Eric Armit's World View by Eric Armit Apr 20th 2007

The night at the Millennium Stadium was spoiled for me by two poor matches. You could just about make excuses for Pete Manfredo based on his wins over Scott Pemberton (stopped in two rounds by Jeff Lacy in his previous fight) and unbeaten(but untested) Joe Spina. However no one outside of his own entourage gave him any chance of winning, so it has to be termed a poor match. The term poor would be too much like a compliment to the Enzo Maccarinelli- Bobby Gunn debacle. Gunn was one of the worst “world” title challengers I have ever seen and the end was predictable before the first bell even sounded. No blame attaches to Enzo who just did his job, but he deserves better fights as he will learn nothing from rubbish like this and could even develop bad habits from such pushovers. The blame lies with the WBO who had Gunn rated No 15 and who continue to perform even below my estimation of them. Every time I think they have hit bottom I hear the chink of a shovel hitting more dirt. His sudden appearance in their ratings was inexplicable by any honest explanation. In his only fights in over a year he had fought a no contest with Shelby Gross, who had been stopped in two of his last three fights and beat 41 year old Shannon Landberg who was fresh from a stoppage loss to Tommy Hearns. I challenge anyone at the WBO to give me an honest reason for rating Gunn on that basis. They are a disgrace as a sanctioning body and their ratings are riddled with “Gunnisms“. In the last ratings I saw on their website at light-heavyweight their No 15 is George Blades, a 32-year-old nobody with an impressive sounding 21-2 record. However he has fought outside of Indianapolis only twice. Was inactive for over two years and in his only fight since 2004 beat a John Romans William. This guy is therefore considered able to challenge Zsolt Erdei! It is just at bad at middleweight where another Indianapolis based fighter Darryl Salmon is rated No 14 with a 16-0 record. His only fight in the last eight months was against Ron Krull who has a 7-28 record and in that Salmon weighed 178lbs(middleweight limit 160lbs!). Let's not even get into the welterweights with Michael Jennings as No 2 (with Young Mutley nowhere) and Tony Docherty No 9 (the EBU latest ratings had Michael No 13 and Tony not in the top 20). As long as the WBO continue to issue ratings like these there will be terrible mis-matches. What is needed is the same Federal control that the IBF was put under because something stinks about the way the WBO rate fighters. Japanese TV demands a constant supply of world title fights and therefore the search for talent there is a major undertaking. They seem to have found another one in Koji Sato who won the vacant OPBF middleweight title with a ninth round stoppage of Australian Adam Vella in Tokyo on March 17. Vella's record falls to 19-2,. The 26-year-old Sato won 13 National titles and claims a 133-3 record as an amateur, but I have four losses and there may have been others. He has won nine fights as a pro, eight inside the distance and is part of the Akihiko Honda stable, the most powerful in Japan, and has been training under the former world champion Mike McCallum. Boxing continues to make progress in Namibia. A show in Windhoek on March 20 saw two of their rising fighters score wins. Paulus Moses made a successful first defence of his WBA Intercontinental lightweight title with an eighth round stoppage of Georgian Beka Sadjaia and in a fight for the vacant WBA Pan African light-welterweight title newcomer Jason Naule out pointed the experienced South African Lawrence Ngobeni. Moses has 20 wins and Naule ten. Back in Georgia in a couple of domestic matches two of the countries brightest prospects scored further victories in Tbilisi on March 29. Middleweight Shalva Jomardashvili decisioned Levan Shonia and Levan Jomardashvili kayoed Goga Abduladze in three at light-heavyweight. Shalva has 24 wins and Levan 16. We will not know the strength of these guys until they leave Georgia or get to face better imports. The son of Colombian great Antonio Cervantes continued his winning ways with a second round kayo of Neder Quintana in Cartagena on March 23. Jose Antonio, a super-middleweight, has seven wins but has a long way to go. He is trained by another one of Colombia's all-time greats Luis Mendoza who was WBA super-bantamweight champion in 1990 and made five defences. In another March 23 show former Graham Earl victim Angel Hugo Ramirez continued his fine run and retained his WBC Mundo Hispano super-featherweight title for the fourth time with an eighth round stoppage of Euclides Espitia in Castelbisbal, Spain. That close points loss to Graham in October for the WBU lightweight title is the Argentinians only defeat in his last eleven fights and he has a 17-4-2 record. A tale of two heavyweights for you. On March 29 in Kansas City, Missouri, Donnell “The Real Touch of Sleep” Holmes extended his unbeaten run to 28 bouts as he halted Tommy Connelly in two rounds for his 23rd win inside the distance. Sounds impressive but the 34-year-old Holmes has two draws against nobodies and 26 wins against nobodies and has fought outside the North Carolina/South Carolina circuit only four times. The NC/SC circuit is about the equivalent of the Conference fourth division in boxing terms. Holmes will follow the route of many similar non talents he will either get blown away in his first serious fight or keep fighting nobodies and fade away. Kevin Johnson has a less impressive record of 14 wins and a draw after knocking out Curtis Taylor in one round in North Charleston, the same circuit as that frequented by Holmes. However the 6'5”, 27-year-old has beaten good trial horses such as Bob Wiggins, Bob Hawkins and Daniel Bispo and the draw was with Timur Ibragimov. The statistics can lie and often do. 2004 Olympic gold medallist Andre Ward is hardly on the fast track to fame and fortune. In San Jose on March 29 the 23 year old super-middleweight moved to eleven wins as he halted Julio Jean in three rounds. He has almost been the forgotten man whilst non-Olympians such as the Peterson brothers and silver medallist Amir Khan have been getting rave reviews. Managed by Prince, Andre is young enough not to have to hurry too much, but memories are short so he cannot afford to be off TV for too much longer. On the same show Shadi Hamsho made it nine wins by out pointing Carlos Musquez at super-featherweight. The 5'10” tall Shadi is being trained by Freddie Roach. Three of the best prospects in Europe continued their carefully guided tour of the lesser lights of the business on a show in Cologne on March 30. Heavyweight Sebastian Kober made it eight wins and went beyond the second round for the first time as he kayoed Argentinian Luis Ricali in five rounds. Previously Kober, a World and Olympic bronze medallist had one one round finish and six second round. At super-middleweight Kazak Edouard Gutknetch made it seven wins by out pointing Majid Ben Driss and Olympic bronze, and World Military and European gold medallist Vitali Tajbert out pointed Brazilian Jairo dos Santos for win No 11. Kober's kayo record pales in the face of that of Argentinian Lucas Matthysse. In his hometown of Junin on March 30 the hard hitting light-welterweight kayoed Alejandro Ciacia in one round. Matthysse has 17 wins, 16 inside the distance and one on a disqualification. All 16 wins have come inside the first three rounds, with seven ending in the first. Still in Argentine the WBO's No 3 light-heavyweight Hugo Garay kayoed Alejandro Alvarez in Buenos Aires on March 24. Garay has a 28-2 record with the two losses coming on close verdicts against champion Zsolt Erdei. A show featuring three former WBC champions in Cancun on March 31 saw a big upset as the former WBC featherweight champion Rodolfo Lopez was crushed in five rounds by Japanese import Naoki Matsuda. It was the first fight for Lopez since dropping his title to Injin Chi in December. Matsuda, who has a 27-7-3 record climbed off the floor for his startling kayo victory. Another ten rounder saw former super-bantamweight champion Oscar Larios outpoint Luis Cid. Oscar holds two title wins over Wayne McCullough. The third former champion was Guty Espadas Junior, like Lopez a former featherweight champion, who returned after three years with a points win over Moises Perez.

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