Snips and Snipes 17 March 2016- The arrogant AIBA

I am trying to work out whether the AIBA are stupid or naïve. They are certainly arrogant. Do they really feel that they can take over professional boxing. Do they know how professional boxing operates? Their President Dr. Ching Kuo Wu said ten years ago he “though it was important that the AIBA should govern the sport of boxing in all its forms”. That shows a total lack of understanding of the situation today where there are multiple sanctioning bodies, and multiple titles. Having one governing body and one champion is an outdated wish boxing has gone way past that. The four major bodies are here to stay and the proliferation of titles will continue and not diminish. The truth is that we tend to be hypocritical about this. Fans and journalists such as myself may say this hurts the sport but if one of our favourite /local boxers wins a title we all get on the band wagon and call him a world champion. Promoters and TV continue to show boxing because it is getting good figures and they have plenty of “world” title fights to sell to fans/advertisers. Whether it is Top Rank, Golden Boy, Al Haymon, Sauerland, Matchroom, Queensberry etc. they all want to have world champions on their books. If there were only 17 world champions power would quickly finish up in the hands of a very few people/ TV companies with others scrabbling for crumbs from their table. One governing body is a pipe dream and a governing body that has no idea how the commercial side of boxing works is doomed to fail. Dr Wu says he wants professionals at the Olympics and says there is no reason why they should not compete in Rio. Rubbish. The boxing schedule for Rio is already laid down, the time and space allocated has been identified. Those are fixed and firm and the AIBA does not have the power to tell the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to make more time or space available and in male boxing we are talking 250 competitors. The AIBA Rio web site says that the first 17 male boxers would qualify by their ranking in the World Series of Boxing leaving 233 places up for grabs but already they actually list 120 who have qualified with Brazil being allocated a further six slots. There are some weasel words that say that those remaining places will be determined by “ranking, qualifying tournaments or invitation” with that leaving the AIBA to select who they like. They have said the best fighters should fight at the Olympics but unlike athletics, basketball, swimming etc. boxers do not compete every week and their preparation time for a fight can run into months so if the AIBA think that fighters can adequately adjust to fight over the Olympic distance in such a short space of time they again don’t know the professional game. The AIBA is talking about an additional qualification event at the end of June/early July for pros but the boxing at the Olympics starts on 6 August. A time gap that might be OK for boxers who fight every week but not for seasoned pros. When you add that the top boxers will already have some form of contract with a manager/promoter/TV who may not want to release them, that in many countries the amateur and professional boards are separate and not always on good terms, that boxers have their own trainers, that how these professionals will be selected and by whom, who covers the insurance if a professionals suffers a career ending injury, etc, etc, etc The devil is in the detail and it seems to me the AIBA are making assumptions from a helicopter height with no idea what happens on the ground. The AIBA arrogance comes from the value of an Olympic gold medal, not monetary value but the realisation of a dream, and they control access to that which is the only reason they are making any headway on this scheme of theirs. They have threatened retribution to any amateur body which does not cow to their demands but the pro game is a much more fractured and fractious scene and the pro sport is only just now starting to fight back.
What upsets me most is the crushing of the dreams and hopes of so many youngsters who go to a gym with dreams of one day winning a gold medal at the Olympics. Mr Wu has no concerns over mismatches because of their stringent qualification tournaments but there is a world of difference between being a member of an elite boxing programme-effectively being paid to fight- and the plight of the amateur bodies in Africa where some countries do not have the money or the facilities to make it any sort of level playing field. One country could not afford to send its team to the African qualifier and another could not afford to send a doctor with the team. It is difficult getting the money for amateur boxing out their governments now and sponsors (if any) and if the government and sponsors perceive that the chances of their boxers getting any sort of medal in competition with professionals is zero they won’t want to throw their money away.
Go away AIBA-we don’t need you and don’t want you.
The WBA got some good press out of their “one heavyweight champion” tournament but really it changes nothing. They have a real champion in Tyson Fury who won the title against the real champion. However according to the WBA the return fight between Fury and Wlad Klitschko is just a quarter final in their “tournament” and the winner of that must fight the winner of a fight between Luis Ortiz and Alex Ustinov to get to the final. On the other side of the draw were Ruslan Chagaev and Lucas Browne a fight which Browne won so he is in the semi-finals. He will fight the winner of a fight between Fres Oquendo vs. TBA. That’s the Oquendo who has not had a fight for almost two years, but when they tried to screw him over his fight with Chagaev, he took them to court and won, so he has to be in the tournament and goes straight into the semi- final. It is quite clever really as it assures the WBA of six title fights and six lots of sanctioning fees. The easy way to achieve the same end would have been to stop having Interim and secondary titles and just recognise Fury as the one world champion-as he truly is in everyone’s mind except that of the money for brains WBA. The biggest bit of hypocrisy came in their announcement of the Tournament when they said they were holding the Tournament “In order to have one champion like everybody is expecting from the WBA, and like everybody wants”- but only in the heavyweight division it seems. If you want to talk delusional hypocrisy ratings then that remark shows that the WBA are No 1 and we all know that within six months the WBA will forget all the rubbish in the announcement of the tournament and reintroduce the interim and secondary titles.
Am I being too hard on them? Well last weekend Juergen Brahmer defended their secondary title against Eduard Gutknecht. That’s the Gutknecht who was not in their ratings published 19 January but on 15 February suddenly appeared at No 7! Blatant manipulation next step will be to recruit some former FIFA board members.
As a Scot I am glad to see Ricky Burns getting another shot at a title. It would certainly make him unique if he could become a world champion in a third division. The WBA did there usually reverse magic. It is part of every magician’s bag of tricks to make thing disappear but they can also make them magically appear. In the case of Burns he beat Josh King on 7 November but that did not get him a rating in the 10 December ratings of the WBA. It also did not get him in the ratings issued 19 January, but hey presto! Burns is now No 14 and he fights Michele Di Rocco for the vacant secondary WBA title in May. The WBA can explain that a couple of fighters had lost so they were taken out and Burns was next in line but that does not explain why when their “world “ title becomes vacant they pair their No 2 Di Rocco with their No 14 Burns. What’s is the point of fighting tough fights to get into the ratings if the WBA just ignore any sense of precedence in their own ratings and pick No 14 instead of anyone from 3 to 13. Of course Clause 28 in the WBA rules whilst looking fair leaves them with an out. The rule for filling a vacant title reads as follows: “In the event that a World Championship is declared vacant, unless the Committee elevates an Interim Champion to Champion at its discretion, generally the two (2) highest rated available boxers shall be designated by the Committee to fight for the title” Note the weasel word “generally”. Good to see Burns back at the top, but what ain’t right ain’t right.
It will also be good to see Gary Russell back in the ring. He defends his WBC feather title against Ireland’s Patrick Hyland (31-1) in Mashantucket on 16 April. It will Russell’s first fight since winning the title with a crushing win over Jhonny Gonzalez in March last year. Irish boxing is on a high right now and a victory for Hyland would be a huge boost. They could just about fill the show with their respective families as Gary has two brothers who are top class amateurs also named Gary and Patrick’s brother Paul is also a pro. Usual tap dancing with the ratings as Patrick has gone from No 37 in the WBC ratings posted 14 January to No 16 in the WBC ratings issued 9 March ready to be “slipped” into the ratings next month in time for the fight. You have to feel sorry that none of the 36 fighters ahead of him even got a sniff of a chance at the title.
Manny Pacquiao is not the only boxer with politics on his mind right now. Ghanaian Braimah Kamoko has announced he will not be fighting for the next twelve months as he is devoting his time to help the incumbent President of Ghana in his campaign for re-election. Not too sure how much of an asset he will be as he was giving his press conference one day after being released from an overnight stay in jail for allegedly assaulting four women.
That of course is not as much of high profile case for boxing as that of Celestino Caballero who was caught transporting a couple of large bundles of cocaine. Caballero has admitted the charges and faces a lengthy jail sentence probably made worse by his refusal to name anyone else involved in the trafficking. His last fight was a loss to Adrian Estrella in October 2014 and it is sad to see such a once great fighter go so low. A two-division world champion, he fought in 14 world title fights and was 13-1 in those fights. My initial though was there goes his chance of ever getting into the Hall of Fame, and then I remembered that the great Carlos Monzon murdered his wife and he is there.
It looks as though Deontay Wilder will go into the lion’s den and fight Alex Povetkin in Russia in May. The WBC had already been overgenerous in granting Wilder voluntary defences so if he pulls out of this he should and probably would be stripped. I find this fight more interesting than any in the WBA tournament and much more valid as a title fight than Charles Martin and Anthony Joshua. All this activity is down to Tyson Fury beating Wlad Klitschko which has released a log jam of heavyweight fights.
The fight for the vacant EBU heavy title is also a good fight for both Kubrat Pulev and Dereck Chisora as it gives both a chance of going forward to a world title fight. Pulev took 11 months out after losing to Wlad Klitschko and has returned with two modest level wins. Chisora is becoming the “Derry Mathews” of the heavyweight division for the number of times he has been knocked back only to fight hard to resurrect his career. It is also being talked of as an IBF title eliminator. That must be true as between the IBF ratings of 3 December and the current ratings Pulev jumped from No 13 to No 8 and Chisora from No 15 to No 9.
That bit of “ratings adjustment” from the IBF is easily surpassed by their manipulation over Akira Yaegashi, defence of the IBF light fly title against Mexican Martin Tecuapetla in Tokyo on 8 May. The Mexican has a modest 13-6 record. He had three fights last year, a six round draw, and a victory over a guy with an 8-12 record and in his last fight on 10 October a win over a journeyman with a 37-14-4 record who was rated No 120 by BoxRec and was coming off a loss to a guy with an 11-0 record. Naturally on that basis he could not be rated surely?. No he wasn’t rated, well not until 4 months after his last fight when he was suddenly IBF No 14 and now after five months without a fight he is No 10 (since the No 1 & 2 spots are vacant effectively he is their eighth rated boxer). Hey guys if you talk to your ratings chairman you better check he is not wearing a wire you know how that ended up last time. On the same Tokyo show Naoya Inoue faces David Carmona the mandatory challenger for his WBO super fly title.
Going back to the EBU there are some good fights being lined-up. Juli Giner was to have defended his EBU super feather title against Guillame Frenois which would have been a good fight. However Giner will now fight Miguel Roman in a WBC eliminator and Frenois will face fellow Frenchman Samir Ziani for the vacant EBU title. Purse offers for the return fight between Ruben Nieto and Lenny Daws for the super light title are due on 22 March. Nieto won the title in December when Daws was controversially disqualified for a butt in the tenth round when in front on all three cards. Russian Igor Mikhalkin will defend the light heavy title against Frenchman Mehdi Amar on 7 May. The Russian comfortably outpointed Patrick Bois in a title fight at the weekend. He was to have fought Amar in a voluntary defence but Amar was injured. This leaves mandatory challenger Enzo Maccarinelli still sitting on the shelf waiting his turn. Mikhalkin seems to be harvesting French/French-based fighters. So far in consecutive fights he has beaten Doudou Ngumbu, Mohamed Belkacem, Hakim Chioui, Hugo Kasperski and Bois. The Liverpool show on 2 April will see a big test for unbeaten Callum Smith as he challenges Hadillah Mohoumadi for the EBU super middle title. Smith is already No 1 with the WBC but the Frenchman is a tough opponent who has won his last 5 fights by KO/TKO. Liverpool on 4 June will see Ryan Farrag defend his bantamweight title against former interim WBA fly title challenger Kamil Guerfi and James Dickens defend his super bantam title against the EU champion Spanish-based Dominican Abigail Medina. What is it with these Spanish names-Juli and Abigail-in these days of female boxing my old brain can’t deal with it. Sylvester Stallone in “ Abigail” the sequel to Rocky XI-“ don’t miss it.
Ovill McKenzie will challenge for the vacant cruiser title against Dymtro Kucher in England on 30 April. In Florence on 22 April Gianluca Branco defends the welter title against Leonard Bundu in a real clash of veterans with Branco 45 and Bundu 41. They have both worn well although Branco is having his first fight since winning the title in November 2014.
My heart and my condolences go out to the family, friends and colleagues of Shona McTaggart who died recently after a long battle with illness. Shona was the lady who made sure things went smoothly for Rodney Berman’s South African Golden Gloves organisation and if they did not it was Shona who sorted them out and got them back on track in a tough but firm way. I know the whole Golden Gloves team will miss her deeply so RIP Shona.
The President Emeritus of the WBA Gilberto Mendoza also died recently. I have never pretended to like much of what the WBA does although much of it arises out of the need for sanctioning bodies and promoters to find a working relationship. For the WBA he served as President for thirty-three years before passing the leadership to his son. He took over the Presidency at a time of considerably in-fighting and left the organisation much stronger than he found it. He also introduced and drove the WBA KO Drugs campaign to show that in these areas the sanctioning bodies can give a lead. My condolences go to his family.
On a different note it was uplifting to see Paul Williams getting into the training side of boxing. It has been almost four years since a motorcycle accident left him paralysed from the waist down just as he was preparing for a big fight with Saul Alvarez. It has taken a lot of pushing from his trainer/manager George Peterson and a lot of courage from Paul to get him back into a role in boxing and he deserves every success.
Can’t say I am too keen on the Ruslan Provodnikov vs. John Molina fight. Molina has shown in consecutive losing efforts to Lucas Matthysse, Humberto Soto and Adrien Broner that he is too brave for his own good and Provodnikov is the wrong type of fight for him.
Puerto Rican rising star Felix Verdejo is back in the ring on April 16 when he faces Bolivian Franklin Mamani. The bar has been set so high for Verdejo that although the 22-year-old, 20-0 fighter, won almost every round against 23-0 William Silva he failed to impress. Mamani’s record is 21-2-1 but he has spent the last four years fight[ng mainly local opposition in Bolivia, so the figures are meaningless. Hopefully Verdejo will get back to top form as fighters with his talent are the future of the sport.
Still on Puerto Rican’s, Roman Martinez has not rushed to embrace a fight with interim champion Miguel Berchelt . Martinez will wait until April 7 when he will get the doctor’s opinion on his injured hand and then make up his mind. Martinez vs. Berchelt would be a real war so let’s hope it happens.