They are husbands and friends and champions and victims of the business that pays their bills.
Nonito Donaire and Robert Guerrero and Andre Ward are three world-champion boxers who live in the Bay Area. Arguably the three best fighters among active Americans, they could be so much more. Clean-cut and photogenic, from three different ethnic groups, with engaging personalities, they look as if they were carefully selected from an old Benetton fashion billboard.
Were they golfers or auto racers or tennis stars of this stature, they certainly would be featured in local events as well as commercials in Northern California, if not the nation.
Yet their sport is too fractured and bound by red tape to assemble all three on a Bay Area stage -- even though each readily welcomes the idea.
"That's a dream. That would be sick," says Donaire, a 28-year-old Asian-American who grew up in San Leandro and now lives on the Peninsula.
"I really believe all three of us together would sell out any arena in the Bay Area -- guaranteed," says Guerrero, 28, a Mexican-American who was raised and continues to reside in Gilroy.
"Sign me up," says Ward, 27, an African-American who spent his childhood years in Oakland and Hayward but now lives in Dublin.
"Seriously, where do I sign? That would be an honor and a privilege. That's the kind of stuff you have to do."
It's the scenario Ward (23-0, 13 KOs) recently was considering at King's Gym in Oakland, promoting his World Boxing Council super middleweight title defense against Arthur Abraham -- a semifinal in the Super Six tournament -- next Saturday at Home Depot Center in Carson, to be televised by Showtime.
Ward-Abraham may sell out the 8,000-seat HD Center. Guerrero's last bout, a 12-round demolition of Robert Katsidis on April 9 at MGM Grand in Las Vegas, drew a crowd of 7,100. Donaire's last fight, a sizzling second-round knockout of Fernando Montiel last February, drew 4,805 at Mandalay Bay Events Center in Las Vegas.
Putting all three on a local megacard would bring out not only boxing junkies but others curious about this captivating and engaging trio.
Guerrero (29-1-1, 18), who last year vacated his super featherweight title before winning the World Boxing Organization InterContinental lightweight title, earned World Boxing Association and WBO lightweight belts with his win over Katsidis.
Donaire (26-1, 18) earned WBC and WBO bantamweight belts -- his third championships in three divisions -- by stopping Montiel.
The Three Champs present a marvelous marketing opportunity, capable of selling local and regional products or filling local arenas -- if only they were members of a more cooperative sport.
But as boxing in the U.S. gasps for air, disparate forces can't seem to decide how best to administer the oxygen. The decline of boxing's once-broad popularity in this country surely can't be blamed on violence. Not when we obsess over football and when Mixed Martial Arts is one of our fastest-growing sports.
Boxing's nemesis is not its blood but its own inability to embrace the regulatory simplicity that would work to its benefit, if it were streamlined, with one sanctioning body, one league so to speak, instead of a confusing alphabet avalanche of IBFs and WBAs and WBCs and WBOs.
And we would have local events featuring the Three Champs, generating multiple sellouts of Oakland's Oracle Arena and HP Pavilion in San Jose -- if not larger outdoor venues on each side of the bay.
But because boxing is so complex, much to its own detriment, we have yet to experience Guerrero, Donaire and Ward under one roof. And we may never, certainly not as long as they are represented by different promotional interests.
Ward is promoted by Dan Goossen of Goossen-Tutor Promotions, Guerrero by Oscar De La Hoya's Golden Boy Promotions and Donaire by Bob Arum's Top Rank. Donaire's recent attempt to move to Golden Boy was halted by an arbitrator, putting the boxer in promotional limbo, between two men, Arum and de la Hoya, with a history of conflict.
"There are a lot of obstacles," Goossen concedes, citing competing networks (HBO and Showtime) as a factor. "But I know if there was any possibility to do something like that, I would be the person to pop the balloon."
Three local boxers, all defending their titles, all in front of a local crowd, is an intriguing concept. It would be an event unlike any other in Bay Area history.
"At the right time, hopefully sooner than later, maybe after this tournament is over, our promoters should sit down," Ward urges. "Maybe we as fighters should go to our promoters and see what can be done. I know Dan would be open to something like that.
"We could take it to San Francisco -- anywhere. To be on a card with those guys, that's a situation where I'd feel we're giving something back."
It also could make sense on a variety of levels, including financially and as a marketing vehicle for a sport that could use the help.
Boxing being subjected to the business of boxing, though, don't anticipate this. Even when this sport can visualize the long-term benefits, it can't suppress its cannibalistic nature.
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