The outlandish headline made me stop scrolling through my Facebook feed.

While wasting time perusing other ridiculous reels was my intent this particular Thursday morning, the transparent trolling of one of Mark Zuckerberg’s minions made me take a quick look at an obscure boxing “website.” Its nonsensical story stated something stupid like, “Shakur Stevenson doesn’t think Terence Crawford can beat Canelo Alvarez.”

Stevenson, as we well know, has been mentored by Crawford since he signed with Bob Arum’s Top Rank Inc. after winning a silver medal at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro. Crawford and Stevenson are family to one another, thus there is no chance whatsoever that the WBC lightweight champion would’ve said something derogatory about Crawford’s chances of upsetting Alvarez in a highly anticipated super middleweight title fight that likely will take place in September.

Nonetheless, thousands of people probably clicked on what was clearly fictitious clickbait boosted by a massive platform on which the truth seemingly matters less every second of every day. Meanwhile, Facebook’s founder and CEO was laughably busy proclaiming himself masculine on Joe Rogan’s podcast – proud, apparently, that he has created a manipulative marketplace for farcical falsehoods.

Elon Musk maintains a comparable cesspool of misinformation on X, where spineless, anonymous conspiracy theorists – or worse – authoritatively discuss a complex boxing business about which they truly know next to nothing. Instagram and TikTok, until Sunday apparently, are a little less toxic, yet still beyond dangerous because people consume “news” from sketchy sources on those sites related to matters much more impactful on their lives than boxing.

Now that we’re finally up and running at The Ring, my point, boxing fans, is to be careful who you trust in terms of relaying accurate information about the inner workings of this sport and its oh-so-colorful characters. Track records, resumes and accuracy percentages should matter, at least if you’re more interested in the truth and consuming valuable information than advancing agendas, childishly attacking responsible, qualified adults and/or pretending you’re something that there is quite literally no evidence whatsoever to support.

Pay less attention to delusional blowhards who’ve created alternate universes within their damaged imaginations and more mind to well-sourced, professional people who don’t need to convince you they are what their work histories verify. And if you wear sunglasses indoors, maybe remove the obstructions obviously blinding your ability to see what is happening here on planet Earth.

Furthermore, just because you’re credentialed and have a camcorder, an iPhone or a podcast sponsor, it doesn’t make you a journalist. If you’re asks questions of fighters, managers, promoters and/or trainers completely based on unsubstantiated gossip, state your name and outlet as many times as possible during a press conference or scrum and/or ignore protocol repeatedly established by PR staffs, please do better.

If you’re incapable or unwilling to at least act like a professional, don’t whine when you’re not treated like those that do so.

Sure, you’re free to Tweet whatever you see fit, at least according to Musk’s murky guidelines. Just keep in mind that if it is repeatedly proven you don’t know anything about anything, and fancy yourself a reporter, educated, experienced competitors multitask and keep receipts.

Speaking of receipts, the pile has grown mighty high as we monitor our primary “competition” among boxing websites.

The grownups among us at The Ring fully understand we’re more than subject to the often-intense criticism that accompanies this level of responsibility and visibility. Don’t worry, we’ve got granite chins and, at least as it pertains personally, 31 years of being held accountable by libel laws, corporate employers and demanding, occasionally unreasonable readers.

So, please heed this friendly reminder that Halloween is in October.

Stop masquerading as crusaders while simultaneously sullying your own outlet’s reputation through questionable behaviors you should avoid. Accept that you won’t win Pulitzer Prizes parroting reporting rooted partially in speculation.

We’re well aware there are far more important issues with which we should concern ourselves, both in the United States and internationally. You still might want to strengthen your ethical standards as a group, become more aware of what’s actually occurring within our industry and do some real reporting before condemning certain things about which you have consistently shown to know very little.

While a couple points relentlessly stressed are valid, tediously, sanctimoniously screaming from soapboxes while conveniently ignoring what has happened within your own all-glass house is hilariously hypocritical. Sooner than later, the future of your business will need to be built on something other than one-trick grandstanding, erroneous reporting and stealing scoops duplicitously passed off as news you’ve broken.

Smoke and mirrors might mislead the uninformed, but not those of us who know better.

The harshness of this message will likely offend friends, some of whom are fundamentally decent, smart, talented, well-intentioned professionals. Hopefully they’ll understand that these criticisms are strictly directed at the guilty group prone to quite lazily hiding behind supposed ethical standards they fail to uphold on a daily basis.

Regardless, you’re all welcome for the 100-mile head start we doggedly, proudly provided over the course of two decades. Psst – that’s Jesse Owens and company coming up on your right. You won’t even be able to see us in the distance before too long.

GYPSY KING’S RANSOM?: Tyson Fury might’ve meant it when he announced his retirement for the umpteenth time Monday during a brief video posted to his Instagram account.

The former WBC champion surely wants to spend more time with his wife and seven children. The thought of enduring another grueling training camp probably demoralizes him as well.

Ultimately, though, it is difficult to believe the lure of one last enormous payday won’t entice the 36-year-old Fury, still young for a heavyweight, out of yet another retirement to finally fight fellow British superstar Anthony Joshua.

Turki Alalshikh, owner of The Ring and chairman of Saudi Arabia’s General Entertainment Authority, has been very vocal about wanting the GEA to finance Fury-Joshua. As we have learned over the past 15 months or so, the Saudis are willing to pay plenty when they want a specific fight to take place.

From the standpoint of his legacy, Fury (34-2-1, 24 KOs) will want to fight Joshua once he is further removed from a second decision defeat to Oleksandr Usyk (23-0, 14 KOs). Eddie Hearn, Joshua’s promoter, encapsulated the situation succinctly when he said Monday, “It’s always best to come into retirement to make sure someone pays you to come out of retirement.”

RIVALRY REVISITED: The rescheduled English legacy battle between Conor Benn and Chris Eubank Jr. should satisfy boxing fans far and wide.

Not only is Benn-Eubank a dramatic domestic event that’ll do big business April 26 at a stadium to be determined in London, but it should also spare us two fights most of us wouldn’t have wanted to watch.

Benn (23-0, 14 KOs) doesn’t deserve a welterweight title shot, but option B was a fight with WBA 147-pound champ Mario Barrios (29-2-1, 18 KOs) if they couldn’t come to an agreement to reschedule the preferred Eubank bout. Worse yet, Eubank (34-3, 25 KOs) might’ve eventually entered the mix to challenge Canelo Alvarez in another unnecessary pay-per-view fight later this year.

It is unclear who Barrios will fight next. We shouldn’t need to entertain the thought of Alvarez-Eubank again, however, now that they’re headed in more appealing, opposite directions.

IMPROVED PACE: DAZN deserves kudos for the pace it kept while streaming the inaugural Ring awards gala Saturday night from Old Royal Naval College in London.

Once the awards portion of the program began, it became a smooth show to watch because viewers weren’t bombarded by extended breaks between each presentation and continuous chatter that sometimes takes focus from the primary purpose of an event. Here’s hoping it serves as a sign as to how DAZN’s producers will tighten up its boxing broadcasts in 2025.

THE FINAL BELL: For a guy who told us last month in Brooklyn that he doesn’t have much more fight left in him, Gervonta Davis sure spent a lot of time Twitter beefing this week with some of the sport’s figurative heavyweights. Have to deduct two points from him, however, for dragging a man’s wife into Internet insult slinging. Let’s leave innocent family members out of boxing squabbles… Bill Haney shouldn’t have allowed Ryan Garcia anywhere near his son until Garcia agreed to submit to the most comprehensive, VADA-managed performance-enhancing drug testing available as soon as they reached an agreement for their highly anticipated rematch in October. The Haneys made countless costly mistakes in the days before Garcia dropped Devin Haney three times and won a 12-round majority decision April 20 at Barclays Center in Brooklyn. They were granted a do-over only because Garcia tested positive for ostarine, after which the New York State Athletic Commission changed the outcome to a No-Contest. They shouldn’t have wasted any of the leverage they gained from Garcia’s one-year suspension. Garcia could’ve instead taken a rematch with Davis, but he, too, would’ve understandably insisted on the most intense VADA testing for Garcia. … Did Devin Haney really refer to Garcia as “bucko” on Twitter? Who is he, Richie Cunningham? Sure, training camp gets boring sometimes, but there is no way Haney has seen a single episode of “Happy Days,” right? … Enjoying Daniel Dubois’ newfound confidence and outspokenness and obviously understand that talking about future fights is all part of the promotional process. We can only hope, though, that he has studied how Joseph Parker performed against Deontay Wilder and Zhilei Zhang. Dubois-Parker is every bit the real fight February 22 in Riyadh that Dubois accepted when he violently knocked out British superstar Anthony Joshua to retain his IBF belt September 21 at Wembley Stadium in London. … After a slow start to January, within an eight-day stretch starting next Friday we’ll see Naoya Inoue, a solid DAZN card that’ll feature Diego Pacheco, Andy Cruz and Ernesto “Tito” Mercado, David Benavidez-David Morrell Jr. and a Benavidez-Morrell undercard that’ll feature the Stephen Fulton-Brandon Figueroa rematch, this time at featherweight, junior middleweight contender Jesus Ramos against reinvigorated former unified champ Jeison Rosario and Issac Cruz-Angel Fierro in what figures to be an all-action junior welterweight brawl between proud Mexicans. The February schedule is loaded thereafter, too. Multiple promoters, platforms and countries, exactly what we need to grow our sport globally.