Boxing fans should be accustomed to astonishments occurring in boxing, the world of prizefighting is a mosaic of beauty, horror, heroism, and insanity.
Photo: Chris Farina/Top Rank
In twenty years around the sport, I?ve seen and heard just about everything, some of the wildest tales imaginable, in the ring and out, about orchestrated outcomes, betrayal, homosexuality, fear, you name it, and it?s probably happened at least once. One of those most shocking revelations was when a former world title challenger was elaborating about corruption in the sport and illustrated it by disclosing that two referees who handled two of his fights were allegedly murdered for their actions in his fights. In other words, they were knocked off because they ****** up and did not do what they were supposed to do. Because this former boxer has never lied to me about anything, I resisted the urge disbelieve such an astonishing statement and accepted it at face value.
I began to contemplate the dark side of boxing and quickly thought of the former referee Mitch Halpern who, if you recall, was one of the very best and busiest referees in the sport in the late 90′s. Then, tragically, at the prime age of just 33 in August 2000, he was found dead by, allegedly, a self-inflicted gunshot wound. According to Sports Illustrated, the Clark County Coroner?s Office would not provide any other details although two other people were at Halpern?s home at the time of death. Rather fishy, eh?
Then there was the curious case of Octavio Meyran, who refereed the infamous Mike Tyson-Buster Douglas world heavyweight title fight in Tokyo, Japan. Tyson was knocked out by Douglas but promoter Don King, who did not have options on Douglas and lost control of the heavyweight title, was outraged by Meyran for allowing a long count earlier in the fight when Tyson had decked Douglas. Meyran, was once one of the busiest refs in the sport, working such fights as Eusebio Pedroza-Alfonso Zamora, Saad Muhammad-Conteh, Halger-Hamsho, Leonard-Duran II, Alan Minter-Vito Antuofermo, Milton McCrory-Colin Jones, Juan Laporte-Mario Miranda, Donald Curry-Lloyd Honeghan, Alexis Arguello-Bubba Busceme, etc. But after his handling of Douglas-Tyson, Meyran only refereed three minor fights since. According to Boxrec, Meyran ended his career as a referee in June 1991, after working a Mexican flyweight title fight.
Eugenia Williams (who will ever forget the name Eugenia Williams?) scored the Lewis-Holyfield I fight for Holyfield 115-113, one of the most outrageous robberies in boxing history. Amazingly, Williams did not receive a lifetime ban from boxing judging for that debacle of a scorecard, in fact, she still continues to score fights to this day, most recently as of March. Was she rewarded with a prolonged judging career for carrying out orders at Madison Square Garden in 1999? I?ll let you be the judge.
Judges have told me stories about receiving gifts before fights they judged in Asia, obviously with strings attached.
Which leads us to the current situation which has the sport of boxing in a state of chaos. Something very, very sinister was involved in the determination of the scorecards of the Manny Pacquiao-Tim Bradley fight. Everybody knows who really won but, to the shock of the world, two judges awarded Bradley the win. One of those judges was Duane Ford. Duane Ford has been a judge in boxing, according to Boxrec.com, since the 1978 Alexis Arguello-Arturo Leon WBC Super Featherweight title fight, which he scored for Arguello 146-139.
Since 1978 Ford has judged many historic championship fighters and events, including Ali-Holmes, Hagler-Antuofermo, Sanchez-Gomez, Boza Edwards-Chacon, Leonard-Hearns, among many others.
Mysteriously, Ford did not judge a fight from 1987-1994 and the conspiracy theorists would have a field day investigating the reason for that curious seven year hiatus from the sport. Then Ford returned to boxing and has a pretty good, consistent record but, as with most ringside officials, there are some controversial moments on his resume which make some ring observers wonder in suspicion. Ford scored the Mosley-De La Hoya rematch for Mosley 115-113. Ford gave Paulie Ayala-Johnny Tapia (RIP) for Ayala 116-113. And now the worst of all, Bradley W12 over Pacquiao.
Of course, the agenda for such a scorecard by Ford is pretty simple to understand. The promoter who pays the judging fees ? as Floyd Mayweather Sr. told us yesterday by a Tweet ? only has one significant egg in his basket at this time. And that golden egg ? Manny Pacquiao ? is nearing the end of his career. The promoter needs to transfer some of that star power from Pacquiao to a new fighter. After all, boxing is a star driven sport, and with Mayweather and Pacquiao in their career home stratches, promoters have to start planning and scheming ahead. They have to start making moves, bold moves, for the future.
Now, the promoter believes he can manipulate Pacqauiao, like a puppet, into the rematch with Bradley, but you have to wonder if Pacquiao will evertrust his promoter again. And will Pacquiao allow himself to be manipulated into another meaningless set up like a Bradley rematch, because that?s what his promoter desires?
Tim Bradley is not a draw, even with his stolen title. And it?s highly doubtful Bradley would even sell out a small arena in his own hometown, let alone generate impressive pay-per-view numbers. No, Pacquiao should politely say, ?Thanks but no thanks? to his promoter, who now can no longer be trusted. If he decides to go on boxing, Manny Pacquiao should call his own shots, and select his own opponent(s).
Or better yet, maybe Pacquiao should just walk away from this foul sport of boxing and let it die without him. Pacquiao has achieved more than enough. His #1 challenger Mayweather is never going to agree to fight him, not after almost three years of ducking and dodging and worrying about health concerns and ending up like Ali. Floyd already told us, fighting Pacquiao ?is a no-win situation.? With the protection of HBO, Al Haymon and Golden Boy, Mayweather will be forever shielded from having to jump in a ring with Manny Pacquiao.
At least Mayweather, despite all his misconduct and deceptions, did divulge to us a simple truth: ?Boxing isn?t real anymore.? And we witnessed that, ever so clearly, on Saturday night. Boxing is a corrupt, dysfunctional racket where man will rob another man right under the eyes of billions of witnesses.
Manny Pacquiao has nothing to prove anymore in this sport. He should escape this underworld as soon as he can, before they rob and cheat him again the next time. Who could predict how next these boxing monsters will attempt to betray him in the name of the mighty dollar? Look what they did to ?The Greatest? of them all, Muhammad Ali, at the end.
Thank you for a great career Manny Pacquiao, but you?re grace and dignity are too honorable for you to lower yourself any longer to being a part of the dirty business of boxing, which once upon a time, used to be a sport, the most popular, most exciting and most honorable sport on the planet.
