March 04, 2005 - Recently something very historic took place in the world of boxing. Bernard Hopkins defended his world championship for a record 20th time! This is potentially a record that will never be duplicated again, at least not in this lifetime. The last person to have 20 or more defenses was heavyweight champion Larry Holmes, who had 24 before his first loss in 1988, and before that, the first boxer to have 24 straight defenses was the great Joe Louis way back in the 1940's! So why wasn't the Hopkins victory big news? Why wasn't there massive media attention being paid to this once in a lifetime moment in sports? Quite frankly, it's because no one cares about boxing anymore. A problem that was addressed at the recent press coverage for NBC's upcoming "unscripted reality drama," The Contender.

On the show, there are 16 different world class fighters from around the world competing for the title of The Contender, plus a one million dollar boxing contract and the main event at Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas, Nevada. It sounds pretty interesting already, doesn't it? Well it gets better. I learned that not only do the final two battle it out for the title of "Contender," complete with a championship belt, but all the eliminated fighters come back and fight on the under card of the event. The enthusiasm these young boxers have is indeed very contagious as I found myself already rooting for them during tense moments on the show, and that was just the opening credits. Most of the show takes place in a refurbished building in the greater Los Angeles area (an undisclosed location) that is now referred to as The Contender Gym. This is like no other gym I know. It's obvious that thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of dollars were put into this make-over of sorts. The gym has two levels. On the bottom floor is a professional boxing gym, with all sorts of gym equipment surrounding it. Nothing like you saw in the Oscar-winning flick, Million Dollar Baby.

	-NBC Stallone and Sugar Ray are co-hosts

The show format is similar to most reality shows. The boxers are broken up into two groups. The east is on one side, the west on the other. Each week there are various challenges that must be completed. These challenges vary each time. For example, on this episode the two teams were given a challenge that required team work. This is a little unusual primarily because it's an individual sport. Each team was supposed to carry a six-foot-long telephone pole, with each member grabbing hold of a rope that is fastened to the pole, and run uphill to three other telephone poles. The goal is to travel one mile and half to the top and then, after collecting each pole, stack them on a bench to win the contest. The ultimate goal is cutting down each team to one combatant and then those two fight in the main event at Caesar's Palace.