By: Jon Campbell
Many longtime fans of boxing much older than myself, are beginning to question the credibility of the sport we all love and claim, that is influenced excessively by certain forces which is making it worse for many of those involved. The problem primarily lies with the political and business interests of those high up in the sport. There is much evidence for both corruption and consumerism, and even this year there have been two big events and one other event this weekend on the world scale, which in my opinion are demonstrations of the growing extent to which this sport is becoming a joke and at times a complete mockery. These are firstly, the Brandon Rios (30-0-1, 22 KOs) decision over the Cuban Richard Abril (17-3-1, 8 KOs), Saturdays bout between Heavyweights David Haye (25-2, 23 KOs) and Dereck Chisora (15-3, 9 KOs), and the super-fight between Manny Pacquiao (54-4-2, 38 KOs) and Timothy Bradley (29-0, 12 KOs).
Firstly, the Rios-Abril fight which occurred at the Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas on April the 14th is the first incident I would like to refer to. This bout was on the under card of the WBO Interim Light-Welterweight title between Mexican legend Juan Manuel Marquez (54-6-1, 39 KOs) and Uranian European champ Sergey Fedchenko (30-2, 13 Kos). The bout was for the vacant WBA Lightweight belt in its own right. Even prior to the bout however there were talks of a fight between Marquez and Rios in April. What happened however was that Abril completely outboxed Rios and kept his aggression at bay throughout the majority of the bout, only for Rios to come away with the split decision victory. Many commentators (including myself ) believe that although Rios was expected to come through the bout with little problems, the decision was fixed in response of Abril’s performance in the result that the future fight could happen in the near future. Marquez may have a summer fight lined up but it remains to be seen who he will be fighting but as far as I am concerned, I hope it is not Rios, as despite having a lot of respect for his abilities and wishing him well in his future career, he does not deserve it on the back of a unconvincing victory as it would be.
The next event I would like to discuss is this weekends bout between Haye and Chisora at Upton Park, London. This fight is so hyped with terms ‘hatred’ and ‘rivalry’ in order to get fans to pay up and in my opinion it is for the most part manufactured. Despite the fact that to a degree I subscribe to the fight and no doubt will watch it, I find it less interesting than it is being portrayed. The reason for my view that this fight should not even be happening to a certain degree stems from a few reasons.
The first reason is that this fight has been created solely due to the infamous brawl which occurred in Munich, Germany following the Chisora-Kitschko bout.
Prior to this brawl nobody had any desire whatsoever to watch these two fight. The reason for this is simple, David Haye is both much more experienced and abundantly more skillful than Chisora, and the two are not a good match up at all. No disrespect to Chisora as he did very good against Vitali, but he is an 18 fight novice and was lucky to get the title shot anyway considering he has was recently beaten in fights against EBU champ Robert Helnius (17-0, 11 KOs) and Tyson Fury (19-0, 14 Kos), despite many (including me) believing the Helnius decision was incorrect. The fight in my eyes will be an over-matched and a large anti-climax.
Another interesting dimension to this story is that some believe that the whole brawl was manufactured in order to make this fight more appealing and therefore be a big earner for the two. This I do not necessarily believe to be the case but I would not be largely surprised if it came out to be the case. Reasons given to support this claim are that there was no security on the scene anywhere quick enough than would realistically be the case should it be a genuine hostile situation. Moreover, the fact that Chisora walked over and took his microphone with him towards Haye, appears quite suspect, as it is not something you would expect someone to do should they be filled with rage. This line of thinking would point to the fact that neither evidently are as good as the Klitschko brothers and are to stage a large fight between themselves in order to gain money and possibly another big money match with Vitali possibly.
The most recent and probably most headline-shattering incident of its kind, was the controversial decision that Timothy Bradley received over pound for pound king Manny Pacquiao at the MGM for his WBO Welterweight title. This will rank high and be remembered as one of the biggest robberies in the sports history. Pacquiao put on a great performance against a younger, undefeated and thoroughly determined elite-level fighter, and with all due respect to Bradley, Manny completely outboxed him. The commentary team were completely aware of this and it was plain to see. Bradley ate left after left and had no answer to Pacquaio ferocity, He most certainly won at least ten of the twelve rounds and even those won by Bradley were very close. When the decision came in as a split decision for Bradley, many of the boxing community could not believe their ears.
There have been several possible explanations for this obvious corruption put forward by fellow writers who have since commented on the decision, most of which pointing towards CEO of the multi-million promotional company Top Rank, Bob Arum. These include that Arum has done this to spite Pacquiao. The theory here would be that Manny wants to leave Top Rank and unhappy with this decision Arum wants to get back to Manny by ensuring he leaves with a loss. He has been accused of doing this with other fighters who have wanted to leave.
Another argument is that it confirms many journalists suspicions that Arum wants to avoid the potential bout between Manny and Floyd for the foreseeable future in order to protect Manny from possible defeat against the extremely skilled fellow great, with the intention to preserve Manny’s ‘cash cow’ status as long as possible. Although this can be on the surface quickly refuted as counter-productive, it is not as crazy as one would think. Firstly because Manny will not particularly lose any impetus if he is seen to lose only due to an unfair decision, and secondly, regardless of an unjust decision the increase in marketability of Bradley due to the win is very welcome. This approach sees Arum to be holding out as long as he can until right before Manny retires simply to gain as much revenue from his name as possible, whilst allowing Bradley to continue his undefeated streak and hopefully follow in Manny’s footsteps and becoming a big draw for top-rank.
To conclude, the sport of boxing does require much reform in terms of its structure and accountability in order for it to serve the interests of both the fighters and the fans to an adequate degree. These three examples are perfect in outlining boxing flaws at the present as they are in the mainstream boxing media and are involved with elite level boxing. This couture which has developed does not have a quick-fix either and does not die with a single person or organization as it is deeply-rooted that certain things sell and certain things do not. However, just like any issue this is one that can and should be addressed over the coming years.
