Lance Revill has been accused of sedition or heresy or both for simply speaking his mind. 'Bull****” was the word the president of the New Zealand Professional Boxing Association applied to Joseph Parker's win over Andy Ruiz Jr. Revill said 'something stinks” about the result and that Ruiz got 'ripped off.” Fair enough I think – it's the considered opinion of a respected and experienced boxing administrator. I don't have to agree with it but I would fiercely respect his right to say it. And his opinion is as worthy as any other. But what I found offensive and symptomatic of NZ sports ugly underbelly was the response from Parker's minder Dean Lonergan. 'Lance Revill is nothing but an irrelevance and he should crawl back into his hole of obscurity and lock the door with the key of irrelevance because, bottom line, the guy's an idiot,” Lonergan is quoted as saying. Revill was expressing a learned sporting opinion. Lonergan turned it into an ugly personal attack. Crude and unnecessary. It had a touch of woeful rugby about it. Question or criticise the game and you will burn in hell. You certainly won't be allowed at any All Black press conferences. Ask Chris Rattue, the most astute and incisive sports writer in the country about that. And Revill wasn't alone. Aficionado Bob Jones thought Parker had been ‘outclassed' by Ruiz. Over time he has also tried to bring balance, to give the Duco phenomenon some context and perspective. That's healthy. Muhammad Ali's biographer Thomas Hauser called Joseph Parker's victory 'an embarrassment” to boxing. Now he's got cred. And he says David Tua would have knocked out Parker in a couple of rounds. Yet you could bet a sweet right cross that Lonergan would have hated that too. Duco doyen Dean's been carefully and successfully manipulating the media in the lead up to this scrap. Now we have some free thinking. That's the job of the fourth estate isn't it? To record the facts, opinion, keep people honest and people informed so we can make up our own minds.

S Smith, Bureta