Prisons are full of just deserts. People who got a Karmic whack in the scrotum. I never met an ex-con who said they got a fair deal, but then I never met a victim who said the same thing either. The balance?the righteous truth of the thing?lies somewhere in the bloody, broken, stolen, middle, like a dead deer on a highway. No roadkill asked to be there. It just is. Karma.
Bored, and looking for kicks, Karma has descended on boxing, legal papers in hand, juiced up beyond all realms of cosmic sanity. And it was angry.
Eddie Hearn and Dillian Whyte engaged lawyers?after forgetting to engage their own morals?and allegedly slapped injunctions on anybody with a pen or a keyboard or a means of cutting off PPV income. Rivas looked for support from Yvon Michel and found a counter claim that he himself had tested positive before the fight. No sense at all has come from anybody, but more than that, not one ounce of apology or care has come from Matchroom, Sky, or Hearn. It?s okay to ?follow protocol??and this is a large shield to hide behind when Karma starts to rev its engine outside of your penthouse?but we all know what right and wrong are, where they are, and how they relate to each other. Choose to ignore what?s right and Karma will hunt you mercilessly. A WBC suspension is not the end of this sorry sordid tale, and even if Whyte?s ?B sample? comes back as clear as Evian water there have been many losers in the sport over this one.
Amir Khan fought for a lot of money in Saudi Arabia a couple of weeks ago against Billy Dib. Some people said this was akin to Mayweather knocking a child-like kickboxer about in Tokyo, that this was not sport. The Dib bout was an exhibition?a bent rifle at a state fair. And this fair had rocked up in one of the worst countries in the world for human rights abuses. Even the smell of old donut oil couldn?t hide the stink from this shitfest. I hated the thought of it all and didn?t watch even though I could have done so for free. But Karma watched. And Karma didn?t like what it saw and smelled.
Rumor on the corner ropes today is that Khan and Dib have been stiffed by the event promoter (Bill Dosanjh) and, possibly, its manager (Asif Vali) too. Sources for FightHype say that the Saudi government provided $10 million for the event, inclusive of purses, but that the fighters have been paid ?well below expectations.?
And now, like two falling slabs of uncastrated boar meat, Alexander Povetkin will fight Hughie Fury on the Lomachenko vs. Campbell undercard on August the 31st at the O2, London. Two convicted heavyweight drug cheats. I like Hughie, personally, and I?ve spent a bit of time in his company. I never saw him take drugs, mention drugs, or eat wild boar. But, then again, I could say the same about Alexander. If either man took drugs deliberately then more fool him. You could argue that Hughie?s losses to Parker and Pulev redressed the balance and paid any debt; Karma has moved on to some other poor sap. Alexander was beaten like a snake in a schoolyard both times he got in a title fight. His debt may well have been paid too.
The winner of the bout will be in some form of title fight at some point, I?m sure. Fate has started to turn into the wind for one of them. As for the others on the Karmic payback list??the headlights may well be approaching, fast.
