By Jake Donovan

As thousands of family members, friends and fans gather to pay their final tributes to Vernon Forrest on Monday, the most often single word question to be asked will be “Why?”

Why was a man who gave so much outside the ring put in a situation where a final act of kindness resulted in his last minutes on earth?

Why was a man who spent much of his adult life giving back to his community led to believe that carrying a weapon wasn’t just an option, but an absolute necessity?

Why did it take his winning a world title ten years into his career in order for the boxing world to finally take notice, when he already entered the pro game as an established product?

Why did it take a senseless act of violence resulting in his untimely murder for the media to truly realize what the sport had lost?

In the past several days following his horrific death in the late hours of July 25, 2009, many sportswriters have taken the time to offer their kindest words to the former lineal welterweight champion and 2002 Fighter of the Year. Most of it has been truthful, but many have ignored their own words on Forrest in the past in offering their severely toned-down eulogies, to the point of stretching the truth for what they believed to be the proper way to honor the man.

It’s a shame that it takes death in order to bring out the best in the living. Because prior to July 25, 2009, never has there been this much appreciation for Vernon Forrest.

Some have referred to the Augusta (GA) native as having been surly with the media during his days at or near the top of the boxing food chain. Phone calls weren’t always returned, nor were very many questions met with answers allowing for any sort of creative build. When it came to major sportswriters or any other with which he wasn’t immediately familiar, the answers were often short and not always sweet.

There was a reason for that. It’s because he didn’t need your support in 2002, once he made it to the top. He needed it as far back as1992, when first preparing to embark on a journey in the professional ranks.

For at least the first seven or so years of his career, Forrest was forced to toil in virtual obscurity, hardly befitting of one of the best amateur fighters in US boxing history and also a member of the 1992 US Olympic boxing squad.

Unfortunately, this was the tale that would always be attached for Forrest’s name for much of his career – winning in the ring, but lost in the shuffle.

He was never the primary focus of his promoter, Main Events, up to and including his separate title reigns at welterweight. He came in at a time when Pernell Whitaker was regarded as pound-for-pound the best fighter in the world.

The transition from newcomer to prospect to contender came while Arturo Gatti was being shaped as the sport’s greatest action hero.

The championship run? Not even a win over the best fighter in the world at the time – Sugar Shane Mosley – could earn him full respect. His in-ring celebration was cut short by HBO commentator Larry Merchant, who countered Forrest’s claim of his deserving to advance to the top with the insensitive line, “beating Michael Jordan doesn’t make you Michael Jordan.”

Merchant wasn’t alone in the inability to relate to someone like Forrest, but his lofty position among the industry’s premier network puts him in a position to be singled out.

Exactly 52 weeks after the career defining win over Mosley, Forrest engaged in an alphabet unification match with brash Nicaraguan titlist Ricardo Mayorga. He entered the ring to Archie Eversole’s “We Ready,” not the first time Forrest integrated hip hop into his boxing ritual, in fact always going out of his way to represent the hard-working artists from the Atlanta area.

But it would become the first time he was singled out for it.

Three rounds into the evening’s main event, a new welterweight champion was crowned in Ricardo Mayorga. A chain-smoking, beer guzzling, profanity-filled brawler was suddenly pitched as the poster child for the fresh new angle the sport needed.

Forrest’s temporary demise, meanwhile, was not only immediately touched on, but celebrated by the ringside crew. “Let’s see Vernon Forrest come into the ring RAPPING… the next time,” quipped Larry Merchant, moments before conducting a post-fight interview that would end with his lighting up a cigarette for the winner and new champion Mayorga.

That such little issue was taken by any in the media only underlined the confusion that came with what Forrest represented. The inability to look past the music and culture he loved overshadowed his accomplishments in and out of the ring.

Six months prior, he was praised for his work with the Destiny Child’s group home that catered to the needs of those plagued by autism. One loss, and suddenly his love for hip hop and desire to rap his way into the ring was interpreted as arrogance, never minding that he employed a similar entrance for his career-defining win over Shane Mosley in their first fight.

But the misunderstanding of Vernon Forrest didn’t end there. It continued in his second career, returning to the ring in 2005 after rehabbing a shoulder injury that never fully healed.

By then, Forrest had friends in the media who spoke his language. They didn’t work for a major newspaper or a magazine, but resided among the many boxing websites that would spring up over the course of the new century.

The Internet has basically kept the sport afloat for the better part of the decade, largely on the strength of its coverage expanding beyond the 1% of the sport who enjoys elite status. It wasn’t uncommon for a Vernon Forrest feature or exclusive interview to be found on any given website, yet his name conspicuously absent from the sports section of most daily papers.

Most in the media try to portray an image of objectivity, but it’s no secret that more favorable reports tend to come from those whose phone calls are regularly returned.

Vernon Forrest had little use for those who never wanted to be there for him when he truly needed him. He made little use of them once he made it, fell, left or returned.

Even as he elected to let others into his world, all he asked for was understanding from those wanted to be considered his peers. When old injuries resurfaced, interrupting his alphabet junior middleweight title reign, the media was put to the test.

Once-beaten junior middleweight contender Sergio Martinez stood in line, waiting for a shot against Forrest. It would never come, as Forrest was forced to contend with injuries and then sought a tune-up fight rather than going straight to a head on collision with the tough-as-nails Argentinean southpaw. The sanctioning body who claimed him as their champion instead removed the title and handed it over to Martinez.

The move was accepted by Forrest, who didn’t have to like it to know that it was the right thing to do. He never took it personal, instead more concerned with reviving what was left of his career before eventually calling it a day.

It wasn’t enough for many in the media, who still took their shots at a man whom they would later label one of the sport’s good guys. Only he wasn’t alive to see such comments, instead forced to read on a daily basis the beat-to-death claim that he was ducking/running from/avoiding at all costs a fight with Martinez.

The same writers who made such claims opted to leave that part out of their final sendoff pieces. Never while Forrest was alive was it written that plans were in the works for a possible fall fight with Martinez. Such claims were either ignored, or dismissed as more posturing from the Georgia boxer.

Eight bullets in the spine softened their stance, now willingly running with the claim that a November showdown was in his future, only to be snatched away by the senseless act of violence that would claim his life.

Whatever trust issues he carried in the boxing world never translated in public. He was giving to the very end, with his final act of charity resulting in a fatal shootout. A man asks for money, tapping into Forrest’s natural instinct to give to those more in need than himself.

What was in his wallet simply wasn’t enough. The night couldn’t just end in robbery, but with Forrest taking a series of bullets while his back was turned.

As many view his body in a final homecoming, they’ll come to realize that he left the sport and this life always giving far more than he could ever receive.

In the ring, it’s not so much his accomplishments (or lack thereof) that will most likely hold him back from being voted into the Boxing Hall of fame more so than the fighters he never had a chance to face.

At the end of the day, it will be cited that once you remove the pair of wins over Shane Mosley, not much is left in the way of notable achievements. What is overlooked – or at the very least, hardly forgiven – is the fact that few of the sport’s bigger names were in a hurry to get in the ring with a man forever viewed as high-risk, low-reward.

There always existed the storyline of 1992 Olympic teammates facing each other had he ever been able to get Oscar de la Hoya to look his way. It was a fight that not only never happened, but was never even considered by the sport’s all-time biggest box office attraction.

Twice he stood in line as a top contender to one of the sport’s very best fighters in the world. Twice he had to settle for vacant title wins on the heels of Felix Trinidad (welterweight) and Floyd Mayweather (junior middleweight) opting for far more lucrative options.

With Mayweather always stood little chance of a fight happening, anyway. They shared the same advisor in Al Haymon, which also meant a fight with Paul Williams would never materialize. Nor would one with Winky Wright, a matchup suggested by the HBO brass but rejected by Wright, citing Vernon as a close friend as he instead pursued other opportunities.

When all is said and done, all that can be judged is his actual accomplishments in the ring, at least when you lack the intangibles that equally or lesser skilled fighters bring to the table.

That could be where his lack of a relationship with the media ultimately comes into play. Not even a series of bullets in his back and spine are enough to change their minds on that subject, though postscripts offered in the past week reveal that everyone finally gets what he always stood for.

Sadly it’s too late for Vernon Forrest to appreciate in his lifetime.

Jake Donovan is the Managing Editor of Boxingscene.com and an award-winning member of the Boxing Writers Association of America. Contact Jake at JakeNDaBox@gmail.com .