Tennis Prose




Jan/22

23

Media Manipulation In Tennis And Boxing

By Scoop Malinowski

It’s a sad reality that news reporting doesn’t always just happen organically and naturally… certain stories are promoted or even crafted (propaganda), and others that don’t suit the media agenda are covered up or quickly forgotten. Media manipulation happens in politics and it happens in boxing and tennis too.

“The media has the power to make the innocent look guilty and the guilty look innocent.” – Malcolm X

I first noticed media manipulation in boxing in the 1990s when the boxing establishment in America, which then controlled the sport via American heavyweights Evander Holyfield, Mike Tyson and Riddick Bowe. Boxing is a star driven sport and who controls the big money making attractions has the most power in the sport.

But the Holyfield, Bowe, Tyson domination was severely threatened by a six-foot five, 235 pound 1988 Olympic gold medalist from Canada but born and based in London, England by the name of Lennox Lewis. The handlers of Bowe, Tyson and Holyfield feared the idea of seeing their cash cows losing to Lennox Lewis and losing their power, leverage and revenue streams. As Lewis kept winning and drew closer to the Big Three, it became evident the handlers began to dictate to certain key boxing writers to write negatively about Lewis and misportray him.

Here is one example of how they did it – from a feature I did on Don King All The Kings Men... (originally published in Boxing News weekly boxing magazine based in London, England)

Former New York Daily News Columnist: “When I started covering boxing in my second incarnation with The New York Times, somebody told me, Just be prepared because Don is going to call you up and MF you one day. And he does this to all the new writers that get on the beat. And he does this to soften you up and then get you to come on his side. So it happened to me on Christmas Eve in 1998. I’d gone away on vacation. And this was the first attempt to try and make Holyfield-Lewis at The Garden. Seth Abraham told me the fight fell apart because Don King wanted $5 million off the top of the promotion. So I couldn’t get a hold of Don, I was new on the beat. I didn’t have all of Don’s numbers, so I left messages. And I wrote the story based on what Seth had told me. So, Christmas Eve we were on vacation in Hilton Head. After a walk on the beach I got back late in the afternoon and had like five messages on my phone. It was my boss, frantically calling me, ‘You gotta call in. Don King is going nuts over something you wrote this morning. Call Don right away. ‘ So I called Don like right away to find out what was going on. Don gets me on the phone and proceeds to MF me for like an hour and a half! It was so bad – I was on the phone for so long – my wife kept coming in saying, ‘We need to go out to dinner, what’s going on? You’re still on the phone?’ I said, I can’t get away. The lull would stop and then he would MF me some more. I mean, it was some of the worst stuff I ever heard. So at the end of it – I didn’t take it seriously because somebody had told me this was gonna happen – if I didn’t have a forewarning I would have been shattered or whatever. So at the end of it Don goes into his, ‘Oh, we gotta stick together brother, I’m gonna give you all the news, I’m gonna make you big in the boxing business, you just had a mistake right here but that’s okay, I’m gonna forgive you. So next time I’m gonna give you all the news and next time we gonna rule this thing brother! So anything you need, here’s all my numbers. You call me any time of day you need anything call me.”

What happened here is the boxing writer exposed that King’s demand for $5m was his way to kill the fight he and Holyfield didn’t really want, but they were pretending to want it to protect their value and save face. They didn’t want the public to know they were the ones blocking the showdown with Lennox Lewis. Later on Holyfield demanded I believe it was $20m to fight Lennox, and then when the promoters were about to sign the fight, suddenly Holyfield demanded an extra $5m, which killed the fight he really didn’t want. Finally later in 1999 Holyfield finally fought Lewis and lost the fight clearly but the judges gave him a controversial, disputed draw (cries of fix forced the rematch). Then later in Nov. Lewis won the rematch by decision and became undisputed heavyweight champion.

But back to this particular boxing writer. For following Don King’s dictates, he was later rewarded with a TV job for Showtime Boxing. This same writer later was manipulated to slander Manny Pacquiao as a steroids cheat, the prime suspects being Floyd Mayweather and his manager Al Haymon, who did not want to fight Pacquiao even for over $100m. They had guaranteed TV contract with HBO for multi millions and the freedom to pick lower risk opponents than the super dangerous high risk Pacquiao. So this boxing writer penned a column saying a Pacquiao team member emailed him asking the writer what would be the punishment if Pacquiao tested positive for steroids? It was obviously a fake news article and letter as he did not show the letter or name the writer of the letter. Another ESPN boxing analyst also said he got the same email, a Pacquiao team member asking what would be the penalty if Pacquiao tested positive. So this created the impression Pacquiao was cheating with steroids, which Mayweather was accusing Pacquiao of doing, in order to have a plausible reason to avoid fighting him and losing by knockout. Pacquiao later sued Mayweather for slander and won the case and a huge undisclosed settlement. Mayweather ducked Pacquiao for six years until the head of Showtime and parent company CBS tired of Mayweather picking easy fights which were generating less profits so they forced him to fight Pacquiao in 2015.

Now this particular boxing writer has been rewarded with a new job as a vice president for Haymon’s boxing promotion company Premier Boxing Champions.

So now we see how so many members of the American mainstream tennis media are all together in bashing and backstabbing Novak Djokovic. You know the culprits – Patrick McEnroe, Shriver, Gilbert, Navratilova, Rothenberg, Wertheim, etc. This lynch mob attack is most likely not happening by chance, it has to be coordinated by design and then executed relentlessly. The big question is who hatched this wicked idea and who orchestrated it? Who is the puppetmaster?

Keep an eye on how the most virulent anti-Djokovic media are later rewarded with bigger jobs. Or perhaps they are doing it primarily to follow orders they are being given or to maintain their current jobs.

There is no doubt there is an organized media smear campaign against Novak Djokovic and not against Nadal, Rublev, Moya, Korda, who all recently tested positive for Covid but competed at AO while Djokovic was run out of the country for refusing to take a drug shot he feels he doesn’t need.

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5 comments

  • Rock · January 24, 2022 at 9:32 am

    The writer in boxing that spread lies on pacquiao and now the vice president of pbc is TIM SMITH. Am I right scoop m?

  • Scoop Malinowski · January 24, 2022 at 11:16 am

    and it was atlas teddy who pushed the same phake news propaganda story of the Pacquiao team member emailing and asking what would be the penalty if Pacquiao tested positive however neither presented any photographic evidence of the alleged letter or named the team member. Obvious phake news slander story to character assassinate Pacquiao, very similar to the orchestrated character assassination smear campaign by the phake news media which as Donald Trump said “is the enemy of the people.” Which can also be inferred to mean “the enemy of the world.”

  • Scoop Malinowski · January 24, 2022 at 11:43 am

    Alize Cornet officially admits she’s a drama queen: “That’s who I am. I mean, I can’t hide my true nature. If I’m a drama queen for the people, then I am (smiling).”

    When will Bibi come clean? :0

  • Scoop Malinowski · January 24, 2022 at 11:56 am

    Note: Must change comments procedure as comments section is being flooded with spam no doubt related to my adamant unyielding support for Novak Djokovic. -Scoop

  • Scoop Malinowski · January 24, 2022 at 1:08 pm

    Cornet reaches major QF for first time since 2009 and 63 attempts… Medvedev admits he called Cressy’s game boring to rattle him and break his focus: Medvedev on his “so boring” comment: “During the match I got a little bit crazy, I think with myself. I was trying to talk something in the air to get into his mind a little bit so maybe he starts saying ‘what the hell is Medvedev saying’ and misses some shots.”

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