by David P. Greisman

The press conference was for the upcoming welterweight title unification bout between Keith Thurman and Danny Garcia. The headlines that came from it, however, weren’t about the two fighters, but rather about one of the fighter’s fathers.

Angel Garcia, who trains former 140-pound champion and current 147-pound titleholder Danny, let loose a tirade that included a torrent of unrepeatable slurs — best described here as a variation of the N-word.

The good news out of this bad news is that boxing, for once, is so far reacting in the right way. Garcia is being roundly and rightly condemned. He and his misbehavior are not representative of the sport, after all.

But Garcia does present yet another example of how the sport has too often enabled this kind of behavior. Those who speak or do unacceptable things too often face too little in the way of ramifications — whether it is from promoters, sanctioning bodies, athletic commissions or television networks.

If boxing is finally making an example of Garcia, then it needs to make sure that he is not the exception.

Lou DiBella, the promoter heading up the March show on behalf of Al Haymon’s Premier Boxing Champions, responded on Twitter later that evening. “N-words, homophobic epithets, and anti-immigrant rhetoric have no place at a boxing press conference (or anywhere else),” he wrote.

The World Boxing Council, whose title Danny Garcia holds, condemned Angel’s actions. The New York State Athletic Commission said that it would consider the press conference incident if and when Angel applied for a trainer’s license in order to work in Danny’s corner on fight night, according to Dan Rafael of ESPN.com.

(The WBC’s new misguided rule banning all fathers from being his son’s chief second doesn’t keep a father from being in his son’s corner.)

DiBella has decided not to allow anyone except the boxers to be onstage during the customary last press conference the week of the fight.

Boxing by its very nature is not a sport that cultivates distinguished behavior. Many of those involved come from rough backgrounds. No matter what background someone comes from, a fighter and his team want to win, and that desire can pour gasoline on a fire. Tempers flare. People curse. Confrontations occur.

As George Carlin once said: “Boxing is not a sport; boxing is a way to beat the sh*t out of somebody.”

There have been rare occasions in the past in which foul language drew a stiff response. The WBC once threatened to suspend Chris Arreola for dropping F-bombs in a televised post-fight interview after his loss to Vitali Klitschko. The British Boxing Board of Control threatened to suspend Tyson Fury and ultimately fined him for letting loose with a bevy of expletives at a press conference for a fight with Dereck Chisora.

There’s a difference between using one of Carlin’s “Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television” and using derogatory slurs. There’s no place for them, even in a sport like boxing.

“Boxing is Keith Thurman’s job. We shouldn’t shrug off getting called racial slurs as being part of that job,” said James Harrison, a friend and boxing observer who cohosts our occasional installments of Fighting Words Radio.

“Even as a black man who uses the N-word, I still have to honor the wishes of other black people who don’t want to be called that or who don’t want to hear that,” Harrison said. “I don’t think Angel understands that.”

This wasn’t the first time that Angel Garcia veered into racial insensitivity. Late last year, 140-pound champion Terence Crawford called out Danny Garcia. The trash talk between camps included Crawford accusing Angel of alcohol and drug abuse. Angel responded via a FightHype.com interview with a variation of the N-word and by making fun of Crawford’s “nappy hair.”

“If you put those quotes from the Thurman press conference and the quotes about Crawford side by side, somebody might say Angel has ill feelings toward black people, at the least,” Harrison said.

Thurman-Garcia is a very good fight and a big event airing on national television. Harrison won’t be tuning in.

“I don’t want to contribute money or even a view to a fight that condones racial slurs,” he told me.

That’s the kind of reaction that would happen most anywhere else, whether it involved an athlete in team sports, a celebrity from the television or radio industry, or a government official. There would be an outcry calling for that offending offensive person to be suspended, fined or fired. There would be demands for an apology. There would be significant pressure on the team or company, or on its sponsors and partners.

Not in boxing.

Boxing is the sport where Mike Tyson could say or do vile things and it would only bolster his appeal as the baddest man on the planet.

Boxing is the sport where fighters in legal trouble still are allowed to headline in the main event, so long as they show up on fight night.

Boxing is the sport where Floyd Mayweather Jr. can call his father a homophobic slur on HBO — the same slur that got Kobe Bryant fined in 2011 — and where Mayweather heads up a pay-per-view while awaiting jail time for domestic violence.

Boxing is the sport where no one with a network or promoter publicly castigated Adrien Broner when he fought despite an open warrant for his arrest.

Boxing is the sport where Tyson Fury and Manny Pacquiao uttered homophobic comments but still were allowed to perform for millions. (HBO distanced itself from Pacquiao’s statements last year but still went on to broadcast his third fight with Timothy Bradley.)

Boxing is the sport in which a journalist named Hesiquio Balderas used racial slurs when referring to boxing manager Al Haymon in emails with a Golden Boy Promotions executive, and that executive’s only response to the writer was to seek further anti-Haymon coverage from additional boxing news websites. (That exchange came out in documents from the Golden Boy/Haymon lawsuit, as reported by Paul Gift of BloodyElbow.com.)

Repercussions just don’t come often enough. The powers-that-be know that they still will make money. There isn’t enough public pressure. If there’s private pressure, it isn’t having an effect either.

Drama is encouraged so long as it might help sell fights. We in the boxing media encourage it as well.

Angel Garcia has been pleasant and courteous in all of my interactions with him. But he has a tendency to overshadow his son, who is reserved in interviews. Angel does the trash talking and the histrionics. Reporters and videographers tend to stoke the embers, knowing that controversy and insults will bring more eyes to our YouTube videos and more readers to our articles, which puts more money in our pockets.

It’s a 24/7 news cycle, and the legitimate reporting and questions about upcoming fights, tactics and training can only go so far. The rest of the unceasing churn is filled by a seemingly never-ending back-and-forth between rival fighters, trainers, managers, promoters and network executives, some of whom seem to spend as much time in the headlines for what they say as they do for what they do.

None of that excuses Garcia. He did this himself. He thrives from the attention and enjoys any opportunity to speak up for his son — and against anyone who may be challenging Danny or Danny’s accomplishments.

He should’ve stopped after his Crawford comments last year.

He didn’t stop, and now he’s gone too far.

It’s one thing to try to get under an opponent’s skin. That should never involve the color of a person’s skin.

“Fighting Words” appears every Monday on BoxingScene.com. Pick up a copy of David’s book, “Fighting Words: The Heart and Heartbreak of Boxing,” at http://bit.ly/fightingwordsamazon or internationally at http://bit.ly/fightingwordsworldwide. Send questions/comments via email at fightingwords1@gmail.com