By Tom Donelson
I am not a defender of the sanctioning bodies and their corrupt nature and there is much wrong with them. However, the IBF is not responsible for Leavander Johnson's death.
It could easily be argued that Leavander Johnson should not have been a champion and others, including Ringtalk’s Cliff Rold, have described the political machinations that resulted in Johnson obtaining his title. That only makes the IBF guilty of manipulating the rating system, which every sanctioning body does. Johnson was a good fighter and even a top ten fighter by some ranking systems.
Johnson was a legitimate contender for a title and had fought for world titles before. So it was not like this guy was a bum. His opponent, Jesus Chavez, was a top five super featherweight but certainly not in the league of Erik Morales or Marco Antonio Barrera. This was his first attempt at a lightweight title and he was the smaller fighter moving up in weight.
On paper, this was an intriguing match up and not one major pundit declared this a mismatch before the fight As one boxing historian observed to me, Ringtalk had this fight ranked a close battle during the pre-fight hype. And, there was not a single article written that was critical of Johnson facing Zoff for the vacant title, prior to his untimely death.
So who is responsible for Johnson’s death? Now, we can point fingers, but I would be hesitant to do so. Consider Tony Weeks. Throughout the bout, Johnson was fighting back but there was no doubt by ringside observers that he was getting beat to a pulp. Referees are in a no-win situation. Consider the case of Richard Steele. His career was defined by stopping the Taylor-Chavez fight, 10 seconds too soon. He even found himself ostracized and relegated to lesser fights for years.
What is not often mentioned is that Taylor was severely hurt and hospitalized after the fight. He was never the same after the bout. Yes, he would have won a decision if Steele did not stop the fight, but it could easily now be argued that maybe Steele should have stopped the fight earlier. Steele paid a heavy price for stopping this fight.
Or what about the Castillo-Corrales fight? Tony Weeks could have stopped that fight after the Corrales' second trip to the canvas and I doubt that too many people would have complained. But we would have been denied a great comeback by Corrales, later in the round. A referee's job is tough. Here is a scenario. Boxer A is getting the snot beat of him, but he is a noted slugger with one punch knockout power. So do you allow the fight to continue knowing that one punch can turn the fight around?
Or you have boxer B, who is getting punished, but is still throwing punches and fighting back. In the past, boxer A or B would have gotten the benefit of the doubt, but maybe in the future, that should no longer be the case. Weeks was guilty of allowing Johnson to continue because of johnson's combative nature.
We can argue that the corner should have stopped the fight earlier. But in the middle of a championship fight, emotions take precedence. No corner wants stop a fight if there is even the slightest chance of his fighter winning. There are times that it is more courageous to stop a fight than to let it continue. Angelo Dundee stopped the Ellis-Frazier fight when it was apparent that Jimmy Ellis no longer had a chance to win.
And Eddie Futch prevented Joe Frazier from finishing the final round in Frazier’s third fight with Ali. Frazier would hold that against Futch, but Futch did the right thing. Frazier no longer could defend himself nor see Ali’s punches coming with his eyes nearly swollen shut. During the recent Larios-McCullough fight, McCullough's corner combined with Dr. Maragret Goodman help ended the fight over the protest of Wayne McCullough. It was a case where the corner decided that McCullough had nothing more to prove and no firepower left to prevail.
There is enough blame to toss around but we are debating this in hind set. There is no doubt that we should review this fight to learn the right lesson. The right lesson can be describe as following:
1. When in doubt, stop the fight.
2. Allow ringside physicians more power to stop fights.
3. Corners need to remember, there will be other fights for their fighters.
The sanctioning bodies can be blamed for much of what is wrong with boxing and often their ranking systems have little to do with abilities, but more to do with politics. That is a worthy debate. The IBF is not to blame for the death of Leavander Johnson. The system did fail Johnson because human emotions to keep a title took priority over his safety. Johnson repeatedly begged to continue and his corner assented to his plea. We can easily blame his corner, but this was a case of a fighter’s competitive nature taking precedence.
Johnson was one of boxing's good guys, a fighter who gave his all. He died a warrior and leaves behind a family. Hopefully we will learn the right lesson in his death and work to prevent further deaths in the ring.
