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The WBC’s ‘Franchise’ Sticker and More Judges Add to Boxing’s Numbers Glut
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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Bygone Days: Muhammad Ali at the Piano in the Lounge at the Tropicana
Bygone Days: Muhammad Ali at the Piano in the Lounge at the Tropicana
Among other things, Las Vegas in “olden days” was noted for its lounge shows. Circa 1970, for the price of two drinks, one could have caught the Ike and Tina Turner Review at the International. They performed three shows nightly, the last at 3:15 am, and they blew the doors off the joint.
The weirdest “lounge show” in Las Vegas wasn’t a late-night offering, but an impromptu duet performed in the mid-afternoon for a select standing-room audience in the lounge at the Tropicana. Sharing the piano in the Blue Room in a concert that could not have lasted much more than a minute were Muhammad Ali and world light heavyweight champion Bob Foster. The date was June 25, 1972, a Sunday.
What brought about this odd collaboration was a weigh-in, not the official weigh-in, which would happen the next day, but a dress rehearsal conducted for the benefit of news reporters and photographers and a few invited guests such as the actor Jack Palance who would serve as the color commentator alongside the legendary Mel Allen on the closed-circuit telecast. On June 27, Ali and Foster would appear in separate bouts at the Las Vegas Convention Center. Ali was pit against Jerry Quarry in a rematch of their 1970 tilt in Atlanta; Foster would be defending his title against Jerry’s younger brother, Mike Quarry.
In those days, whenever Las Vegas hosted a prizefight that was a major news story, it was customary for the contestants to arrive in town about three weeks before their fight. They held public workouts, perhaps for a nominal fee, at the hotel-casino where they were lodged.
Muhammad Ali and Bob Foster were sequestered and trained at Caesars Palace. The Quarry brothers were domiciled a few blocks away at the Tropicana.
The Trop, as the locals called it, was the last major hotel-casino on the south end of the Strip, a stretch of road, officially Highway 91, the ran for 2.2 miles. When the resort opened in 1957, it had three hundred rooms. Like similar properties along the famous Strip, it would eventually go vertical, maturing into a high-rise.
In 1959, entertainment director Lou Walters (father of Barbara) imported a lavish musical revue from Paris, the Folies Bergere. The extravaganza with its topless showgirls became embedded in the Las Vegas mystique. The show, which gave the Tropicana its identity, ran for almost 50 full years, becoming the longest-running show in Las Vegas history.
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Although the Quarry brothers were on the premises, Ali and Foster arrived at the Blue Room first. After Dr. Donald Romeo performed his perfunctory examinations, there was nothing to do but stand around and wait from the brothers to show up. It was then that Foster spied a grand piano in the corner of the room.
Taking a seat at the bench, he tinkled the keys, producing something soft and bluesy. “Move over man,” said Ali, not the sort of person to be upstaged at anything. Taking a seat alongside Foster at the piano, he banged out something that struck the untrained ear of veteran New York scribe Dick Young as boogie-woogie.
When the Quarry brothers arrived, Ali went through his usual antics, shouting epithets at Jerry Quarry as Jerry was having his blood pressure taken. “These make the best fights, when you get some white hopes and some spooks,…er, I mean some colored folks,” Young quoted Ali as saying.
This comment was greeted with a big laugh, but Jerry Quarry, renowned for his fearsome left hook, delivered a better line after Ali had stormed out. Surveying the room, he noticed several attractive young ladies, dressed provocatively. “I can see I ain’t the only hooker in here,” he said.
—
The doubleheader needed good advance pub because both bouts were considered mismatches. In the first Ali-Quarry fight, Quarry suffered a terrible gash above his left eye before his corner pulled him out after three rounds. Ali was a 5/1 favorite in the rematch. Bob Foster, who would be making his tenth title defense, was an 8/1 favorite over Mike Quarry who was undefeated (35-0) but had been brought along very carefully and was still only 21 years old. (In his syndicated newspaper column, oddsmaker Jimmy “The Greek” Snyder said the odds were 200/1 against both fights going the distance, but there wasn’t a bookie in the country that would take that bet.)
The Fights
There were no surprises. It was a sad night for the Quarry clan at the Las Vegas Convention Center.
Muhammad Ali, clowning in the early rounds, took charge in the fifth and Jerry Quarry was in bad shape when the referee waived it off 19 seconds into the seventh round. In the semi-wind-up, Bob Foster retained his title in a more brutal fashion. He knocked the younger Quarry brother into dreamland with a thunderous left hook just as the fourth round was about to end. Mike Quarry lay on the canvas for a good three minutes before his handlers were able to revive him.
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In the ensuing years, the Tropicana was far less invested in boxing than many of its rivals on the Strip, but there was a wisp of activity in the mid-1980s. A noteworthy card, on June 30, 1985, saw Jimmy Paul successfully defend his world lightweight title with a 14th-round stoppage of Robin Blake. Freddie Roach, a featherweight with a big local following and former U.S. Olympic gold medalist Henry Tillman appeared on the undercard. The lead promoter of this show, which aired on a Sunday afternoon on CBS (with Southern Nevada blacked out) was the indefatigable Bob Arum who seemingly has no intention of leaving this mortal coil until he has out-lived every Las Vegas casino-resort born in the twentieth century.
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I may drive past the Tropicana in the next few hours and give it a last look, mindful that Muhammad Ali once frolicked here, however briefly. But I won’t be there for the implosion.
On Wednesday morning, Oct. 9, shortly after 2 a.m., the Tropicana, shuttered since April, will be reduced to rubble. On its grounds will rise a stadium for the soon-to-be-former Oakland A’s baseball team.
A recognized authority on the history of prizefighting and the history of American sports gambling, TSS editor-in-chief Arne K. Lang is the author of five books including “Prizefighting: An American History,” released by McFarland in 2008 and re-released in a paperback edition in 2020.
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WBA Feather Champ Nick Ball Chops Down Rugged Ronny Rios in Liverpool
In his first fight in his native Liverpool since February of 2020, Nick Ball successfully defended his WBA title with a 10th-round stoppage of SoCal veteran Ronny Rios. The five-foot-two “Wrecking Ball” was making the first defense of a world featherweight strap he won in his second stab at it, taking the belt from Raymond Ford on a split decision after previously fighting Rey Vargas to a draw in a match that many thought Ball had won.
This fight looked like it was going to be over early. Ball strafed Rios with an assortment of punches in the first two rounds, and likely came within a punch or two of ending the match in the third when he put Rios on the canvas with a short left hook and then tore after him relentlessly. But Rios, a glutton for punishment, weathered the storm and actually had some good moments in round four and five.
The brother of welterweight contender Alexis Rocha and a two-time world title challenger at 122 pounds, Rios returned to the ring in April on a ProBox card in Florida and this was his second start after being out of the ring for 28 months. He would be on the canvas twice more before the bout was halted. The punch that knocked him off his pins in round seven wasn’t a clean shot, but he would be in dire straits three rounds later when he was hammered onto the ring apron with a barrage of punches. He managed to maneuver his way back into the ring, but his corner sensibly threw in the towel when it seemed as if referee Bob Williams would let the match continue.
The official time was 2:06 of round ten. Ball improved to 21-0-1 (12 KOs). Rios, 34, declined to 34-5.
Semi-wind-up
A bout contested for a multiplicity of regional 140-pound titles produced a mild upset when Jack Rafferty wore down and eventually stopped Henry Turner whose corner pulled him out after the ninth frame.
Both fighters were undefeated coming in. Turner, now 13-1, was the better boxer and had the best of the early rounds. However, he used up a lot of energy moving side-to-side as he fought off his back foot, and Rafferty, who improved to 24-0 (15 KOs), never wavered as he continued to press forward.
The tide turned dramatically in round eight. One could see Turner’s legs getting loggy and the confidence draining from his face. The ninth round was all Rafferty. Turner was a cooked goose when Rafferty collapsed him with four unanswered body punches, but he made it to the final bell before his corner wisely pulled him out. Through the completed rounds, two of the judges had it even and the third had the vanquished Turner up by 4 points.
Other Bouts of Note
In a lightweight affair, Jadier Herrera, a highly-touted 22-year-old Cuban who had been campaigning in Dubai, advanced to 16-0 (14 KOs) with a third-round stoppage of Oliver Flores (31-6-2) a Nicaraguan southpaw making his UK debut. After two even rounds, Herrera put Flores on the deck with a left to the solar plexus. Flores spit out his mouthpiece as he lay there in obvious distress and referee Steve Gray waived the fight off as he was attempting to rise. The end came 30 seconds into round three.
In a bantamweight contest slated for 10, Liverpool’s Andrew Cain (13-1, 12 KOs) dismissed Colombia’s Lazaro Casseres at the 1:48 mark of the second round.
A stablemate and sparring partner of Nick Ball, Cain knocked Casseres to the canvas in the second round with a short uppercut and forced the stoppage later in the round when he knocked the Colombian into the ropes with a double left hook. Casseres. 27, brought an 11-1 record but had defeated only two opponents with winning records.
In a contest between super welterweights, Walter Fury pitched a 4-round shutout over Dale Arrowsmith. This was the second pro fight for the 27-year-old Fury who had his famous cousin Tyson Fury rooting him on from ringside. Stylistically, Walter resembles Tyson, but his defense is hardly as tight; he was clipped a few times.
Arrowsmith is a weekend warrior and a professional loser, a species indigenous to the British Isles. This was his twenty-fourth fight this year and his 186th pro fight overall! His record is “illuminated” by nine wins and 10 draws.
A Queensberry Promotion, the Ball vs Rios card aired in the UK on TNT Sports and in the US on ESPN+.
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Alimkhanuly TKOs Mikhailovich and Motu TKOs O’Connell in Sydney
IBF/WBO world middleweight champion Janibek Alimkhanuly, generally regarded as the best of the current crop of middleweights, retained his IBF title today in Sydney, Australia, with a ninth-round stoppage of game but overmatched Andrei Mikhailovich. The end came at the 2:45 mark of round nine.
Favored in the 8/1 range although he was in a hostile environment, Alimkhanuly (16-0, 11 KOs) beat Mikhailovich to a pulp in the second round and knocked him down with one second remaining in the frame, but Mikhailovich survived the onslaught and had several good moments in the ensuing rounds as he pressed the action. However, Alimkhanuly’s punches were cleaner and one could sense that it was only a matter of time before the referee would rescue Mikhailovich from further punishment. When a short left deposited Mikhailovich on the seat of his pants on the lower strand of rope, the ref had seen enough.
Alimkhanuly, a 2016 Olympian for Kazakhstan, was making his first start since October of last year. He and Mikhailovich were slated to fight in Las Vegas in July, but the bout fell apart after the weigh-in when the Kazakh fainted from dehydration.
Owing to a technicality, Alimkhanuly’s WBO belt wasn’t at stake today. Although he has expressed an interest in unifying the title –Eislandy Lara (WBA) and Carlos Adames (WBC) are the other middleweight belt-holders — Alimkhanuly is big for the weight class and it’s a fair assumption that this was his final fight at 160.
The brave Mikhailovich, who was born in Russia but grew up in New Zealand after he and his twin brother were adopted, suffered his first pro loss, declining to 21-1.
Semi-wind-up
Topping the flimsy undercard was a scheduled 8-rounder between Mikhailovich’s stablemate Mea Motu, a 34-year-old Maori, and veteran Australian campaigner Shannon O’Connell, 41. The ladies share eight children between them (Motu, trained by her mother in her amateur days, has five).
A clash of heads in the opening round left O’Connell with a bad gash on her forehead. She had a big lump developing over her right eye when her corner threw in the towel at the 1:06 mark of round four.
Motu (20-0, 8 KOs) was set to challenge IBF/WBO world featherweight champion Ellie Scotney later this month in Manchester, England, underneath Catterall-Prograis, but that match was postponed when Scotney suffered an injury in training. Motu took this fight, which was contested at the catchweight of 125 pounds, to stay busy. O’Connell, 29-8-1, previously had a cup of coffee as a WBA world champion (haven’t we all).
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