Cast your minds back to
2000, when Bob Arum admitted in a US law court that he had paid IBF president,
Bobby Lee, $100,000 to sanction a fight between then-heavyweight champion George
Foreman and German, Alex Schulz. In 1999, Lee was convicted for numerous
offences of racketeering for taking bribes in exchange for high ratings in the
IBF rankings.
These instances would
signal the end of ‘brown paper-bag’ exchanges that had always seemed to be a
staple of the sport however much fans wished it not to be the case. What has
since replaced it is a form of, what I would term, ‘legal corruption’ where
promoters, instead of bribing the president of an organisation (such as Bob
Arum), pay a sanctioning fee and in return receive a ranking and a belt.
One of the main issues
in boxing is that there are too many belts across the four main organisations,
the WBC, IBF, WBA and WBO. The WBA has no less than three world champions in
its organisation, the ‘super’, ‘regular’ and ‘interim’ and the reason they do
have so many belts is that they can charge a sanctioning fee for all of the
titles that they hand out.
It is the unspoken
issue in boxing where both promoters and the sanctioning organisations benefit and
it is the fans who are hung out to dry. Promoters can now manoeuvre their
fighters into a world title shot with regular ease and with little tests along
the way. This means that B-level and below fights are nine times out of ten not
50/50 or even 60/40 match-ups as the promoter will usually hand-pick an
opponent and then have it sanctioned by one of the organisations.
Less belts in the
organisations would mean that promoters would have less opportunity to manoeuvre
their fighters without testing them and therefore more 50/50 fights for fans.
However this is not going to happen as the organisations receive more money in
sanctioning fees for having more belts available for fighters.
It seems to be a never
ending cycle where more and more belts are being released each year. The WBC
diamond belt was made in 2015 and it is considered as a world title. This is
why the Crolla-Linares fight has been billed as a ‘unification’ fight even
though Linares is not the WBC champion. Being a ‘unification’ fight will
inevitably attract a bigger audience to the fight and more money for both
Matchroom and the WBC and WBA bodies.
Fans have been put in
an impossible situation where the sport we love is being ruined by lenient
organisation bodies and promoters who are willing to take advantage of the
situation. More money in the sport means the best are not willing to fight the
best and fighters are now pricing themselves out of fights; just look at the
Gennady Golovkin situation!
It is also the reason
why the German Boxing Board of Control did not announce that Erkan Teper had in
fact tested positive for PEDs until after the fight. They wanted the
sanctioning fees from the fight and therefore did not say anything to Team
Sauerland, even though they knew Teper was on PEDs. This led to David Price
being knocked-out by a fighter that was on PEDs and set his career back even further
than it already had been.
Sanctioning bodies must
be held accountable for bringing the sport into disrepute with the release of
so many belts however it is very unlikely that anything is going to happen. It
is a start that WBA president, Gilberto Mendoza has said that he wants to only
have one champion in each division. However actions speak louder than words.
Tom Eckett
@boxingguru44
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