While scanning through Facebook the other day I ran across a posting from a friend that caught my interest and needed further follow-up.
It is an industry standard in the boxing business when looking for information on a fighter’s record, or his competition in a certain weight division to use Boxrec.com.
Most all match-makers, promoters, journalists, managers, and trainers jump to Boxrec when putting together a bout or an entire card. It?s a free service that has been around over a decade, and continuously attempts to unseat the long used company of Fight Fax for approval by boxing commissions in the USA.
Boxrec.com has an issue, and that issue is as follows written to us by President John Sheppard;
?The New Jersey Athletic Commission, Commissioner Aaron Davis and
Deputy Commissioner Sylvester Cuyler refuse to send show report copies
and results to Boxrec. This information is public and paid
for with your tax dollars. We have made many requests to commissioner
Aaron Davis for results to be sent to BoxRec and for unknown reasons
to us we are being ignored.?
?The ABC (Association of Boxing Commission) advises every boxing
commission to send results to both BoxRec and Fightfax. At the 2004
ABC convention held in Charleston, South Carolina, ?the most
significant resolution was that all the membership is required to
submit their boxing results to the three boxing registries, Fight Fax,
Inc., Boxrec.Com and International Brotherhood of Prizefighters.? See:
http://web.archive.org/web/20050728115908/http://www.abcboxing.com/?
According to John ?Something stinks in the State of New Jersey.?
The following questions where put to us by Boxrec.com
Why is NJ refusing to cooperate ?
Is a tax payer funded State authority abusing their position against
all Antitrust laws to support a private monopoly FightFax just because
they are in the same State ?
Does the Freedom of Information Act not apply in New Jersey ?
Why did Aaron Davies have no problem at all sending us reports when he
was the Kansas Commissioner but after moving to NJ he cannot ?
Boxrec goes further by asking Boxing fans to contact New Jersey officials
?We need you to help us publish information that belongs to you by
petitioning the Governor and the Attorney General.
Governor – Chris Christie (609) 292-6000
Attorney General – Jeffrey S. Chiesa (609) 292-4925 ? Please also contact the
New Jersey Athletic Control Board 25 Market St., 1st Floor West Wing Trenton, NJ 08625 (609) 292-0317 (609) 292-3756 Fax
ATTN: Aaron Davis, Commissioner, [email protected] Sylvester Cuyler, [email protected]
and let them know how you feel about not being able to use a free tool to all members of the boxing industry and the public.”
In all fairness to New Jersey and the ABC we contacted both the NJSAC and ABC President Tim Lueckenoff.
New Jersey Commissioner Aaron Davis as of today has yet to reply to questions concerning Boxrec.com though we twice attempted contact by email with over the validity of Boxrec?s concerns.
Tim Lueckenoff, when asked if the 2004 ruling by the ABC of sending bout information to both Fight Fax and Boxrec still stood answered us;
?I saw your email to NJ, the ABC has no authority to require a commission to submit results. You will have to take it up with NJ?
Addressing the concerns of anti-trust issues with New Jersey and obviously other commissions which are required to use only Fight Fax for bout and card approval, 8CN inquired.
What does Boxrec lack that prevents them from competing with Fight Fax for commission usage for professional fights or competing for usage when putting a formal card together.
Our response was;
?I believe the issue is that you (Boxrec) have too many editors who have access to enter information into the database and there are still many records that are not backed up by commission generated results worldwide.?
It is difficult in any industry to unseat a long established rival, it took several years for Apple to dethrone IBM?s clinch on market share on the PC.
When you are discussing the lives and health of an individual, the hardearned ticket money that a fan spends , and the investment of a manager and promoter for fight cards, the concerns of boxing commissions worldwide and in the media rich United States must be given attention.
Living with damaging an opponent for life, putting that fighter out of his sport forever, or even causing death, can be a traumatic, devastating, life altering event for a fighter in both corners of the ring.
Boxing Commissions always need to err on the side of caution when pitting fighters in a bout, yet should not prevent free enterprise or improvements in the sport.
Hopefully Boxrec has an answer for the various commissions? concerns because competition is good for lowering costs in producing events and is truly the American way in business and Boxing. Just as discussion, communication , and transparency can solve most problems without legal wrangling and additional waste of taxpayer funds.
We also see no issue with New Jersey sending fight results to Boxrec.com and preventing the appearance of favoritism to New Jersey based Fight Fax .
Sometimes problems can be prevented for the taxpayer by being open and transparent.
My concern is that I am well aware that the NJSAC has used Boxrec.com themselves from my decade long previos experience as a matchmaker, so why not assist a free product, you have benefitted from.
8CN will continue to cover this issue!
