SONAHR: HALIFAX, Nova Scotia – February 8, 2015 – Last year?s class of Modern category inductees into the International Boxing Hall of Fame in Canastota, New York, were: Joe Calzaghe, Oscar De La Hoya, and Felix Trinidad. This is about as stellar a group as one can gather.
The Class of 2015? No so much.
Riddick Bowe, Naseem Hamed and Ray Mancini are the latest fighters slated to have plaques installed in the sport of boxing?s highest place of honor. Bowe was heavyweight champion during the early 1990s, Hamed held the featherweight title in the late 1990s and early 2000s, and Mancini was a lightweight champion in the mid-1980s. Each of them achieved equal measures of fame and notoriety during their careers. But none of them came close to matching the accomplishments of Calzaghe, De La Hoya, or Trinidad. Yet here they are, all ensconced in the same Hall.
Bowe?s career can be summed up in two words: ?wasted potential.? When he wrested the crown from Evander Holyfield in one of the best heavyweight-title bouts ever, Bowe bore the stamp of future greatness. At 6?5? and 235 lbs, he ? along with similarly-sized Lennox Lewis ? presaged the ?big-man? era of heavyweight boxing, later personified by the Klitschko brothers. Also, Bowe remains the only man to have held all four major heavyweight titles, though not simultaneously. But he held the WBC belt only for about one second before tossing it into a trash can rather than go through with a mandatory defense against Lewis. And he won the WBO title only after losing the WBA and IBF versions in a rematch with Holyfield. After Andrew Golota thrashed him twice, only to lose by disqualification both times, Bowe?s career went downhill faster than a skier in the Winter Olympics. The inner discipline that enabled him to defeat Holyfield in their first fight dissipated thereafter, even though he knocked Evander out in their rubber match. Bowe?s election lends credence to the theory that damn near anyone who ever held a major heavyweight title will eventually get into the IBHOF. In the future, will Bowe be joined there by the likes of Leon Spinks, Tony Tubbs, and Bonecrusher Smith?
Mancini held the WBA lightweight title from 1982 to 1984, making a total of four defenses. Prior to winning his title, he was stopped by all-time great and now fellow hall-of-famer Alexis Arguello. That?s a thin resume for entry into the Hall. Mancini?s notoriety was born from a tragedy: his title-bout stoppage of Korean challenger Duk Koo Kim that led to Kim?s subsequent death. Even so, his boyish good looks and his back-story of winning the title for his fighter father, Lenny, a top contender who never got a chance to fight for a championship, made Ray a prominent media figure throughout his career. If the late Arturo Gatti ? who was in the IBHOF?s Class of 2013 ? deserves to be enshrined in Canastota, then so does Mancini.
Of the three 2015 inductees, ?Prince? Naseem Hamed possesses the most credible credentials. He was an undefeated featherweight champion for five years, amassing 15 defenses with 13 coming by the short route. He never lost the title in the ring, having chosen to vacate to try his luck in a higher division. His awesome punching power more than compensated for an unorthodox ? even wacky ? style and a suspect chin. In a way, Hamed was a pint-sized version of Roy Jones Jr. Like Jones, it seemed as though Hamed would be on top of the boxing world as long as he wanted to be. Then, again like Jones, an unexpected defeat brought Hamed?s house down with a crash. Hamed did not suffer a shock knockout as Jones did at the hands of Antonio Tarver. Instead, he received a humiliating, lop-sided boxing lesson in a decision loss to Marco Antonio Barrera. After a subsequent points win over a non-entity, Hamed hung up his gloves. He does deserve to be in the Hall, though his long wait to get there is also appropriate, given his failure to rebound from a loss that occurred while he was still in his prime.
The IBHOF has its great years, and its not-so-great years. This year is one of the latter. Nonetheless, kudos and congratulations to all three inductees.
