An Operation Cleanup 3 SNEAK PREVIEW - (Charles Jay, boxing's premier investigative reporter, offers this sneak preview of Part 3 in his "Operation Cleanup" series for Boxing Scene readers. The initial installments of "Operation Cleanup 3: Bastard People" will be ready for the internet within the next 30 days)
By Charles Jay
There's a website out there touting a 12-round WBC Fecarbox "championship" contest scheduled for Friday (February 24) in Mexico City, pitting Juan Carlos Salgado against Ismael Gonzalez for the Fecarbox super featherweight (130-pound) title. For the uninitiated, Fecarbox stands for "Federacion Centroamericana de Boxeo Profesional." Essentially, it's a Central American sanctioning body within Jose Sulaiman's World Boxing Council.
The website is controlled by something called the International Brotherhood of Prizefighters (IBOP), which heralds itself from time to time as "The Keeper of the Lineage," obviously a reference to a bygone tradition that almost without exception, a fighter would be recognized as champion only when defeating the previously recognized champion. In the Friday fight they are backing, there is no trace of a "lineage" at work; in fact, far from it.
IBOP, which includes people with strong ties to the WBO (World Boxing Organization), has long aspired to be a sanctioning body unto itself. That would appear to make this association a rather strange undertaking for them. But the biggest curiosity is how this particular title fight seems to have been manufactured right out of thin air.
Gonzalez's presence in this fight is peculiar, to say the least. A loser in four of his last five outings, he last won a fight on February 24, 2005, meaning he will have gone an entire year without a victory. Furthermore, Gonzalez's last triumph against a fighter with a winning record was back in July 2004, and in that one he took a split decision over Hector Javier Marquez, who carried a lackluster 27-11 record into the bout.
Gonzalez has a mark of just 8-9 against opponents who have more than one pro fight and a record of .500 or better. Half of his pro victories have come against fighters with one win or less. He briefly held the WBC Fecarbox title at 126 pounds, but has gone just 4-5 since then. In one of those fights, he lost a ten-round decision by eleven points on two of the judges' scorecards. That hardly mandates his stock be upgraded.
Boxrec, a respected record-keeping source which also compiles a computer-generated ranking system based on accomplishment and caliber of opposition, among other factors, has Gonzalez rated 176th in the world at 140 pounds, behind such luminaries as Boubaker Nizar (possessor of a 9-8 record), Gary Reid (10-15-1), Yohan Dronne (7-8-1), Claudio Fabian Gomez (3-6-3) and Antonio Mastantuono (12-14-1).
In the last Fecarbox ratings that were made available to the public over the internet - those reflecting the October-November ratings period - Gonzalez is not ranked in the Top 10 in any weight division. Considering that he's dropped two in a row, four of his last five, and hasn't even fought since those ratings were released, it is implausible that Gonzalez would have done anything to merit the kind of inclusion in the ratings that would make him eligible, or viable, for a title fight.
Gonzalez's foe in this "title" fight is another curious case. Apparently a fighter who has been very artfully "steered" by manager Chamaco Lopez, Salgado's career offers tremendous ammunition for critics of sanctioning body shenanigans. He received a shot at the Fecarbox featherweight title in November 2004 despite the fact that he had never fought anyone with as many as eight pro fights or four pro wins. He won that belt by scoring a ninth-round knockout over Jose Luis Gaspar, who was hardly qualified to be in a fight of any importance himself. Gaspar had no wins since September 2001 (a period of over three years) and just two victories in the preceding six years. Coming in with a documented record of 7-5-1, he, like Salgado, had never beaten anyone with more than four professional wins.
Salgado is ranked 139th as a super featherweight by Boxrec, behind the likes of John MacKay (9-9), Riaz Durgahed (5-4-1), and Fabian Valentin Martinez (11-13-4).
After boxing to a draw with Berman Sanchez in November of last year, Salgado was presumably vaulted into the Fecarbox rankings at 130 pounds in order to facilitate another title fight.
There's just one small problem.
In its latest world rankings, released via email to the press on February 17 and currently posted on its official website, the World Boxing Council, Fecarbox's parent organization, recognizes someone already as the Fecarbox champion in the super featherweight division. It isn't Salgado and it isn't Gonzalez.
There certainly would be a solid case to strip Isaac Chavarria of his Fecarbox crown; after all, he hasn't defended his title since November of 2004. But the Fecarbox people haven't done that, at least not as it is reflected in the WBC's rankings list, which places him at #25 in the world, six spots ahead of Salgado. And if Chavarria's title has been secretly vacated, there has apparently been no proper procedure employed to offer the opportunity to any of the top ten contenders in the 130-pound class.
We endeavored to contact those people behind Fecarbox to get an explanation as to how Salgado and Gonzalez were installed in this title fight, and to get a copy of the latest Fecarbox ratings, attempting contact with Dr. Jose W. Mayorga, the president of the organization; the "alto comisionado," Dr. Martin Flutsch; Lobsang Flutsch, the head of the ratings committee, and Dr. Pedro Sequeira, the "secretary general" of Fecarbox. The contact emails listed on the October-November Fecarbox ratings sheet for all but Sequeira are invalid, and Sequeira did not respond to our inquiry. Publicity people for the WBC were also reached, but no one could seem to find a copy of the current Fecarbox ratings, put us in touch with anyone from Fecarbox, or come up with any semblance of an answer to our questions.
Not that any of this comes as a big surprise. Fecarbox has become known for the kind of scandalous manipulation of ratings and titles that has brought shame to boxing. One of the more pathetic instances involved a November 1994 heavyweight "title fight" where Crawford Grimsley knocked out Perfecto Gonzalez in three rounds in Santo Domingo.
Grimsley, who laughably fell into one of Fecarbox's eleven stated "territories" - southern Florida - was in his tenth pro fight, with only four and six-round bouts under his belt. Gonzalez (no relation to Ismael) had a documented record of 0-7, with all the losses coming by knockout. Gonzalez finished his career with an 0-16 record, according to Boxrec, and reportedly passed himself off as former IBO cruiserweight champ Uriah Grant when he sustained his final loss in Argentina. Gonzalez had little or no ability, and was rumored to be "mentally-challenged," to the point where the wife of one heavyweight's manager actually threatened divorce if he put his fighter in with Gonzalez.
The Fecarbox people apparently felt no moral conundrum over it.
By comparison, this Mexico City thing is a piece of cake.
All evidence seems to suggest that Friday's night main event will be another of those "championship" bouts based completely on contrivance and staged for the purposes of convenience.
IBOP has left some creditors, as well as certain production and administrative personnel, high and dry over the past few months, coming up empty when financial obligations had to be met. Questions have recently been raised about the nature and origin of the organization's financing, as well as its accounting practices. To the best of our knowledge, in the last two years no personnel associated with IBOP have received a check drawn on an International Brotherhood of Prizefighters bank account.
In a revelation that has surfaced over the past 90 days, IBOP claims to operate under the aegis of what turns out to be a mysterious "Board of Directors," the members of which, if such a board even exists, have never been made public. One of the founders, who made an abortive attempt to purchase the name, image and trademark of the World Boxing Council (WBC) during its bankruptcy proceeding a couple of years ago, is known to have used at least two aliases and perhaps as many as five. We have, during this 90-day period, attempted to ascertain the names of the IBOP "Board Members" from him, but he has refused to release them.
Naturally, if anyone has information leading to the proper identification of the IBOP "Board Members" in question, they are encouraged to contact this reporter by email (charlesjay99@gmail.com).
AUTHOR'S NOTE: Obviously I come to this with a point of view. As many of you may be aware, I was president of the International Brotherhood of Prizefighters until late last year. While I was involved, there was never any talk about stiffing our people or touting phony title fights, because I simply wouldn't allow it. It's quite apparent things have changed.