We've covered the politics of media credentialing pretty heavily over on Cagewriter, the Yahoo! MMA blog. Dana White and the UFC have banned certain folks from attending its events. Some may think this is unique but the same thing is happening with boxing promotions according to Mike Marley of the Boxing Examiner. Marley has worked in and around the game for years. The former N.Y. Post columnist is an excellent writer but he's been hammering Ricky Hatton in the lead-up to the fight saying the Brit has no shot against Manny Pacquiao.

Now Marley has been denied a fight night credential from MagnaMedia, the company in charge of managing the hoard of "media" asking for access. Marley thinks it's simply because "Hatton's hillbillies" as he's calling them, and Golden Boy Promotions are angry with what he's written:

A fight publicist said, "I don’t know who in the Hatton camp you pissed off but they won’t even hear of you getting a press credential! The mention of Michael Marley had them breathing fire!"

If I have to suck up to Hatton and his acolytes to get a free pass to the fight, with my record as a journalist at The Las Vegas Sun, The New York Post, ABC Sports and numerous boxing magazines including Boxing Scene and The Ring, then I’ll accept the refusal every time.

Marley was on the other side years ago working in PR for Don King when he encountered a similar scenario:

"This nonsense reminded me of another such brouhaha at the hotel-casino back in the Tyson era. The promoter wanted to put the kibosh on credentials for constant critics Mike Katz of the New York Daily News and Wally Matthews of Newsday. I told King he was 1000-percent wrong. I told him that their newspapers deserved credentials and that banning the two scribes would only inflame the situation. OK, King said, then let’s put them up in the balcony nosebleed section. King was my boss back then but he was wrong in trying to suppress the press. He was wrong then and Team Hatton is wrong now. And so is Golden Boy.

This isn’t really about me, is it? It’s about the freedom of the press and that’s something a lot bigger than any prizefight, any fighters and any reporters.

These bans are too common in the fight world. In an era when fewer and fewer media outlets have any desire to cover boxing why turn down coverage? It was sad to check in on New York radio this morning and hear a complete non-event like the Kentucky Derby mentioned dozens of times on the Brandon Tierney Show on ESPN 1050 and not once hear a mention of this "mega-fight."

This is a dangerous game to play with these big fights. Boxing can pick and choose who it wants to cover the high-profile fights but then wonders why no one shows for a second-tier fight like Paul Williams versus Winky Wright. There was little media coverage of that fight and consequently a pathetic crowd of 5,400 filled the 11,000-plus seat Mandalay Bay Events Center a few weeks ago.