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Knowledge itself is power. With steadily rising concern of AIBA plans to intervene the professional boxing circuit, this year’s world amateur championship in Almaty, Kazakhstan, was not only the tourney to define currently the best crop of unpaid talent but also a chance to review AIBA’s power, strengths and weaknesses it aims to bring with itself into prizefighting.
Two points are recognizable with a naked eye of a casual fan of the sport:
1. AIBA has power to fill in some gaps and to overtake some niches in professional boxing right now. With monetary support and political influence it can overpower prize ring’s old authorities to a point of no-return in foreseeable future if the latter chose to operate on their own.
2. It won’t be salvation of any kind, AIBA bringing its darkest shadows and black eyes into the new territory. The sum of those is vastly more numerous and significant than the positive feedback of such a move.
17th world championship was weakened to a degree by the recent flux of the most talented amateur (including seven out of ten 2012 Olympic gold medalists with two more – Val Barker’s trophy owner Serik Sapiyev and Cuban star Roniel Iglesias Sotolongo – being absent for different reasons). A mixture of quality-lowering roster and power of Eastern European and Central Asian boxing states allowed AIBA to dictate its opinion through peculiar unfairness manifested mostly in tiny holdout and clear misjudging in the certain cases.
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Two points are recognizable with a naked eye of a casual fan of the sport:
1. AIBA has power to fill in some gaps and to overtake some niches in professional boxing right now. With monetary support and political influence it can overpower prize ring’s old authorities to a point of no-return in foreseeable future if the latter chose to operate on their own.
2. It won’t be salvation of any kind, AIBA bringing its darkest shadows and black eyes into the new territory. The sum of those is vastly more numerous and significant than the positive feedback of such a move.
17th world championship was weakened to a degree by the recent flux of the most talented amateur (including seven out of ten 2012 Olympic gold medalists with two more – Val Barker’s trophy owner Serik Sapiyev and Cuban star Roniel Iglesias Sotolongo – being absent for different reasons). A mixture of quality-lowering roster and power of Eastern European and Central Asian boxing states allowed AIBA to dictate its opinion through peculiar unfairness manifested mostly in tiny holdout and clear misjudging in the certain cases.
[Click Here To Read More]
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