One of my favorite songs is the classic “Masters of War” by Bob Dylan. I especially like the line that goes;

Come you masters of war….
I just want you to know
I can see through your masks.

You heard Jim Lampley say it live on the air Saturday night on his new series “The Fight game”, which will be airing on HBO about once a month. What did we hear him say? He asked us to #OccupyBoxing.

He asked the fans to make a stand and let our voice be heard. Quite a message coming from a man reading off of a teleprompter, and if you ask me, he didn’t do the best job. I would rather us #OccupySportsAgendas.

The generic talking points of the sports media have become boring and predictable at this point. Worst of all, damaging to the sport. HBO worked decades to make boxing dependent on it and now has our sport at it’s mercy. Jim Lampley was telling us what HBO wanted us to hear.

It’s all part of the plan.

I honestly don’t understand their plan half of the time, but I know they have one. You see, it isn’t the fact that there was a “robbery” that got to them; it’s the fact that one of their cash-cows got the short end of the stick that got to them.

I quote Jim Lampley when the decision in the Sturm-De La Hoya fight was rendered: “… We can’t call it highway robbery but…” Well, why not then?

When Felix Sturm was mugged and stripped naked in the middle of Las Vegas by the Nevada Boxing judges, there wasn’t quite the uproar. Suddenly the old saying of, “taking it from the champion”, which HBO polluted into fan’s minds, wasn’t important enough. Suddenly it was okay and acceptable because the big fight with Bernard Hopkins was around the corner and Sturm losing was just… you guessed it.

(Sturm-De La Hoya last 2 rounds and reaction)

It was just part of the plan.

When things go according to the plan, HBO has turned a blind eye. These type of questionable decisions are rendered all the time. Every single one of us has been part of the minority at some point when deciding who we thought won a fight.

Exhibit A; Dan Rafael, good ol’ Dan has skeletons in his closet. He had Andre Berto beating Victor Ortiz. The same amount of people who feel Pacquiao beat Bradley had Ortiz beating Berto.

Exhibit B; Chris Mannix had Paul Williams beating Erislandy Lara. Sit the hell down.

Exhibit C; Howard Lederman had Paul Williams beating Carlos Quintana. He also only gave Marquez 4 rounds against Pacquiao in their last fight.

That’s how they saw it. They can believe what they want, but at the end of the day, lets really look at this. Do I believe Manny Pacquiao won the fight two Saturday’s ago? Yes, I do. But I also feel he lost last November against Juan Manuel Marquez.

Last Saturday Jim Lampley and company went on a convenient rant about compubox and ringside observers, including fighters who watched the fight. Do they even know that even the Filipino media had Marquez beating Pacquiao?

But Marquez winning wasn’t … you know….

This imaginary collision course that HBO is playing with Manny Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather is the entire reason that joke of a broadcast took place last Saturday. The convenient route of argument is simply a sign of propaganda and HBO’s attempt to clean up its own mess is ludicrous. The best way to cover up a lie is to tell a bigger lie and that’s what they did.

Jim Lampley asked us to #OccupyBoxing and told us to trust only that which we see with our eyes. Yet the biggest influence in boxing is Home Box Office. What he didn’t acknowledge is that his words, screams, and bias influences people. So, of course he’s going to ask you to believe what you watched on HBO.

He wants us to #OccupyBoxing, which he stole from halestormsports.com by the way, yet you want to give us the fights we’re getting on your network? You see, it’s not the message I have a problem with, it’s the messenger. HBO successfully convinced millions of people that we witnessed the worst robbery in the history of the sport last Saturday. Is it only a coincidence that the only round Howard Ledderman gave to Bradley is the one round everyone is claiming Bradley clearly won?

What HBO does, and as Max Kellerman admitted, is sell people a story. They have their punch stats, their compubox, their unofficial ringside judge and their three cheerleaders, all of which they control, and they tell you a story. They try to foreshadow, they try to lead you to the climax and they love their story to end the way they told it.

They’ll sweep a robbery under the rug if it’s part of the plan folks. I don’t believe they ever even got Felix Sturm back on their network after the De la Hoya robbery, and they’re asking us to be responsible and occupy the sport? That Sturm – De la Hoya fight was fun, but a vast majority knew who won that fight despite HBO’s best efforts to make an argument for their then cash cow.

I’m going to start Occupying Boxing by unsubscribing to HBO since they’ve done nothing for my $16 a month. I don’t want to see Carl Froch on your “Gatti List”, I want to see him fight on your network. If you’re going to take stands then let’s take it. Let’s really get serious about this drug-testing issue.

But the one thing you will never do is stop controversial decisions- Ever. They will be around the sport because it’s a subjective sport. When you’re honest with your subjectivity you’re going to be part of the majority at times and part of the minority at times. As far as the lack of clear-cut consistency in boxing, HBO doesn’t want it. They want the scoring to be up to interpretation. They want to say the clean cut shots matter one fight and the overall volume works in another fight.

Here are some things Jim Lampley didn’t tell you last Saturday.

Compubox is deceiving; Compubox is as valuable in boxing as total yards gained in Football. It does not tell you who won the fight. It just doesn’t tell you the story of the fight. Can you get some statistical information out of it? Of course, but you also can with total yards in football. If Payton Manning usually wins when he passes for 300 + yards does that mean he wins every time he passes for 400 + yards? No.

It’s the same in Boxing. Does the guy who lands 50% usually win? Perhaps, but it doesn’t mean if you land 50% you win the fight. The way you score boxing makes punch stats one of the most ridiculous guidelines to go by in all of sports.

Do you know why HBO doesn’t tell the viewers this? Ever? Well Because… that’s part of the plan.

There are 12 rounds in a World title prize fight. You score those rounds individually and any and all success you gain in a single round is obsolete in all the other 11 rounds. The “championship rounds” being worth more than the first 9 rounds is a myth. Each round is worth the same amount of points, if you win it, 10. Now you can argue that it’s not supposed to be that way, but that’s the way it is.

Let’s say you and I boxed for 3 rounds. In the first round you land a big right that swells up the left side of my face, you bust up my nose, you land 100 power shots. I survive the first round and I look like a mess. I only managed to land 10 punches so you win the round 10-9. In the next round I outbox you and land 10 punches but you don’t land any, I win the round 10-9. I do the same Round 3 and win the round. What you would have in this case is me winning the fight despite only landing 30 punches compared to your 100. A left hook which you landed in round 1 makes me look like the elephant man, but I won two rounds. I win on the scorecard 29-28 but compubox is telling a completely different story.

The other problem with Compubox is that it’s done real time, by human beings, which even if unintentional, are prone to make mistakes. Yet, they never go back and revise it. There could be a number of reasons for this. I believe it’s because they want people to think it is accurate, which makes it open to manipulation.

So when Harold Lederman says he’s giving “defense” in the scoring to Pacquiao over Marquez because Marquez’s face looks more busted up, it clearly rings agenda. Where was the uproar for Juan Manuel Marquez?

He had none. When the vast majority felt Marquez beat Pacquiao, ESPN didn’t start a “stop watching boxing” tirade. In fact, Skip Bayless was on their network saying Pacquiao purposely took it easy on Marquez to lure Floyd Mayweather into a fight. That disgusting diarrhea was acceptable even after one of the greatest Mexican warriors in boxing history poured his heart and soul in the ring. Why didn’t the clean shots matter then? Why was volume important then? Why were rounds debatable then? Why didn’t the crowd booing the decision matter then? Why didn’t the majority matter then? Why didn’t ringside unofficial scorecards matter then?

Because… it was all part of the plan.

Whatever this #OccupyBoxing movement is all about, it’s part of their plan. It’s the old Wolves in sheep’s clothing tactic. These are simple psychology tactics. A majority can be wrong, that’s why this nation’s laws are meant to protect minorities.

Now, I believe the wrong man won. But I also felt that way last year. How are we going to expect judges to be consistent if the boxing world can’t be consistent with the way it reacts to decisions?

Perspective is a venomous thing and whether we like it or not we’re all prone to be influenced by crowds, reactions, commentating and what we perceive to be reality at the time. HBO needs to concentrate on buying better fights, that’s their job in the “fight game”. They need to stop their agendas and their plots because all they’ve done is hurt the sport in the process.

So to HBO, shut up and buy better fights.