The WBC’s ‘Franchise’ Sticker and More Judges Add to Boxing’s Numbers Glut

Published

4 years ago

October 13, 2020

The WBC’s ‘Franchise’ Sticker and More Judges Add to Boxing’s Numbers Glut

My late Cuban mother-in-law said a lot of things in her thick accent that might have been somewhat lost in translation, one of her more memorable observations being that “too much of a good thing can turn you crooked.”

The lady whose five children and those who wed their way into the family all knew as Mimi wasn’t referring to boxing in that instance, but she might as well have been. If the sweet science were a calculator, the “addition” key would be nearly worn out and there would be no corresponding “subtraction” key. Just when fight fans think they have a handle on what passes for normal nowadays, new concepts – additions, of course – are tossed out like beads from a Mardi Gras float.

Which is not to say that two more innovations (one already implemented, the other likely to be) from the WBC and its tinkering president, Mauricio Sulaiman, are unnecessary or extraneous. In fact, Mauricio, during a Zoom teleconference with a select few members of the U.S. media on Monday, insisted that in his heart of hearts he is basically a traditionalist as are many hidebound fans of the sport. It’s just that, well, the curmudgeons among us who cling to the hope that someday the fight game will whittle itself back down into eight standard weight classes, from its currently bloated 17, with a universally recognized champion in each are as likely to get that as an international dictum requiring everyone to trade in their automobiles for horse-drawn buggies.

“There is resistance to change. That’s human nature,” Sulaiman said, although the past few decades in which the business and structure of boxing have been radically altered would seem to suggest otherwise. “We like to do things customarily. In boxing, there is a big, big love for the classic, for the past, for the legendary. To implement change is very complicated.”

In an effort to un-complicate matters, the Mexico City-based WBC has designated two of its most worthy champions, Vasiliy Lomachenko and Canelo Alvarez, as “franchise” titlists, with Lomachenko (14-1, 10 KOs) defending his “new and improved” lightweight status from that sanctioning body, as well as his WBA “super” and WBO straps, against IBF 135-pound ruler Teofimo Lopez (15-0, 12 KOs) Saturday night in the MGM “Bubble” in Las Vegas. Despite being arguably the most-anticipated fight of 2020, the action will be carried via regular ESPN, a happy fact to be appreciated by fight fans of all persuasions.

Lomachenko-Lopez will be judged, if in fact the outcome goes to the scorecards, by three judges, as usual. But the days of three-person panels deciding who or who doesn’t win fights on points might also soon become a relic from the past, if Sulaiman’s vision of the future gains traction.

“From what I have seen through the remote scoring (judges not at ringside) during this pandemic, I am so convinced that the more judges that score a fight, the possibility of a bad decision goes to the minimum,” said Sulaiman, who envisions a day when five or even seven judges – some at ringside, others seeing the same thing on TV and not from different angles – will eliminate or at least greatly reduce the sort of scoring controversies that have always made what seemed obvious to many not so much to the chosen few with pencils.

“We are in the process of having five judges for a few fights in the jurisdictions where we allow this to happen,” Sulaiman said. “We have done fights with judges on site, combined with remote judges. That has been a tremendous success. I don’t know how easy or how fast this can be implemented, but I know there are jurisdictions (certain state boxing commissions) that simply won’t allow it.”

Judges also will experiment with scoring 10-9 rounds as “close,” “moderate,” “decisive” or “extreme,” the last likely resulting in a 10-8 tally even without a knockdown.

“If you have a judge going all over the place in (scoring) a fight, then you talk to him and you train him,” Sulaiman continued.

If the future scoring of fights sounds more complicated, it probably will be. But like the man said, change can be difficult to implement and accept. New stuff takes getting used to.

Back to the franchise designation, which Sulaiman insisted will be conferred only upon special fighters who reveal themselves to be a cut or two above mere alphabet place-holders. Although Devin Haney (24-0, 15 KOs) is also a WBC lightweight champ, the difference between he and Lomachenko might be akin to levels of royalty, with the Ukrainian southpaw being the king of the division and the Las Vegas resident by way of his native San Francisco more like a prince.

“I understand that there is resistance and uncertainty, but I feel very good about the franchise designation because it will be a concept that applies to only a very few,” Sulaiman explained.

“The winner of this fight will be recognized as the franchise champion of the WBC. I understand that any new thing, any new rule or program, always creates confusion. But Lomachenko is in fact a champion with special attributes. He does not have to face the mandatories that a new champion has to face when he wins a vacant title.”

Where things get more complicated, not simpler, will be when the WBC assumes a loftier-than-thou stance for its franchise stalwarts in unification bouts with champions from the other three world sanctioning bodies. If fairly recent boxing history has taught us anything, it is that the alphabet groups will strip unified champions, as if he were a scantily clad dancer in a gentleman’s cabaret, if they don’t fulfill a particular outfit’s mandatory within a specified time frame.

“The mandatory contender was introduced by the WBC many, many years ago, when (Jose) Napoles and a few other fighters had to wait five or six years to get a title opportunity,” Sulaiman noted. “There was no rule mandating a champion to fight any boxer. (The establishment) of mandatories is a great rule, and very fair. But the rule sometimes has worked contrary to its creation. It has been abused.

“The fact is that, having so many championships, the level of quality of mandatory challengers in certain divisions is very much diluted. Sometimes you have mandatory contenders that you really could doubt that they are the best challengers in the division.

“This situation of fighters belonging to different promoters or networks has always existed. It does complicate matters. For (Mike) Tyson to wait so long to fight Lennox Lewis took many years. For Manny to fight Floyd took many years.”

The establishment of franchise fighters in certain divisions, Sulaiman said, is not designed for that person to run away from a mandatory, but to run to a big fight that people want to see.

Now, getting the other organizations to go along with Sulaiman’s plot to remake boxing is the sticking point. That, too, has been a problem that never seems to go away. Every alphabet president wants his group to lead the parade, not just tagging along.

“I don’t want to talk about other organizations. We’re talking about the WBC,” said Sulaiman, who indicated he had been in contact with the IBF’s Daryl Peoples and the WBO’s Paco Valcarcel (no mention of the WBA’s Gilberto Mendoza) regarding a standardization of ratings. “We have had ideas and we have put them forth. There have been intentions to put in a system where the organizations work together. But in the end, each organization has its own agenda, its own rules, its own ideas.”

And the pile of those rules and ideas just keeps getting larger and larger.

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Avila Perspective, Chap. 282: Ryan’s Song, Golden Boy in Fresno and More

Published

15 hours ago

April 26, 2024

David A. Avila

Avila-Perspective-Chap-282-Ryan's-Song-Golden-Boy-in-Fresno-and-More

Don’t call it an upset.

Days after Ryan Garcia proved the experts wrong, those same experts are re-tooling their evaluation processes.

It’s mind-boggling to me that 95 percent thought Garcia had no chance. Hear me out.

First, Garcia and Haney fought six times as amateurs with each winning three. But this time with no head gear and smaller gloves, Garcia had to have at least a 50/50 chance of winning. He is faster and a more powerful puncher.

Facts.

Haney is a wonderful boxer with smooth, almost artistic movements. But history has taught us power and speed like Garcia’s can’t be discounted. Think way back to legendary fighters like Willie Pep and Sandy Sadler. All that excellent defensive skill could not prevent Sadler from beating Pep in three of their four meetings.

Power has always been an equalizer against boxing skill.

Ben Lira, one of the wisest and most experienced trainers in Southern California, always professed knockout power was the greatest equalizer in a fight. “You can be behind for nine rounds and one punch can change the outcome,” he said.

Another weird theory spreading before the fight was that Garcia would quit in the fight. That was a puzzling one. Getting stopped by a perfect body shot is not quitting. And that punch came from Gervonta “Tank” Davis who can really crack.

So how did Garcia do it?

In the opening round Ryan Garcia timed Devin Haney’s jab and countered with a snapping left hook that rattled and wobbled the super lightweight champion. After that, Garcia forced Haney to find another game plan.

Garcia and trainer Derrick James must have worked hours on that move.

I must confess that I first saw Garcia’s ability many years ago when he was around 11 or 12. So I do have an advantage regarding his talent. A few things I noticed even back then were his speed and power. Also, that others resented his talent but respected him. He was the guy with everything: talent and looks.

And that brings resentment.

Recently I saw him and his crew rapping a song on social media. Now he’s got a song. Next thing you know Hollywood will be calling and he’ll be in the movies. It’s happened before with fighters such as Art Aragon, the first Golden Boy in the 50s. He was dating movie stars and getting involved with starlets all over Hollywood.

Is history repeating itself or is Garcia creating a new era for boxing?

Since 2016 people claimed he was just a social media creation. Now, after his win over Devin Haney a former undisputed lightweight champion and the WBC super lightweight titleholder, the boxer from the high desert area of Victorville has become one of the highest paid fighters in the world.

Ryan Garcia has entered a new dimension.

Golden Boy Season

After several down years the Los Angeles-based company Golden Boy Promotions suddenly is cracking the whip in 2024.

Avila

Vergil Ortiz Jr. (20-0, 20 KOs) returns to the ring and faces Puerto Rico’s Thomas Dulorme (26-6-1, 17 KOs) a welterweight gatekeeper who lost to Jaron “Boots” Ennis and Eimantas Stanionis. They meet as super welterweights in the co-main event at Save Mart Arena in Fresno, Calif. on Saturday, April 27. DAZN will stream the Golden Boy Promotions card live.

It’s a quick return to action for Ortiz who is still adjusting to the new weight division. His last fight three months ago ended in less than one round in Las Vegas. It was cut short by an antsy referee and left Ortiz wanting more after more than a year of inactivity in the prize ring.

Ortiz has all the weapons.

Also, Northern California’s Jose Carlos Ramirez (28-1, 18 KOs) meets Cuba’s Rances Barthelemy (30-2-1, 15 KOs) in a welterweight affair set for 12 rounds.

It’s difficult to believe that former super lightweight titlist Ramirez has been written off by fans after only one loss. That was several years ago against Scotland’s Josh Taylor. One loss does not mean the end of a career.

“My goal is to get back on top and to get all those belts back. I still feel like I am one of the best 140-pounders in the division,” said Ramirez who lives in nearby Avenal, Calif.

An added major attraction features Marlen Esparza in a unification rematch against Gabriela “La Chucky” Alaniz for the WBA, WBC, WBO flyweight titles. Their first fight was

a controversial win by Esparza that saw one judge give her nine of 10 rounds in a very close fight. Those Texas judges.

In a match that could steal the show, Oscar Duarte (26-2-1, 21 KOs) faces former world champion Jojo Diaz (33-5-1, 15 KOs) in a lightweight match.

Munguia and Canelo

Don’t sleep on this match.

Its current Golden Boy fighter Jaime Munguia facing former Golden Boy fighter Saul “Canelo” Alvarez in a battle between Mexico’s greatest sluggers next week at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas on May 4.

“I think Jaime Munguia is going to do something special in the ring,” said Oscar De La Hoya, the CEO for Golden Boy.

Tijuana’s Munguia showed up at the Wild Card Boxing gym in Hollywood where a throng of media from Mexico and the US met him.

Munguia looked confident and happy about his opportunity to fight great Canelo.

“It’s a hard fight,” said Munguia. “Truth is, its big for Mexico and not only for Mexicans but for boxing.”

Fights to Watch

Fri. DAZN 6 p.m. Yoeniz Tellez (7-0) vs Joseph Jackson (19-0).

Sat. DAZN 9:30 a.m. Peter McGrail (8-1) vs Marc Leach (18-3-1); Beatriz Ferreira (4-0) vs Yanina Del Carmen 14-3).

Sat. DAZN 5 p.m. Vergil Ortiz (20-0) vs Thomas Dulorme (26-6-1); Jose Carlos Ramirez (28-1) vs Rances Barthelemy (30-2-1); Marlen Esparza (14-1) vs Gabriela Alaniz (14-1).

Photo credit: Cris Esqueda / Golden Boy Promotions

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Ramon Cardenas Channels Micky Ward and KOs Eduardo Ramirez on ProBox

Published

2 days ago

April 24, 2024

Arne K. Lang

Ramon-Cardenas-Channels-Micky-Ward-and-KOs-Eduardo-Ramirez-on-ProBox

The Wednesday night bi-monthly series of fights on the ProBox TV platform is the best deal in boxing; the livestream is free with no strings attached! Tonight’s episode was headlined by a super bantamweight match between San Antonio’s Ramon Cardenas and Eduardo Ramirez who brought a caravan of rooters from his hometown in Guaymas, Sonora, Mexico.

Cardenas, coached by Joel Diaz, entered the contest ranked #4 by the WBA. He was expected to handle Ramirez with little difficulty, but this was a close, tactical fight through eight frames when lightning struck in the form of a left hook to the liver from Cardenas. Ramirez went down on one knee and wasn’t able to beat the count. It was as if Cardenas summoned the ghost of Micky Ward who had a penchant for terminating fights with the same punch that arrived out of the blue.

The official time was 1:37 of round nine. Cardenas improved to 25-1 with his14th win inside the distance. Ramirez, who was stopped in the opening round by Nick “Wrecking” Ball in London in his lone previous fight outside Mexico, falls to 23-3-3.

Co-Feature

In an upset, Tijuana super welterweight Damian Sosa won a split decision over previously undefeated Marques Valle, a local area fighter who was stepping up in class in his first 10-round go. Sosa was the aggressor, repeatedly backing his taller opponent into the ropes where Valle was unable to get good leverage behind his punches.

The 25-year-old Valle, managed by the influential David McWater, was the house fighter. This was his 10^th appearance in this building. He brought a 10-0 (7) record and was hoping to emulate the success of his younger brother Dominic Valle who scored a second-round stoppage of his opponent in this ring two weeks ago, improving to 9-0. But Sosa, who brought a 24-2 record, proved to be a bridge too high.

The judges had it 97-93 and 96-94 for the Tijuana invader and a disgraceful 98-92 for the house fighter.

Also

In a fight whose abrupt ending would be echoed by the main event, 34-year-old SoCal featherweight Ronny Rios, now training in Las Vegas, returned to the ring after a 22-month hiatus and scored a fifth-round stoppage over Nicolas Polanco of the Dominican Republic.

A three-punch combo climaxed by a left hook to the liver took the breath out of Polanco who slumped to his knees and was counted out. A two-time world title challenger, Rios advanced to 34-4 (17 KOs). Polanco, 34, declined to 21-6-1. The official time was 0:54 of round five.

—

The next ProBox show (Wednesday, May 8) will have an international cast with fighters from Kazakhstan, Japan, Mongolia, and the United Kingdom. In the main event, Liverpool’s Robbie Davies Jr will make his U.S. debut against the California-based Kazakh Sergey Lipinets.

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Haney-Garcia Redux with the Focus on Harvey Dock

Published

4 days ago

April 22, 2024

Arne K. Lang

Haney-Garcia-Redux-with-the-Focus-on-Harvey-Dock

Saturday’s skirmish between Ryan Garcia and WBC super lightweight champion Devin Haney was a messy affair, and yet a hugely entertaining fight fused with great drama. In the aftermath, Garcia and Haney were celebrated – the former for fooling all the experts and the latter for his gallant performance in a losing effort – but there were only brickbats for the third man in the ring, referee Harvey Dock.

Devin Haney was plainly ahead heading into the seventh frame when there was a sudden turnabout when Garcia put him on the canvas with his vaunted left hook. Moments later, Dock deducted a point from Garcia for a late punch coming out of a break. The deduction forced a temporary cease-fire that gave Haney a few precious seconds to regain his faculties. Before the round was over, Haney was on the deck twice more but these were ruled slips.

The deduction, which effectively negated the knockdown, struck many as too heavy-handed as Dock hadn’t previously issued a warning for this infraction. Moreover, many thought he could have taken a point away from Haney for excessive clinching. As for Haney’s second and third trips to the canvas in round seven, they struck this reporter – watching at home – as borderline, sufficient to give referee Dock the benefit of the doubt.

In a post-fight interview, Ryan Garcia faulted the referee for denying him the satisfaction of a TKO. “At the end of the day, Harvey Dock, I think he was tripping,” said Garcia. “He could have stopped that fight.”

Those that played the rounds proposition, placing their coin on the “under,” undoubtedly felt the same way.

The internet lit up with comments assailing Dock’s competence and/or his character. Some of the ponderings were whimsical, but they were swamped by the scurrilous screeching of dolts who find a conspiracy under every rock.

Stephen A. Smith, reputedly America’s highest-paid TV sports personality, was among those that felt a need to weigh-in: “This referee is absolutely terrible….Unreal! Horrible officiating,” tweeted Stephen A whose primary area of expertise is basketball.

Harvey Dock

Dock fought as an amateur and had one professional fight, winning a four-round decision over a fellow novice on a show at a non-gaming resort in the Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania. He says that as an amateur he was merely average, but he was better than that, a New Jersey and regional amateur champion in 1993 and 1994 while a student New Jersey’s Essex County Community College where he majored in journalism.

A passionate fan of Sugar Ray Leonard, he started officiating amateur fights in 1998 and six years later, at age 32, had his first documented action at the professional level, working low-level cards in New Jersey. The top boxing referees, to a far greater extent than the top judges, had long apprenticeships, having worked their way up from the boonies and Dock is no exception.

Per boxrec, Haney vs Garcia was Harvey Dock’s 364^th assignment in the pros and his forty-second world title fight. Some of those title fights were title in name only, they weren’t even main events, but, bit by bit, more lucrative offerings started coming his way.

On May 13, 2023, Dock worked his first fights in Nevada, a 4-rounder and then a 12-rounder on a card at the Cosmopolitan topped by the 140-pound title fight between Rolly Romero and Ismael Barroso. It was the first time that this reporter got to watch Dock in the flesh.

Ironically (in hindsight), the card would be remembered for the actions of a referee, in this case Tony Weeks who handled the main event. Barroso was winning the fight on all three cards when Weeks stepped in and waived it off in the ninth round after Romero cornered Barroso against the ropes and let loose a barrage of punches, none of which landed cleanly. Few “premature stoppages” were ever as garishly, nay ghoulishly, premature.

With all the brickbats raining down on Weeks, I felt a need to tamp down the noise by diverting attention away from Tony Weeks and toward Harvey Dock and took to the TSS Forum to share my thoughts. Referencing the 12-rounder, a robust junior welterweight affair between Batyr Akhmedov and Kenneth Sims Jr, I noted that Dock’s Las Vegas debut went smoothly. He glided effortlessly around the ring, making him inconspicuous, the mark of a good referee. (This post ran on May 15, two days after the fight.)

Folks at the Nevada State Athletic Commission were also paying attention. Dock was back in Las Vegas the following week to referee the lightweight title fight between Devin Haney and Vasyl Lomachenko and before the year was out, he would be tabbed to referee the biggest non-heavyweight fight of the year, the July 29 match in Las Vegas between Terence Crawford and Errol Spence Jr.

The Haney-Garcia fight wasn’t Harvey Dock’s best hour, I’ll concede that, but a closer look at his full body of work informs us that he is an outstanding referee.

—

While the Haney-Garcia bout was in progress, WBC president Mauricio Sulaiman threw everyone a curve ball, tweeting on “X” that Devin Haney would keep his title if he lost the fight. Everyone, including the TV commentators, was under the impression that the title would become vacant in the event that Haney lost.

Sulaiman cited the precedent of Corrales-Castillo II.

FYI: The Corrales-Castillo rematch, originally scheduled for June 3, 2005 and aborted on the day prior when Castillo failed to make weight, finally came off on Oct. 8 of that year, notwithstanding the fact that Castillo failed to make weight once again, scaling three-and-a-half pounds above the lightweight limit. He knocked out Corrales in the fourth round with a left hook that Las Vegas Review-Journal boxing writer Kevin Iole, alluding to the movie “Blazing Saddles,” described as Mongo-esque (translation: the punch would have knocked out a horse). After initially insisting on a rubber match, which had scant chance of happening, WBC president Jose Sulaiman, Mauricio’s late father, ruled that Corrales could keep his title.

Whether or not you agree with Mauricio Sulaiman’s rationale, the timing of his announcement was certainly awkward.

Haney’s mandatory is Spanish southpaw Sandor Martin (42-3, 15 KOs), a cutie best known for his 2021 upset of Mikey Garcia. A bout between Haney and Martin has the earmarks of a dull fight.

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