Eric Armit's World View by Eric Armit Oct 4th 2006

What a mad sport this one that we love is. Fifty-year old Nigerian Bash Ali is busy preparing to defend the WBF title he won back in 2000. Except that he did or did not win it then. Confused-you will be. It depends on whether you are talking about the old WBF or the new WBF. And even if you are talking about the old WBF they said he never won the title at all, but a Californian judge disagreed and gave judgement in Ali's favour, but the new WBF was not covered by that judgement so he is not their champion but he is the champion of the old WBF because the judge said he was so he can defend his title if he wants to, except that they do not exist now!. His last defence of the title he does not hold was in 2004 when he stopped Tony Booth. Bash was awarded damages by the judge, but you can't get damages from someone who no longer exists. That's a pity because Bash could have used the money to buy the WBU, which is for sale, then he could have declared himself WBU champion and not even have to pay a sanctioning fee. I was thinking of making an offer for the WBU, but I am better now. What would I want with free travel, hotels and ringside seats after I appointed myself supervisor at fights that I would probably not want to watch anyway. A bit unfair as the WBU have had some good champions in the past, Ricky Hatton for one, and in fact for someone with the money, it might not be such a bad proposition, but don't think for one moment you could buy the WBU and turn it into what you feel a real world body should be. You need sanctioning fees to survive and if all you get offered are poor fights then it is poor fights or perish. Forget your idealism and face up to the realism. If you did totally unbiased ratings the first 4 fighters in your top 10 would probably be holding WBC, WBA, IBF and WBO titles and would not be interested in fighting for your title, and the next 6 or 7 would be after those titles and not yours. You are then giving your promoters a very limited choice if they want to make a profit, so you work with them, and sometimes it might seem like you are working for them, have ratings that suit your promoters and sanction matches that make you wince, but hey! You survive and get a worse reputation than an Estate Agent for your trouble. I think I will hold on to my money and invest it in a Company building chocolate fireguards. Amir Khan is important to the future of British boxing, so he has to be brought along carefully. So far they have done an excellent job with a gradual procession of spaced out, challenging, but not stretching matches, which have been relatively low risk. Contrast that with Japanese youngster Koki Kameda. He turned pro just after his 17th birthday. He had no top level amateur experience, only 18 bouts, and no Olympic silver medal. He was fighting ten rounds in only his fourth fight. He won the Orient & Pacific title in his eighth fight, beat a former world champion in his ninth fight and won the vacant WBA light-flyweight title in his twelfth fight! The flamboyant, mouthy, southpaw makes Amir's progress seem snail like. He is not alone the OPBF strawweight champion Akira Yaegashi retained his title in Yokohama on September 18 with a first round kayo of Thai Liempetch Sor Veerapol. Akira was fighting ten rounds in his fourth fight, won his title in his 5th fight and this was his first defence and fight No 6.. I was surprised that Matt Skelton turned down the chance to fight Oleg Maskaev. After all at Matt's age chances to win a version of the world title do not come along too often. It is particularly puzzling as Matt is not rated in the WBC top 15. In fact the only body rating him in their top 15 is the WBO who have him at No 11, but then they have Gary Lockett above Winky Wright, Graham Earl at No 2 and Kevin Mitchell at No 4-two spots above Alex Arthur-so they don't really count. Could it be a factor that in order to get the fight Matt would probably had to give2 or 3 options to the promoter of the Maskaev fight. Not something that Frank Warren would be too happy about. On the subject of Maskaev I was at the WBC Convention last year when, after one of the most farcical votes I have ever witnessed( I will come back to that later), the WBC, obviously against the wishes of Jose Sulaiman, put Maskaev ahead of James Toney in the queue for a title shot. Despite that Jose screwed them anyway and Toney got first shot at Hasim Rahman. Now we have Simon Peter winning a final eliminator over Toney on a split decision( 2 of the judges gave it Peter by 5 points), and the WBC decides there has to be a rematch. Now why do I find that curious? As to the vote, Don Majeski is one of the smartest guys in boxing and he was representing Maskaev at the Convention. The WBC put Toney above Maskaev and Don made a very convincing argument against this. Sulaiman called for a vote by the Board of Governors by a show of hands and declared in favour of Toney. Some of the voters didn't vote and some barely raised their hands above knee level. Majeski complained that the vote could not be counted accurately under those circumstances and asked for a recount. Sulaiman declared the recount in favour of Toney. Majeski protested that not all Governors had voted and some guys who had voted were not eligible to vote. This time it was established who could vote and everybody was canvassed individually to state how they were voting instead of a show of hands and the winner was-Maskaev. The WBC could not have made itself look sillier even if it had planned to do so. What worries me are that these guys actually run boxing in their countries. No wonder the sport is in a bad state. Some guys get thrown in jail for fighting, but outstanding former amateur Ron Siler is actually being threatened with jail for not fighting. He appeared in court charged with not paying child support for his six children and as his only source of income was support from the US Amateur Boxing body he was not earning, so could not pay. The judge told him to fight or go to jail, now that is a strange one. As an amateur Siler won the US title as far back as 1998, beating Jose Navarro, and repeated in 2001 and 2004, was National Golden Gloves champion in 2000, 2002 and 2003, competed in the 2004 Olympics and holds a win over the current undefeated WBO strawweight champion Ivan Calderon, but Ron is a flyweight so there may not be a lot of money to be earned as a pro. Strangely a couple of years back he won $6000 at a tournament and donated it to one of his sons, but I guess things change. Someday soon you may see a boxer standing in the corner with a sign around his neck saying” Wife and six kids to support”-that will be Ron. Looks like Philadelphia super-middleweight Tyrone Brunson is after Edwin Valero's record for consecutive first round kayos. Ty flattened Guy Packer in one round in Masitee Michigan on September 15 to go to 13 in a row. Six of those finishes have come in 30 seconds or less, which tells you all you need to know about the level of the opposition. Edwin, the current WBA super-featherweight champion, managed 18 in a row. You have to wonder how long the gestation period is for heavyweights. Big Jean Francois Bergeron kayoed Edegar Da Silva in five rounds in Montreal on September 15 and now has 25 wins. The 6'5” Canadian, a Pan American silver medallist, 1996 Olympian and a loser to Danny Williams as an amateur, has been a pro for eight years and has hardly progressed at all. Returning to the theme of “sons of the father” Dyah Davis, the son of former Olympic gold medallist Howard Davis Jr., is boxing as a light-heavyweight and has eight wins. Howard, a hugely talented boxer, was considered a certainty to win a world title, but lost a close points verdict to Jim Watt in Glasgow for the WBC lightweight title in 1980, to Edwin Rosario on a split verdict for the same title in 1984 and to James McGirt for the IBF light-welterweight title in 1988 and finished with a 36-6 record. Interested in purses( no not the ladies type, the boxing type), well the winning bid for WBC flyweight champion Ponsaklek Wonjongkam's defence against South African Mhikiza Myekini was $176,000. Are you reading this Ron Siler? It does not seem fair to me. Generally the Eastern Europeans we get are bill-filling losers whereas Germany gets the cream. On a show in Cuxhaven on September 19 three Kazak-born former amateur stand outs all scored wins. Super-middleweight Dimitri Sartison made it 18 wins by halting David Paul, middleweight Gennady Golovkin stopped Martin Kukuls in three rounds for his fourth win and class super-featherweight Vitali Tajbert made it seven wins by outpointing Vlad Borov. Golovkin won a silver in Athens and Tajbert a bronze(for Germany). These are typical of the great prospects who have moved West and settled in Germany and will make the game even stronger there. Could we have a few over here in place of the Boris Punchbagovski's we seem to find down every bill.

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