Thank God for boxing websites!

Paul Foley makes the case for Boxing websites

Boxing Monthly's September edition certainly caught my eye with a story on BoxRec and the controversy surrounding the forum.

I felt the piece unfairly represented this site and could leave the impression that this is an 'anything goes' medium (which it isn't).

While I'm not personally a huge fan of forums, I realise they provide an outlet for 'real fight fans' (and even people who know nothing about the sport) who wish to voice their opinions and feelings, and at least it gives an opportunity for their comments to be considered as useful ideas for the better of the noble art.

Of course like anything good it is open to be misused and abused, which is the very reason all posts are moderated.

Fight forums and fight websites alike wouldn't have risen to where they are today had the mainstream media not thrown the towel in on boxing.

Unless a boxer is a high profile one he has little or no chance of ever getting a mention in daily newspapers, leaving websites as the main source of boxing news feed and I will blow BoxRec's trumpet as being respected worldwide by boxers alongside some other equally good sites.

Since writing on the internet for BoxRec News and before that Britishboxing.net, I've been able to gain valuable experience of ringside reporting, attending press conferences, visiting gyms and generally building a decent sized contact book.

Without sites like these I may never have had the platform,and it's enabled me to see first hand with my own two eyes how boxing works or in some cases doesn't.

I totally agree with Audley Harrison who told me back in April 'perception is not reality.'

Many of the recent fights and press conferences I've attended have been for the most part totally ignored by mainstream boxing journalists and while I understand that can be down to their Sports Editor showing little or no interest in gloved action it means without websites most boxing would go unoticed and unreported.

While I appreciate writers like Ron Lewis of The Times, Jeff Powell of The Mail and Kevin Mitchell of The Observer, much of what is wrote else where is little more than a press release or what has become known in the trade as 'churnalism'.

When I was in my teen years during the eighties, the newspapers, TV and radio were filled with boxing stories, but sadly today that is not the case.

Tuning into Sportsweek every Sunday on Five Live, I eagery await a boxing item and most weeks my waiting continues until the following week and unless Amir Khan, David Haye, Carl Froch or Ricky Hatton names are mentioned for a performance or a pending fight then I again begin hoping the Beeb will one day wake up and realise boxing is still packing a punch.

So unless the mainstream media has a radical revolution the internet will continue to be a major yet sometimes unappreciated and highly criticized necessity.

How does and up and coming fighter get any profile if no one says or writes anything about him?

Fighters and writers alike now have an internet service capable of giving them the necessary exposure to make their personal dreams come true.

Of course some things that people say can be a bit too personal and completly unnecessary. The comments made about Amir Khan because of his ethnicity and religion are absurd and downright ignorant - here, I refer to what I've seen posted next to fight clips on YouTube, and I have no time for that kind of nonsense.

The best way of dealing with that is zero tolerance and minimum publicity, but in spite of these weeds I say the flowers of boxing websites are blooming.

Can you smell the roses?