On this edition of No Holds Barred, host Eddie Goldman discusses a number of issues in boxing, including the need for the sport to adopt Olympic-style anti-doping procedures, and the chaos coming out of the abbreviated Paul Williams-Kermit Cintron fight this past Saturday.
There was an international media conference call Monday, May 10, with John Fahey, the president of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) (http://wada-ama.org). On it we asked him to comment on the use of WADA procedures for the Floyd Mayweather Jr.-Shane Mosley fight, and what can be done to make those standard for professional boxing. He was optimistic that this might be accomplished by the numerous bodies governing boxing.
We next address the recent congressional election campaign in the Philippines by one of the fiercest opponents of such anti-doping procedures, Manny Pacquiao. While we do not yet have official results for that election, we do discuss a report from that campaign which raises interesting concerns about Pacquiao. And we wonder what type of politician Pacquiao, with his stated opposition to the anti-doping procedures used in the Olympics and many other sporting events around the world, will make if he is elected.
It was another disastrous night for the sport of boxing this past Saturday, May 8, as Paul Williams was awarded a technical decision after his opponent, Kermit Cintron, tripped over him early in the fourth round, fell through the ropes and onto the floor, and was not allowed by the ringside physicians to continue fighting. Unlike the unified rules of boxing or those used by the major sanctioning bodies, the California state rules allow for such decisions even though four rounds had not yet been completed. These absurd and unjust rules, along with a ring from which it was so easy to fall out and land on the floor, just gave people more reasons not to waste their time with this sport.
We also discuss how boxing writers Michael Katz and John Chavez have been correct, at least at times, in their exposures of various figures in the boxing establishment, and why we will not be at the Khan-Malignaggi fight this coming Saturday. And we close with a denunciation of the return to the ring this past weekend in Mexico of our modern-day Luis Resto, Antonio Margarito, who lost his boxing license after being caught loading his gloves last year before a fight with Shane Mosley.
