There?s a running joke between Big Rick Robertson and I about which prospects I can and can?t claim to have named as ?sure things? and in my New Year?s resolutions for 2005, I promise to not jinx anybody. At least not until they?ve won a title and defended it a few times.
Of course, by then, assigning greatness packs much less gravitas.
After the 2000 Olympics, Rick and I had a very serious argument over Jeff Lacy and who could claim ?jurisdiction? over predicting success for the strapping young Olympian.
?He?s mine,? fumed Rick. ?I saw him first, and you are NOT going to hex this kid by touting him.?
I smirked and took Francisco Bojado instead.
Big Rick, like most of my peers, has a penchant for gambling and the instincts of a panhandler a buck away from the all-you-can-eat buffet. He is always One Big Score from deliverance ? once when wrongly accused of cheating by a pit boss while playing two hands of blackjack simultaneously, Big Rick laid down his last two chips and proceeded to play $100 a hand while telling the entire staff what rubes they were, at a high decibel level that alarmed other customers. Other pit bosses came to monitor the situation, which was growing tense, as we were the only palefaces in attendance and the exits were far away with several unsympathetic intermediaries in the way. An hour later we were driving off the reservation with $2,300 and the point was made.
?Nobody calls Rick Robertson a liar,? he seethed. He is usually more right than wrong. And in Lacy?s case, he knew the goods when he saw them. We made it to Denny?s without being stomped and the pancakes were especially good.
The point is that sometimes conviction and endurance are better than opting for short-term appeasement, even if it brooks vehement disagreement. And that?s why I think the sanctioning bodies need to be given a push on their way out the door, and perhaps over the cliff. Big Rick Robertson likes the belt idea, too, although he insists on taking credit for that before I ever did.
Many in the boxing media have taken umbrage at The Ring magazine?s awarding of championship belts. Ironically, Ring?s own ratings are a lot closer to most of the media?s than the rankings compiled by the sanctioning bodies.
There?s the debate that those covering the sport shouldn?t make the news. But it?s no different than college football, where writers rank teams. There?s no perfect system, but writer bias is as erring a thing as a machine that spits out rankings based on nebulous concepts like ?power rankings? or ?strength of schedule,? etc. But when was the last time in college football you saw a team ranked in the top five that was there mostly because they were unbeaten against unknowns?
That happens in boxing all the time, and these mis-mandatories essentially are clogging up the fight schedule because their handlers or whomever were connected enough to get them a #1 ranking. They take up network dates when fighters don?t want to be stripped and lose their hardware; in some cases, fighters milk it to get easy paydays while freezing out deserving contenders.
Bitch all you want about how Auburn was left out of the BCS championship, but at least they deserved consideration. In boxing, instead you get fighters that are the equivalent of Bozo State U. playing in the title game.
The Ring belt holders include: Vitali Klitschko (heavyweight), Glen Johnson (175), Bernard Hopkins (160), Winky Wright (154), Cory Spinks (147), Kostya Tszyu (140), Jose Luis Castillo (135) and Manny Pacquiao (126). Anyone who doesn?t have all of those guys in their top two might want to start compiling rankings for another sport, perhaps curling. And yet to the critics who decry Ring awarding belts, this is some sort of moral outrage, some evidence of a slippery slope into collusion between networks like HBO and Ring, who are freezing out certain parties. There?s definitely a conspiracy at HBO– to make good fights that people will want to watch.
The allure of a Ring belt isn?t the be-all, end-all for fighters, but it does carry some historical significance, and pugilists like shiny things they can sling over their shoulder after winning a fight. Perhaps it correlates to some basic primal instinct, to take a prize with oneself after triumph in hand-to-hand combat.
The Ring belt came back in 2002, when the magazine decided to start awarding it again. So far nobody?s been stripped and tough situations have yet to occur; give it time, and the belt itself could be a contentious issue.
Let?s say Cory Spinks defends three times in 2005 but never faces Oscar De La Hoya, the winner of Antonio Margarito-Kermit Cintron, or Shane Mosley. His respective mandatories are Cosme Rivera (IBF), Carlos Baldomir (WBC) and Thomas Damgaard (WBA) with Jose Rivera as WBA champ (or whatever the hell it is when two guys are WBA champs at the same time and one of them is super champ?while the other is champ, but just not as super?.and frankly, I don?t really care if the terminology?s correct, because by mis-repeating a lie, one can subvert the subverters?..kind of like stealing the vehicle of an arch nemesis and returning it with fresh pink paint that won?t come off and plates that say ?SUGRPUS??.but I digress).
And perhaps De La Hoya and Mosley meet again, with the winner facing the Margarito-Cintron winner. Surely, you?d have to rank the last man standing in that tournament as high or higher than Spinks, and that type of situation could easily transpire because Spinks fights for Don King and would be a betting underdog against any of those men. But he is still the belt holder.
Time will tell if he Ring magazine belt adheres to the same moral standard in taking away belts as it ascribes to in giving them. Over a long enough timeline, someone is going to be a less-than-exemplary champion. But it?s doubtful the Ring belt could be as sullied as those of the sanctioning bodies. There will probably not be a Ring magazine ?interim? or ?super champ.? The bar is admittedly low and the magazine will inevitably be forced to make some tough decisions if their belt holders don?t face the best fighters in their divisions due to promotional and network relationships.
For example, let?s say the Ring belt had been around in 1992 when Riddick Bowe dethroned champ Evander Holyfield. After winning the title, Bowe and manager Rock Newman ditched the WBC a month later, refusing to face mandatory challenger Lennox Lewis (who was most deserving of all available foes). Would Ring have let Bowe keep the belt after defending against Michael Dokes and Jesse Ferguson, if he’d beaten Evander Holyfield in their rematch, and didn’t face Lewis for two or three more years? That’s the real test.
Ring has no ?mandatory? contender. It is unclear what they will do if, for whatever reasons of chicanery, a clearly deserving contender cannot get a shot with a champ who fights chumps. What do you do, for example, if a Kostya Tszyu feasts on mandatories for two years while solid contenders can?t get a shot? This will be a litmus test that will require honest action to maintain the belt?s credibility.
But at the end of the day, the presence of that Ring belt might make a difference in getting fights made. Fighters grew up reading Ring magazine. They like the idea of being linked to the pugilists of past. Nobody grew up thinking, ?Damn, I want to be the WBA super champ, right AFTER I win the NABO interim Americas belt. Better hit the roadwork hard today.?
When fighters break ranks with the sanctioning bodies and essentially give them the middle finger, this is the quickest way to get blacklisted for not cooperating with the dominant paradigm and giving up the sanctioning fees. In a sense, there is a price to be paid for repudiating the dominant norms, and those maintaining that system can punish the losers. But they can?t do much to the winners. If Manny Pacquiao wins his rematch with Juan Manuel Marquez, he won’t need the WBA and IBF belts to make money. The organizations will need him.
For example, after Glen Johnson and Antonio Tarver met Dec. 18 for the Ring belt (and the fringe IBO trinket), they waged one of the best light heavyweight fights seen in years, with Johnson taking a close decision. Their reward? Neither is currently ranked by the WBC, WBA, IBF or WBO. For the winner Johnson that?s not a problem, as he?s got HBO behind him. They are expected to rematch next spring, and how ironic that the best rivalry in the division has no sanctioning fees attached to it.
So why was it on HBO? Because it was a good fight and the best matchup in the division. Hopefully Tarver can take a close decision this time and we can have a rubber match through 2005, just to run the experiment out longer. Imagine it ? an entire year of HBO without a single mandatory 175-lb. challenger. It boggles the mind. Anybody bitching about either of them being awarded the Ring belt deserves to watch Roy Jones-Rick Frazier in perpetuity.
Now look at the after effects. If phony sanctioning body fights aren?t on network T.V., that?s a lot less money in fees for them to collect. The WBC could?ve foisted mandatory Paul Briggs against Tarver, but Tarver opted to put it on the line against Johnson, and HBO agreed because it was a much better fight. Briggs can always fight #2 ranked Thomas Ulrich for the vacant belt (or maybe #3, Pietro Aurino). That should net about $153 in gate receipts in lieu of network money. And that?s about how much those fights deserve for being billed as ?championships.?
However, most fighters that give the middle finger to the sanctioning bodies will not be in the position of a Tarver when they lose. They will not have a lucrative rematch available, or marketability to fall back on and network dates secure in their future. At least in Tarver?s case, the sanctioning bodies do not matter because he can make money fighting on HBO because he is a proven commodity. You can fall off the face of the earth fighting the status quo and making a wrong move.
When marketability and proven merit reach critical mass, the sanctioning bodies become irrelevant and don?t dictate to fighters. And when enough fighters decide that it?s better to go another way, the feeling of the alphabet organizations fading into the rearview mirror is a pleasant one, indeed.
The Ring belt isn?t perfect. But it gives recognition to fighters who have done something special and an anchor of clarity to those brave enough to unify and take on the best to establish their supremacy. Now that HBO has decided to reward this by moving away from the sanctioning bodies, the fans are definitely winning.
Given the sanctioning bodies? track record, it?s hard to fathom why those arguing against the Ring belt would do so when that track record is the only alternative. Critiques and debate are a welcome thing, but with no alternative offered, complaining about the best fighting the best only suggests tacit endorsement of a system that is irrevocably corrupt and has been sucking the life out of the sport for too long.
