Eric Armit's World View by Eric Armit Nov 5th 2007

Only in boxing is mediocrity so well rewarded. Well, maybe also in politics! Take Jameel McCline. In January he failed to last three rounds with Nikolai Valuev and though inactive for the next nine months is rewarded with a shot at the WBC interim title. Never mind the winner - get me the loser. Can you imagine that in tennis or golf or athletics where you qualify for the big prize because you are a loser? Frenchman Franck Gorjux is another case in point. Back in 2003 he lost to Alain Bonnel for the French flyweight title. At the time Bonnel had a record of four wins and seven losses. Over the next four years Gorjux wins six fights against, at best, mediocre opposition (his last three opponents had combined records of 17 wins and 47 losses) but manages to get rated within the top ten WBC super-flyweights and last less than three minutes against Cristian Mijares - what a surprise. No other sport suffers from this moral turpitude and Jose Sulaiman would be quite justified in asking his ratings committee how Gorjux got there, but that would be the pot calling the kettle black. Rashiem Jefferson is an unbeaten former top amateur who is making steady progress. The Philly super-featherweight was in action on October 6 when he outpointed Juan Manuel Matias in Louisville to go to 15-0-1. Rashiem made a big splash as an amateur winning a silver medal at 106lbs in the 1999 National Golden Gloves and gold at 112lbs in 2000 and 119lbs in 2001 and 2002 Gloves. He was derailed for a while by a gunshot wound in 2003, but hey, he comes from Philly so he would have been taken for a sissy if he did not have a scar to show. He is in a tough division and it remains to be seen how he does against the top boys. Brunet Zamora was one of those Cubans who defected from Cuba in the days when it was harder than it appears to be today. He settled in Italy and from 2000 onwards was a top performer for the Italian national team. Unfortunately, he was 26 before he defected and left it another four years before turning pro. Now he is the Italian champion at light-welterweight and in Brescia on October 12 made his first defence of the title with a third round stoppage of Emanuele De Prophetis. At 33 and with just 14 pro fights to his name you wonder how far he can go, but then you remember Stefano Zoff is 41 and still a force at lightweight.. There are similarities and contrasts between Alex De Jesus and Harry Joe Yorgey. They are both unbeaten, but Puerto Rican De Jesus was a silver medallist in both the Pan American and Central American championships and competed in the 2004 Olympics whilst Yorgey created hardly the slightest ripple as an amateur. They both scored wins in action on October 12 with light-welterweight De Jesus, a 24 year old southpaw making it 15 wins with a fourth round stoppage of Bulmaro Solis in San Juan and light-middleweight Yorgey going to 20 wins and a draw by decisioning Martinus Clay in Philadelphia. By next year expect to see De Jesus step up in opposition and appear in the top 10 in most rankings and 29-year-old Yorgey step up in opposition, lose, and slip away. It restores the faith to some extent when a guy who is obviously expected to turn up, go through the motions, lose, and be welcomed back some other time reads the wrong script. After 16 fights you would think that Romanian Gheorghe Danut would have figured his role out by now, but no. He turned up in Berne on October 13 to face EBU rated light-middleweight Riad Menasaria and came away with a points win. Gheorghe was 6-7-3 going in and Riad 27-0-1. Duh! Gheorghe, no one wants you as a winner. Just lose bravely and you will never be out of work. BJ Flores is a fighter who sits uncomfortably on that line between cruiserweight and heavyweight. Weighing around 15 stones he can either be a heavy one or a light other. In either category he is unbeaten and his second round stoppage of trial horse Andy Sample in Springfield on October 13 took his record to 20 wins and a draw. The 28-year-old High School graduate was 1997 National Golden Gloves champion and US champion in 2001 and 2002 and is ready for better opposition. Sample was picked to lose and did (are you getting the idea, Gheorghe?) Danut is not the only one to lose the script. Following Ray Olubowale's big win over David Cadieux for the Canadian heavyweight title they decided to give him a safe one and selected young Demetrice King to face Ray in Rama on October 27. King had a 13-15 record coming in, including a loss to Cadieux. However, he also brought a script of his own and kayoed Ray in round six. It is difficult to predict what is going to happen with King. He turned pro at 18 and has been thrown to the wolves, including facing Shannan Briggs when still only 20, and losing seven of eight in one run. However he has now won five in a row including an upset of another highly touted Canadian prospect Bermane Stiverne. Demetrice could be finally learning how to fight. Ray's guys broke the cardinal rule by going for a winner. I was going to make a big deal out of 41-year-old Silvio Branco beating 43-year-old Peter Venancio for the vacant WBC International and the Latino light-heavyweight titles in Berlin on October 19. Come on guys, surely you know when enough is enough? With combined ages of 84, I guess we are lucky they were not fighting for the Youth title. However I decided not to make a big deal of it as I heard the tinkling, broken glasshouse as last week I returned to work for the fifth time at the age of 67+, so if the Youth title comes up for grabs - go for it Silvio. Mind you I am only working part-time so I could probably end up fighting for the British heavyweight title as you don't appear to have to train and only seem to have to fight for about 10 seconds in each round. Raul "Rayito" Garcia could be the next Mexican to emerge from the Provinces on to the big stage. In La Paz on October 19 he retained his Mexican strawweight title by outpointing Oscar Saturnino. He has a 21-0-1 record and holds a win over Sammy Gutierrez who previously held him to a draw. So far he has never fought outside the Baja California area, but now it is time for him to move upwards. Allan "Sweetness" Green had an easy night in Miami, Oklahoma, on October 19 as he kayoed Sherwin Davis in two rounds. The 6'2” super-middleweight has 25 wins against a loss on points to Edison Miranda in March. On the same night in Philadelphia, India's only quality pro, Gurcharan Singh, returned after three years out with a points win over heavyweight Mike Miller. “Guru” has 18 wins. Australia has it's own version of Amir Khan in 20-year-old Leo (Lenny) Zappavigna (Zappa). In Sydney on October 20, he had unbeaten Ryan Langham on the floor four times on the way to a third-round stoppage victory. Lenny has eleven wins. He won the Australian title in his fifth fight and this was his second defence. As an amateur he was Australian cadet champion in 2002, 2003 and 2004 but lost to David Appleby in the semi-finals of the 2004 Commonwealth Youth championships. If there is a worry it is that Lenny appears to be vulnerable early as Langham had him down in the first round which is the second fight in a row where he has been on the floor inside the first three minutes, but again got up to win.

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