Eric Armit's World View by Eric Armit Apr 29th 2007

I must be one of those guys who like sitting targets, why else would I attack the sanctioning bodies. It makes my life easy when they slip nicely into a hole I have dug for them. In my last column I had a go at the WBO ratings and in particular the rating at light-heavyweight of no-hoper George Blades who had been quietly slipped into their ratings, I wrote” In the (WBO) last ratings I saw on their web site 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 has just been announced that Zsolt Erdei's next challenger will be-you guessed it-George Blades! I also noted that a web site was saying that Gavin Rees would be the next challenger to Souleymane M'Baye for the WBA light-welterweight title. Now that is unfair on the WBA as they have not had time to adjust their ratings and put Gavin in at No 15. Gavin was not in their top 15 as at 10th April and their next ratings are not due until May 10, and the guys rated at No's 13,14 and 15 all won their last fights , admittedly not against Billy Smith, so how can they possibly do the deed-watch this space-or rather watch for the WBA May ratings! Just to be equal-handed the WBC really do swing with the wind, particularly when there is the sniff of a big sanctioning fee. Firstly they tried to slope shoulders on whether Samuel Peter or Wladimir Klitschko should have first crack at Oleg Maskaev, saying it should go to the Court of Arbitration for Sport. What gutlessness-it is the WBC title and they have a Board of Governors who are supposed to have the responsibility for such decisions. Then they decide to do the right thing and give the shot to Samuel Peter, who had won two final eliminators to get the shot. However , being the WBC they then make Klitschko the mandatory challenger. This is a guy who has not fought for 28 months and counting, what a ridiculous decision. Right now Sinan Samil San is their No 2 so I hope he sues them to stop a guy who has no right to be rated being put above him. It is not about who is the better fighter but about justice and there is no justice in a guy who has not even fought suddenly being the mandatory challenger after two years. When Mike Tyson came out of jail they made him “fight” Peter McNeeley before he could be mandatory challenger . Just to pass on one piece of good news, Jose Victor Burgos, the former IBF light-flyweight champion who was hospitalised after being stopped by Vic Darchinian, has now been released from hospital. Burgos was injured in their March 3 IBF flyweight title fight. Two Texas prospects padded out their records with easy wins on a show in Houston on April 5. Chris Henry, a 26 year old cruiserweight moved to 18 wins by halting Jim Franklin in one and the more experienced, and older at 29, light-middleweight Chase Shields decisioned Joshua Smith and has 23 wins and a draw. Both worth watching. One night later in St Quentin, France, former EBU featherweight champion Cyril Thomas won the vacant WBF super-featherweight title with a points win over Kenyan David Kiilu. Curious this one as France does not usually have anything to do with any organisation outside the four main sanctioning bodies, and also by winning this title Thomas has disqualified himself from the EBU ratings. Both fighters were kayoed by Nicky Cook, Kiilu in 2003 and Thomas in 2004. Kiilu also lost for the WBF featherweight title here to Choi Tseveenpurev. On the same show Thierry Karl retained the French middleweight title with a points win over former champion Franck Mezaache. Karl's record is given as 17-2 but he has had four round bouts and at one time the French Federation did not count these as full professional bouts, although things may have changed. It is strange how a career can simply turn in one fight. Take the Colombian Luis Bolano who lost only one of his first 42 fights. He then lost to Mark Johnson in a challenge for the WBO title and has since lost 6 in a row, three against fighters with less than eight fights on their record. Not so much of the rails, more a case of in the dustbin. His latest defeat was on April 6 in Minneapolis where seven fight novice Wilton Hilario out pointed him. The same show saw one of the best examples of just how bad our sport can be as the former IBF super-flyweight champion Juan Polo Perez was halted in five rounds by Wes Ferguson. Perez lost his title to Robert Quiroga in Sunderland back in 1990 and is still being used as a punch bag at the age of 43 having lost 25 of his last 27 fights. What sort of a sport is it that can't save people from themselves and what sort of matchmaker still uses poor Juan. Ferguson is 16-1-1 and trained by Roger Mayweather. Still on light-welterweights, in Buenos Aires Cesar Cuenca out pointed Carlos Jerez to go to 28 wins and one no decision. I like Cuenca because of his contrasting nicknames which are “Fred Astaire” and “Uppercut”. Talk about a split personality. As he has only one win inside the distance you wonder how long before he adds “Ginger ” to his nicknames? The former WBA welterweight champion Andrew “Six Heads” Lewis (now that's what I call a nickname) continued his comeback with a points victory over Denny Dalton for the Guyanese light-middleweight title in Georgetown, Guyana on April 7.The 36 year old southpaw now has two wins and a technical draw in his three bout series with Dalton. Lewis won the vacant WBA title by beating James Page in 2001 but dropped to it Ricardo Mayorga the following year. Still out in the West. the Trinidad and Tobago “Hitman” Kirt Sinnett made it 14 wins as he halted Tony Osbourne in five rounds in Port of Spain on April 9. The 32 year old 6'2” super-middleweight was a top amateur with a bronze medals in the Pan American and Central American Games and a spot at the 1994 Commonwealth and 1996 Olympic teams, but he has left it late to turn pro. In another show which ties into the above Jermain Mackey ended the unbeaten run of American former top amateur Julius Fogle with an eighth round stoppage in Nassau on April 18. Jermain, another tall super-middleweight, has 13 wins in 14 fights and is scheduled to face Sinnett in what could be an eliminator for the Commonwealth title if Carl Froch picks up a world crown. Jermain is managed by Ray Minus Jr, the former Commonwealth bantamweight champion who beat Sean Murphy, Donnie Hood and Ronnie Carroll here in title fights in the late 1980's. Fogle had won 15 in a row. In other bouts on the show local heavyweight Sherman Williams made it eight wins in a row with a first round kayo of former Audley Harrison victim Wade Lewis and another Audley victim, Rob Calloway, scored a rare win outside the Deep South as he halted Stacy Goodson in two. Williams and Calloway also have a common opponent in Ruslan Chagaev with Williams lasting the full eight rounds and Calloway getting a technical draw and going out in two. Still on the victims kick, a former Choi Tseveenpurev victim, Georgian Nikoloz Berkatashvili, returned with a win as he kayoed Kakha Toklikishvili in nine rounds in Tbilisi on April 10 and has 14 wins in 15 fights. This was exactly 30 days after his fourth round kayo by Choi. It is impossible to say how a fighters career will go. Back in 2003 Peter Culshaw beat Wandee Singwangcha in retaining the WBF super-flyweight title. Fifteen months later after one more fight, a loss to Andrey Kostin, Peter retired. Wandee went on to win the Interim WBC light-flyweight title and lose it on the scales. Now on April 11 in Samutprauan Wandee kayoed Jang Peng Gai in two rounds to extend his current unbeaten run to 14 bouts and yet on that night in 2003 you would have bet that Peter was the guy who would go forward. When a fighter can count Michael Moorer and Jeff Mayweather amongst those who have trained him, has a nickname of “The Natural“, is 24 years old, 6'5” tall and has 26 straight wins then America is obviously hoping the guy can really fight as it needs heavyweights as badly as I need to have East Fife win every week. That is where JD Chapman finds himself. On April 14 in Russellville he halted Jason Curry in five rounds for win No 26, 23 inside. Unfortunately no one yet knows if he can fights as the opposition has been poor, and 26 poor opponents is a bad sign as it shows his management has no real confidence in him.

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