They're calling it the “War at 154,” though no one will confuse it with plucking evil dictators out of dirty rat holes or patrolling the rubble and dark streets of a dying city.

Still, they're hoping this fight somehow lives up to its top billing, praying a slugfest breaks out instead of 12 rounds of elevator music.

IBF champ Winky Wright (46-3, 25 K0s), versus WBA and WBC champ Shane Mosley (39-2, 35 K0s) for the undisputed junior-middleweight (or, depending on your mood, super-welterweight) championship of the world.

Finally.

It has a nice, long-overdue ring to it, a kind of “it's about damn time,” feel to it.

If you want to give credit to the right people for getting this fight done, you can start with Cory Spinks, an unlikely hero now known as the undisputed welterweight champ of the world.

If Spinks hadn't beaten Ricardo Mayorga on Dec. 13, Wright could have spent January and February snagging some sun on a St. Petersburg beach. That's because Mayorga was expected to walk through Spinks on his way to a lucrative fight with Mosley in March.

But somehow, Spinks found a way to beat Mayorga and suddenly, Mosley no longer had a March opponent and everything appeared to be ruined. Plans were shattered, promises broken, money was lost. The wife cried, the dog howled and the kids were sent to bed early.

How can this happen?

Then an idea occurred to someone important.

Hey, what about Ronald “Winky” Wright? I don't think he's got any big plans for March.

Winky, who was free in March, owes Cory a friendly slap on the back.

So what does the March 13 fight between Mosley and Wright (on HBO) at the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino in Las Vegas mean?

Just about everything if you weigh 154 and hold a world title belt.

It means Winky finally gets the big-money, big-name fight that could define his career, the fight he's been chasing since his controversial majority-decision loss to Fernando Vargas in 1999.

It means Gary Shaw, Mosley's promoter, also deserves a little pat on the back for somehow putting this fight together.

It means for the first time in 29 years, you'll only have to know one name when the bar talk turns to who the best junior-middleweight fighter in the world is.

It means Mosley better arrive at the gym early and leave late. He's not fighting the awkward banger he'd be facing in Mayorga. While Mayorga knows how to slug, Wright knows how to box.

It means Wright doesn't have to pack his passport the day he leaves for the fight. He won't have to hire an interpreter, change his currency, drive on the left side or learn how to eat and pronounce strange food. Of Wright's 49 fights, 20 have required extra paperwork and extra-long plane rides. He's fought in eight different countries and on four different continents.

No wonder no one over here knows who Winky Wright is.

Finally, this fight means that with the right money and for the right reasons, two guys in the same weight class holding different world titles, can come to an understanding that meeting inside the ring to decide who is the real champion makes all the sense in the world.

The sad thing is, it took an upset by another fighter in a different weight class – Spinks – to finally make it happen.

The 99th Round

Earlier this month, in response to what he, and others, considered an excessive amount of “pork” in the latest energy bill, John McCain told his Senate colleagues, “The outbreak of Washington trichinosis will be so severe, we will be forced to have a field office for the Centers for Disease Control right next to the Capitol.”

In a recent Associated Press wire story, McCain was described as “an avid critic of spending for lawmakers' pet projects.”

One of the great curiosities of McCain's campaign to slip through Congress his own pet project, the expensive ($36 million over five years), ineffectual, and perhaps unconstitutional Professional Boxing Amendments Act (to federalize control of boxing) has been his outright refusal to include television entities – by far the most powerful and influential forces in the sport – among those which would fall under regulatory jurisdiction.

Critics have cried foul – and they've had a point. If networks are going to control the balance of power, define the major 'players', put fighters under contract, and in some cases actually assume the 'de facto' role of a promoter, they are receiving unequal and unfair protection vis-a-vis the promoters in boxing who are actually required to be licensed and regulated.

However, McCain has been resolute about maintaining this protection, avoiding all opportunities to adjust or amend the bill to accommodate the reality of the industry, not to mention Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, who had previously introduced legislation that would provide some oversight of networks when they play a promotional role. McCain has been nothing short of combative on occasion, “calling out” Reid in press conferences, and in correspondence he has leaked to the public.

Why is McCain so stubborn? Part of the reason lies in a mode of political operation that has become imbedded in the man itself, despite countless “spins” to the contrary.

What is common knowledge inside the Beltway, but not necessarily among average boxing fans, is that while McCain has carefully crafted an image as a reformer railing against special interests, he has developed a talent that is much more acute, as one of the very best in the business at feeding from the corporate trough.

He has been slick enough to parlay his coziness with corporate interests into political capital, resulting in lots of money coming his way for campaigns. And his public relations apparatus, which has included many highly-cooperative writers, both in and out of sports, has enabled him to avoid having to discuss the considerable influence special interest groups have had on the drafting and development of McCain's boxing bill – the same types of groups he would purport to be thwarting in the Bipartisan Campaign Finance Reform Act (otherwise known as McCain-Feingold), which, at the end of the day, amounts to little more than a rather brazen attempt to protect his own incumbency and that of other elected officials.

Campaign finance records available through the website OpenSecrets.org indicate that, for example, during 1999, the third-highest contributor to what, at the time, was McCain's insurgent run at the Republican presidential nomination was Viacom ($47,750), which controls a number of TV outlets, including Showtime, which has a major investment in boxing.

The top eight corporate contributors to McCain's “Straight Talk America” political action committee from 1997-2002 included three companies that would be affected, one way or another, by the way McCain's bill was shaped – Viacom, AT&T (which controlled cable outlets and sold pay-per-view boxing events), and AOL Time Warner (which owns HBO, boxing's most powerful single entity).

And as for McCain's last U.S. Senate campaign, waged in 1998, the list of his top fifty corporate donors is replete with entities who have a substantial stake in boxing, and which have a “special interest” in avoiding the regulatory blanket – Viacom (3rd – $55,250), AT&T (4th – $51,563), NBC/General Electric (20th – $19,500), Fox/News Corp. (22nd – $19,050), Time Warner (T43rd – $12,000), and Univision (T43rd – $12,000), not to mention Anheuser-Busch (5th -$51,563), a company in which McCain has considerable financial interests, both individually (he has reported at least a half-million dollars in debentures) and through his family (which controls the largest distributorship in Arizona), and which over the past two decades has been boxing most prominent sponsor, with nearly all of that advertising delivered through television.

The Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, which McCain chairs and under whose domain the boxing bill falls, is heavily courted by companies with interests in the sport. For the six-year cycle between 1995-2000, the top committee-related contributors to committee members include: AT&T ($369,960), Time-Warner ($249,585), Viacom ($167,654), the Walt Disney Company, which owns ESPN ($147,758), and the National Cable Television Association ($129,101).

Noted boxing promoters like Don King, Bob Arum, Cedric Kushner, Main Events, Duva Boxing, Gary Shaw or DiBella Entertainment do not appear on that list; apparently there was not enough in the way of donations to rise in McCain's pecking order.

Despite his well-cultivated “reformer” image, McCain has time and again demonstrated that he is a creature of corporate America and a bedfellow of corporate lobbyists. His leveraging efforts have been particularly remarkable, and he's utilized his position on the Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee – first as the ranking Republican and now as chair – to extract hundreds of thousands of dollars from corporations he has regulatory power over.

McCain, who through his campaign finance measure is regarded by many First Amendment advocates as no friend of free speech, is notorious for freezing out consumer groups who would like to present their cases to his committee but who have not lavished him with campaign donations. According to a February 2000 story in the New York Press, representatives of corporations – the lion's share of which are directly tied to McCain's campaign war chests – out-number such consumer-interest groups by a 10-to-1 margin when it comes to appearances at committee hearings.

The causative links between campaign donations and special favors have become a McCain trademark. In 1999, after McCain-authored legislation to allow satellite TV companies to carry local programming in each market, which had previously been prohibited, was approved by his committee, one of the players who stood to experience a resulting windfall – EchoStar Communications – held a huge fund-raiser for McCain's presidential campaign.

During the 2000 primary season, as word came down that McCain was pressuring the Federal Communications Commission to act on a license transfer in favor of Paxson Communications, a company that had, to that date, “coordinated” $20,000 in contributions for his run at the nomination and treated him to many free flights on its corporate jet, his then-opponent, George W. Bush, was moved to remark, “I think somebody who makes campaign financing an issue has got to be consistent and walk the walk.”

Of course, one understands McCain's pattern of behavior more vividly upon an examination into his central role in the infamous “Keating Five” scandal, one of history's most naked examples of politicians exerting special levels of influence for the sake of large campaign contributors.

Charles Keating Jr., who owned the Lincoln Savings & Loan Association and was a major presence in Arizona, was under investigation by authorities – specifically the Federal Home Loan Bank Board – for making investments of such a speculative nature that they put at risk the government-insured money of depositors. Keating took issue with the premise of the investigation, and wanted the regulators off his back. He had, between 1982 and 1987, stuffed the campaign coffers of five United States Senators – John Glenn of Ohio, Dennis DeConcini of Arizona, Alan Cranston of California, Don Riegle of Michigan, and McCain – to the tune of $1.4 million.

At the same time, McCain family members, including his wife and father-in-law, were the chief investors in the Fountain Square Shopping Center, controlled and managed by Keating, with a stake estimated at $359,000. McCain and his family were also frequent vacation guests of Keating – traveling at Keating's expense on Keating's private jet to the resort Keating owned at Cat Cay in the Bahamas – at least nine times in all. Surely there were interests to protect on more than one front.

Although he later claimed to be very reluctant in doing so, McCain nonetheless couldn't resist in joining with his four Senate colleagues in April of 1987 to pressure regulators to end their investigation of Keating, which had been ongoing for two years. The regulators later testified that they felt intimidated by McCain's group, which was tagged the “Keating Five”.

To illustrate the justification of the investigation, the S&L controlled by McCain's friend Keating busted out, ruining thousands of investors and costing taxpayers $3.4 billion in bailouts, the worst hit in the entire saving and loan scandal.

There was also more than one call within his home state of Arizona for McCain to resign.

During this particular period in his career, McCain was hardly interested in raising the issue of campaign finance reform. In fact, quite the contrary – he resisted it at every turn and resisted others who made an effort in that direction. According to a December 8, 1987 story in the Phoenix Gazette

, “So why has Sen. McCain, R-Ariz., gone to unprecedented lengths to block reform of the Senate campaign finance system? Why does he oppose letting this important matter even come to a vote? Perhaps it's because he is a prime beneficiary of the special interest funding of congressional elections. McCain raised over $2.5 million for his 1986 election . . . more than $760,000 of his campaign funds came from political action committee (PACs) . . . especially disturbing are the contributions to McCain's campaign coffers from PACs outside of Arizona.”

And McCain simply embarrassed himself when his family's investment deals with Keating were uncovered. In September of 1989, as he was questioned about them by the Arizona Republic, he called the reporter “a liar” and denounced his efforts as “irresponsible journalism”. When pressed later, he told the same reporter, “That's the spouse's involvement, you idiot.”

In ultimately protecting one of their own, the Senate Select Committee on Ethics asserted McCain broke no laws, but did say this about the man who is now the self-professed “champion of campaign finance reform”:

“Mr. Keating, his associates, and his friends contributed $56,000 for Senator McCain's two House races in 1982 and 1984, and $54,000 for his 1986 Senate race. Mr. Keating also provided his corporate plane and/or arranged for payment for the use of commercial or private aircraft on several occasions for travel by Senator McCain and his family, for which Senator McCain ultimately provided reimbursement when called upon to do so. Mr. Keating also allowed Senator McCain and his family to vacation with Mr. Keating and his family, at a home provided by Mr. Keating in the Bahamas, in each of the calendar years 1983 through 1986……..”

According to a Time magazine story in December of 1999, ” He (McCain) denounces big-spending special interests and yet accepts flights on corporate jets; he puts the speaker of the Arizona house of representatives on his campaign payroll despite a flurry of ethics charges around him; he neglects to recuse himself from debates about measures that would affect his family beer business.”

Yet the writers, Nancy Gibbs and John F. Dickerson, insist, “But a funny thing happened on the way to his deathbed conversion (to campaign reformer): he really reformed.”

McCain's posture toward television interests in the process of crafting the boxing bill would strongly suggest otherwise.

On a personal note, as I reviewed some of the material for this story, my mind regressed to a couple of years ago, as I was compiling the investigative report “A Commission Run Amok”, which dealt with the Florida State Athletic Commission.

At the time, Mike Scionti, the commission's former executive director, was awaiting a hearing on ethics charges. He had been embroiled in a firestorm of controversy that eventually led to his firing by Governor Jeb Bush, over what was considered to be highly improper conduct while in office. A non-profit organization – a charity for youth – that the commission had established and Scionti had spearheaded, accepted a large donation from promoter Don King, after which Scionti had sought to change a commission regulation about promotional contracts that would have benefited King.

There was no evidence that any money went into Scionti's pocket directly, or that it went to furthering any personal agenda of Scionti's – public relations-related or otherwise.
Meanwhile, McCain had gone to bat, more aggressively and, by all accounts, with a much heavier hand, on behalf of entities that plowed money into his election campaigns and to political action committees that were designed to promote McCain's political objectives – in many respects creating a higher public profile for the senator, which has in turn spawned media coverage, book sales, and even more political donations.

And I'm saying to myself, isn't what McCain has done more devoid of an ethical foundation than what Scionti did? And are there not 500 others engaged in the same ballgame as McCain – albeit not as skillfully – on Capitol Hill?

The stories you hear about boxing people pale by comparison. If state boxing regulators conducted business in the same manner as McCain has conducted his business in Congress, would I not have been able to write about twenty “Operation Cleanup” books by now?

And given those parameters, at what price would we be placing the sport into the hands of politicians like him?

As one writer put it, “The John McCain of old should be thankful that his political fate wasn't determined by John McCain the reformer.”

I would suggest McCain's nothing more than an old dog who could care less about learning new tricks.

fightpage@totalaction.com

Copyright 2003 Total Action Inc.

Top ranked heavyweight contenders Vitali and Wladimir Klitschko are definitely lightning rods, just like Mike Tyson and Roy Jones. When speaking about Tyson and Jones with most fans, you get one of two views. Either Tyson at his best was the greatest heavyweight ever, and Jones at his best was the greatest pound-for-pound fighter of all time. Or, Tyson was an overrated front runner who was stopped by the best fighters he faced. And Jones was a big fish in a small pond, who fought during a very weak middleweight and light heavyweight era.

Obviously, both are over statements. Regardless of whether or not you like Tyson or Jones, or their fighting style, they must be given their due props. Tyson was a great heavyweight. Not one of the top ten of all time in my opinion, but none the less, he was a great heavyweight fighter. As far as Jones, he is not the greatest pound-for-pound fighter ever, but he is among them.

The same thing applies to Vitali and Wladimir Klitschko. I have found the reaction of some fans and writers is the same as it is with Tyson and Jones. When the Klitschko's are brought up and discussed, one of two themes evolves. Either they are both going to go down as two of the greatest and most dominant heavyweight champs in history. Or, they are both stiffs highlighting that Vitali is tough, but not skilled enough, and Wladimir is skilled, but doesn't have a sturdy chin. Again, both are over statements in my opinion.

There is no doubt that both Vitali and Wladimir are very formidable, and are forces to be reckoned with in today's heavyweight division. Most of the time when the Klitschko brothers are mentioned, it's their physical size that dominates the discussion? That's not how I see them. Yes, they are both big and strong, but I'm not from the school of thought that endorses the bigger is better myth. As far as I'm concerned, any true heavyweight is big enough to beat any of the so called big heavyweights currently fighting. And this has played itself out many times over. I actually believe that some of todays heavyweights are too big, and their size hinders and restricts their overall fighting ability.

One of the things I do love about both Klitschko's, but I never hear it mentioned, is their complete and total dedication to boxing and their willingness to learn and get better. Those are two traits that are sorely lacking in many of today's fighters, regardless of what weight division they campaign in. The Klitschko's are strictly business. They take boxing seriously and are well aware of its dangers. I'll bet their coaches and trainers can't recall the last time they missed a morning run, or had to be coaxed to go an extra round sparring or on the heavy bag.

That type of mind set puts them at a huge advantage over a majority of their heavyweight counterparts. It's quite obvious to me that these two guys really do eat, sleep, and drink boxing. They both have a goal, and that is to be heavyweight champion of the world. If it is never realized, it won't be due to a lack of effort on their part. These two guys don't squander any of their talent or abilities. What ever is in them, they get out.

This time last year it was wildly perceived that Wladimir was better than Vitali. Most felt this way because Wlad is the better boxer with quicker hands and better mobility. The perception of Wladimir being the better of the two fighters came crashing down on March 8th of this year.

When Corrie Sanders stopped Wladimir in the second round en-route to capturing his WBO title, The Wlad bandwagon lost its wheels. In the interim, older brother Vitali took the worlds best heavyweight, Lennox Lewis, to hell and back before being stopped in between the sixth and seventh rounds due to a severely cut eye. Since fighting Lewis for the title, Vitali has fought once. In that fight, he scored a devastating knockout over top contender Kirk Johnson in the second round. Since losing to Sanders, Wladimir has won two straight. Scoring knockouts over third tier heavyweights Fabio Moli and Dannell Nicholson.

As we enter the year 2004, Vitali is now viewed as the top heavyweight contender in the world and Wladimir is ranked somewhere between sixth and tenth. Great things are expected from both Vitali and Wladimir in the new year. The pressure is on both of them from their fans to at least win a piece of the heavyweight title. Some have even placed unwarranted pressure on them by making outlandish predictions declaring that they're both unbeatable, something we already know is not even close to being true or realistic. In fact, some have even gone as far as to say that they will both eclipse the accomplishments of Lennox Lewis. That I seriously doubt, but we'll see?

The Klitschko's do bring a lot to the ring, and it will take a damn good fighter to defeat either one of them in the new year. But don't think it can't happen. Wladimir is very skilled and he can hit. However, I still question his chin. I know in the heavyweight division that any fighter can get caught and stopped, but I can't get it out of my head totally that I'll never see him punched around the ring again like he was by Corrie Sanders. Even in his fight with Jamel McCline, Wladimir was only aggressive because McCline was just fighting enough to survive. But, I saw that when McCline did go on the offensive and got brave, Wladimir backed away. Some may say this is smart, but to me it's a mind set. A mind set that may suggest that he doesn't have the confidence needed to go to the next level. That being said, I believe Wladimir is a fighter that is more than good enough to win a piece of the title in today's heavyweight division. How much more than that can he accomplish, I'm not sure.

Vitali is an imposing fighter both physically and strategically. His huge size and strength will give most heavyweights a fit. On top of that he has shown to be extremely awkward and tough. His awkwardness and size alone will carry him past most of today's top heavyweights. His weakness is his lack of speed and that he can be out boxed. However, the boxer who can out box him must also posses strength and toughness, a combination that only Lennox Lewis seems to have. I see Vitali beating many of the worlds best heavies due to his size and how he utilizes it. Outside of Lewis, Vitali may very well be the most difficult fighter in the division to beat.

In 2004, I expect to see one of the Klitschko's capture a piece of the heavyweight title. Of the two brothers, I tend to think it will be Wladimir before Vitali. This is mainly due to my believing that we'll see Vitali fight a rematch with Lennox Lewis sometime in the first half of the new year. Since I think Lewis will beat Vitali and then retire, it would seem that Wladimir would get the next shot.

The Klitschko brothers are both outstanding heavyweight fighters and deserve to be ranked among the best heavyweights in the world at this time. However, they are not the saviours of boxing or the heavyweight division that some have tried to paint them as being. And they are certainly not unbeatable. Especially since they've both already been defeated and stopped.

Overall, I think they are good for the flagship division in boxing. I respect their dedication and desire. They respect boxing and take it serious which is commendable. They are definitely a threat to beat any active heavyweight on any given night. I do think it's quite possible that Vitali and Wladimir Klitschko have their best nights in the ring in front of them. They will hoist a heavyweight title belt over their head down the road. That I'm sure most boxing and Klitschko fans can agree on.

What I don't agree with is that either one of them will go down as all time great heavyweight champions. As skilled as they are, it is unlikely that they'll ever be mentioned in the same vain as the legendary champions of the past. In fact, I don't think either one of them will ever go on to accomplish what Lennox Lewis has from 1993-2003. They are both outstanding fighters and not the cumbersome clods that some have tried to pass them off as being. They also are not the second coming of Joe Louis or Muhammad Ali!

I tend to look at both brothers in the framework of themselves, and when you do it that way, there are some things to criticize. However, when you compare them with what's out there, they rate very high, and probably match up favorably with everybody except a fit and determined Lewis.