by David P. Greisman
Once again, alphabet soup comes with a bitter aftertaste.
Looking down into the bowl, one sees the letters IBF – though the idea that those letters rose to the top is misleading. The International Boxing Federation is quickly proving itself among the lowest of the bottom feeders we call sanctioning bodies. Looking at the soup again, a few choice words accompany the initial initialism.
Within two weeks, the IBF has delivered for its championship fights unsuitable opponents on opposing ends of the spectrum – one was carried from the ring with injuries that could have left him dead, the other was essentially dead on arrival before his bout even began.
Blame always goes around when a fighter is critically or fatally injured – to his trainer, to the referee, to the athletic commission and to the sanctioning body. But it is the latter, in this case, that mandated a mismatch for questionable reasons.
Boxing is a hurt sport. Fighters take punishment and die, and then reform is required for increasing safety and decreasing the frequency of future fatalities. Victor Burgos, however, was a small junior flyweight who was thrown into the ring with a big puncher and without any rhyme or reason.
As of Dec. 2005, the IBF had Burgos as its fifth-ranked flyweight, elevating him to third in mid-March 2006 due to Rosendo Alvarez’ prolonged absence from the division and Diosdado Gabi’s loss to Vic Darchinyan. Burgos’ qualifications were minimal – he had a brief run as the sanctioning body’s 108-pound champion before losing to Will Grigsby, and since then he’d defeated two flyweight opponents with unimpressive records and more recent losses than wins.
Not that it mattered. Darchinyan needed an opponent, and the IBF needed a sanctioning fee.
Burgos, though, didn’t need the beating he took. He also didn’t need the blood clot, or the swollen brain or the medically induced coma or the potential future consequences caused by his own pride and others’ lack of precaution.
In a way, Burgos’ situation is reminiscent of Leavander Johnson, the lightweight warrior who lost his life five days after he sustained a prolonged beating from Jesus Chavez. Johnson was a career bridesmaid, a contender who, by 2005, had challenged thrice for world titles but who had came up short each time.
As hard as it is to tell any athlete that it’s time to hang ‘em up, no one ever convinced Johnson to do so. Through sanctioning body magic, Johnson outpointed 21-15-2 Roque Cassiani and ended up with his fourth and final title shot, a seventh-round stoppage of Stefano Zoff.
He died his next fight. And the IBF kept Johnson’s sanctioning fee instead of donating it to help the deceased fighter’s four children.
With four stubborn major sanctioning bodies – all of which refuse to rank the others’ titlists – some divisions have thinned ranks, contenders who won’t put up much of a challenge and challengers who shouldn’t contend.
That still doesn’t explain the Ray Austin Phenomenon.
On Saturday night, Wladimir Klitschko made a mandatory defense of his heavyweight title against Austin. Whereas Klitschko has recently asserted his standing with wins over Samuel Peter, Chris Byrd and Calvin Brock, Ray Austin somehow shot up in status after a draw with Larry Donald, a split decision over Owen Beck, a stoppage of Jeremy Bates and a draw with Sultan Ibragimov.
That last bout – a title eliminator for the IBF belt – produced shots for both Austin and Ibragimov despite neither man being the victor. Austin wasn’t a winner that night, but he was definitely the loser against Klitschko.
Austin showed little fire in the first, a round with three minutes of feeling out. The next stanza saw Austin on a lot of floor, a good lead left hook and three lesser ones pouring “The Rain Man” onto the canvas. Any small sign of Austin being a worthy contender evaporated the moment the bout was waved off.
Not that many of the IBF’s titlists have done much better in receiving their championships.
In the past few years, the IBF has stripped or forced the vacancy of titles in the junior featherweight, featherweight, junior lightweight, lightweight, junior welterweight, super middleweight, light heavyweight and cruiserweight divisions.
This is, mind you, the same sanctioning body that kept Zab Judah as its titlist after Judah lost to Carlos Baldomir.
Fighters and fans alike deserve better – to see competitive bouts between champions and challengers who belong in the ring with the titlists, and to not see boxers take a beating that they shouldn’t have ever qualified for.
We’ve become accustomed to alphabet soup leaving us with a bitter aftertaste. The last thing the sport needs is an alphabet soup body that leaves us distressed in its destructive aftermath.
The 10 Count
1. Former junior flyweight titlist Victor Burgos has awakened from his medically induced coma and remains under observation at Los Angeles County Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, according to a March 6 article by Robert Morales of the Long Beach Press-Telegram.
Burgos, who was hospitalized three days earlier following his stoppage loss to flyweight titlist Vic Darchinyan, underwent emergency surgery to remove a blood clot in his brain and to reduce swelling.
Alan Hopper of Don King Productions told the Press-Telegram that Burgos is responding to doctors’ commands. Burgos is in the hospital’s intensive care unit, and hopefully his condition will continue to improve.
2. As noted above, Austin’s title shot came as a result of a July draw with Sultan Ibragimov. That same draw somehow earned Ibragimov a mandatory bout with heavyweight titlist Shannon Briggs, a match that was postponed when Briggs came down with aspirational pneumonia. The show went on, though, with Javier Mora brought in as a late replacement.
Ibragimov took no chances of an upset or injury preventing his pending fight against Briggs, stopping Mora in less than a minute. A left hook from the southpaw Ibragimov sent Mora down early, and then a furious flurry forced the referee to call a halt to the bout.
The victory may have earned Ibragimov some fans in New York City, making a showdown with Brownsville’s Briggs that much more of a profitable proposition.
3. Via a March 9 press release from promoter Main Events, Evander Holyfield issued another statement regarding his being implicated two weeks ago in a federal investigation into an illegal steroid distribution network:
“I am disturbed about potential damage to my hard-won reputation as a result of allegations in recent news reports concerning performance-enhancing substances. While nobody has directly accused me of anything, the implications in many of these stories are obvious and unmistakable, and I'm anxious to respond in detail.
“Unfortunately, that is proving very difficult. Law enforcement authorities have stated repeatedly that I'm not under investigation and I have not been contacted by any officials. Therefore, I don't have access to any specifics about these allegations other than what has appeared in the press. Without knowing in detail what was actually contained in the pharmacy records, I open myself up to trying to deal with a potentially endless series of conjectures.
“What I am doing instead is conducting my own investigation. While I'm fairly certain I know how my name came up, I don't want to say anything more until I have all the facts, which I hope is just a matter of a few weeks. At that time I'll release everything I know, no holds barred, and will be more than happy to respond to questions.
“For now, though, let me repeat what I've said before: I have never taken an illegal or banned performance-enhancing drug of any kind. The use of such substances runs counter to everything I believe about sports and my place in the athletic world.
“I am hopeful that the press will be as diligent about investigating the truth of my forthcoming statement and as vigorous in reporting the results as it was about covering the initial allegations.”
4. Holyfield’s statement – especially the insistence that he is “anxious to respond in detail” but doing so “is proving very difficult” – should give fans of boxing and baseball a case of déjà vu. In 2005, beleaguered big leaguer Rafael Palmeiro told reporters on a conference call that he had never intentionally put a banned substance into his body and that he “would love to tell what happened so everyone would understand,” according to The Baltimore Sun.
Palmeiro blamed his positive steroids test on a tainted injection of B-12. Here’s hoping that Holyfield holds back on subjecting us to BS.
5. Holyfield, mind you, has a fight on Saturday against Vinny Maddalone, whose ledger includes two knockout losses to Brian Minto. Unless Holyfield falls victim to distraction or deterioration, Maddalone will probably leave the ring wishing he had instead signed to face the aforementioned steroid scandal’s imaginary “Evan Fields.”
6. It may be time for former junior lightweight titlist Robbie Peden to call it a career. Peden’s stay at the top was brief, with his two knockout victories over Nate Campbell followed immediately thereafter by a one-sided loss to Marco Antonio Barrera. From there, it was all downhill.
In November, Peden was supposed to meet Wes Ferguson at a catchweight of 138 pounds. Ferguson tipped the scales at 136, but Peden checked in at 141.5 and the bout was called off.
Peden made the lightweight limit and returned to the ring on Friday, fighting in front of his hometown crowd after a layoff of nearly 18 months. Ranee Ganoy, however, wasn’t willing to lay down for Peden, and instead he did his best to lay the Aussie out, flooring Peden in the seventh and forcing a stoppage the following round.
Peden had come a long way since his 2002 loss to Juan Manuel Marquez, a fight stopped because Peden vomited from swallowing too much blood. One hopes that Peden retires so as to keep pundits and observers from being queasy.
7. Speaking of Juan Manuel Marquez, his Saturday superfight against Marco Antonio Barrera is the year’s first pay-per-view. Something tells me that this could be Barrera’s fourth straight PPV with disappointing buyrates – neither headliner is a steady draw for Mexican money, and there’s a little thing called the NCAA Tournament beginning this week.
8. I love the Terps, but Patrick Ewing (Jr.) and John Thompson (III) have me flashing back to two decades ago and foreseeing a championship run for the Georgetown Hoyas.
9. I don’t know which of these unusual boxing matches is more intriguing – the March 24 showdown between UFC star Tito Ortiz and UFC president Dana White, or the unsigned slowdown between nonagenarians Roland Fortin and Jack LaLanne.
10. Ray Austin’s nickname is “The Rain Man,” but I’d prefer Lennox Lewis in the classic Dustin Hoffman role. Can’t you imagine it? “Definitely have to dance on my date. Have to learn how to dance. Definitely.”
To contact David P. Greisman, Click Here.