxing we know who the best fighters in the world are. We know (Sergio) Martinez is the best middleweight in the world. We know Chad Dawson is the best light heavyweight. UFC has a brand that for all I know there are thousand guys that can go out and beat the crap of their champions, because it’s their own inside little world where their own guys fight each other. I don’t like the model. They put on good fights but it’s not conducive to determining who the best mixed martial artist is,” explained Hauser.
Now while boxing has its economic downfalls, Hauser refuses to believe that UFC will be the death of the sport of boxing. Hauser believes that although boxing has its economic downfalls, Mixed Martial Arts has its fair share as well. “MMA isn’t doing nearly that well as a sport. You can still get 50,000 fans in Germany for a Klitschko and boxing can still generate 100 million dollars for a pay-per-view fight. If you look at the MMA landscape, there are dozens of MMA companies that have gone under. Boxing has economic problems yes. We need to regain its popularity by putting on good competitive fights, identifying who the best fighters are, and changing the economic model where its best fights are accessible to the public. How popular would Tiger Woods have been if you had to pay $44.95 to watch him play? Boxing also has to change the stance of, “Well if people don’t want to pay the money for pay-per-view fight; they can see it a week later on regular HBO.” How many fans say I’m not watching the super bowl this weekend, I’ll watch it on tape?”
According to Hauser to cure the ills of boxing, “It’s not rocket science. If you put two guys who are exciting fighters and are the same level, it makes for a good fight and it doesn’t necessarily have to be on the highest skill level. People tune in every Saturday night in the fall to watch college football and the ratings go through the roof whether it is #2 vs. #5 or an Army vs. Navy game. The key is to make those competitive fights on every network along with making it easier to identify the best fighter and that will lead to a more accessible audience and that is Network TV”.
While Hauser may be criticized, one can’t fault his passionate ideas that he brings to the network of HBO in an effort to push the sport forward. However should he feel the direction of the network is going in contrast to what Hershman has set him out to do? Then Hauser says, “Well then I’ll part ways with HBO and move on like I’ve moved on from other things”.
