INFIGHTING DEVELOPS INTO OPEN WAR BETWEEN DK AND TEAM RUIZ AND ON THE EVIDENCE AVAILABLE BOTH CANNOT BE CORRECT; AGAIN THE MADNESS OF FOUR ‘WORLD’ CHAMPIONS RAISES ITS UGLY HEAD
when BoxingAction.com received the DK Promotions media release that the WBA had ordered an interim heavyweight title bout to take place between Kali Meehan and former WBA heavyweight champion Ruslan Chagaev, we were confounded and immediately sought confirmation in the Oxford English dictionary the meaning of the word ‘interim’
Lo and behold, as we thought, it means “Intervening time.”
We were then further bemused by the fact that as the current WBA heavyweight champion David Haye (UK) had made no statement on giving-up his WBA title and had in fact had stated that he would defend his title against John Ruiz, the WBA mandatory challenger, we were at a loss to understand where an interim ‘champion’ would fit in?
Therefore, when the news came of the alleged directive from the WBA regarding Meehan and Chagaev we made our usual checks and they finally revealed it was a status quo situation with David Haye delighted to be the WBA heavyweight champion and had no intention of abdicating the WBA crown.
So, the article that was written querying the alleged interim fight being ordered when there was already a WBA heavyweight champion in situ was immediately taken from the ‘pending’ tray.
The contractual clash between Don King, who claims he has a boxer/promoter contract, and Team Ruiz, in denial, is confined to legal opinion but it appears to be ludicrous to suggest an interim championship must take place when there is already a fighting fit WBA champion sitting comfortably on the WBA throne, had to be nonsense.
It was also suspicious that the dates that cover the lengthy term of the contract claimed by DK, suggested it had been renewed, perhaps even more than once, although this was not mentioned.
Once again the terminal illness of having in World boxing at least four pretenders to the title of ‘champion’ rears its ugly head and places boxing in the stocks and a defenceless target for the snipers of The Sweet Science.
Change is desperately needed in boxing and the longer this necessity is left idle so the smiles of the promoters UFC will widen and their income spiral upwards.
In boxing weight divisions or any other sport where there are separate acceptable categories, there can be only ONE and one only, champion. For boxing to split the word champion into, at least, four is illiterate, nonsensical and therefore drivel.
Madness comes in many forms; this manufactured example is as insane as any disease that covers the sickness of a deranged mind.
The many years of harvest time is now over for promoters. The easy moneymaking years that came about through colluding with TV companies and misleading the general public by sticking ‘world’ labels on fights that were anything but World title fights, is drawing to a close.
The snake oil sales bonanza is over. Those TV companies that remain interested in boxing want only the most attractive matches – don’t we all.
The matches reserved for Pay-Per-View are the fortune makers but they don’t come about over night.
Great fighters do not suddenly emerge from behind the clouds. They have to be made. This takes time, patience, smart management, which includes coaching, investment of money and superior marketing that would not disgrace the giants on Madison Avenue.
The ‘quick buck’ methodology of taking a cardboard cut-out of a ‘champion’ and parading him on TV as the best in the world is fast coming to an end. The ‘suckers’ have wised-up.
Boxing is an honest sport. It is not like other sports that cloak their violence and pretend it is not there. Boxing does not deny it contains violence but it is undeniably controlled violence.
Other sports have routinely oft repeated uncontrolled violence in every match and while it is against the rules, nevertheless, in every rugby, football (soccer), American football match, and there are others, damaging physical violence is sometimes seen as oten as dice are rolled in casinos
Who will be the crusader that will stride onto the boxing plateau and deliver The Sweet Science from the immoral practice of selling at least four World champions in every one of the 17 weight division, which means there could at any one time be 64 world boxing champions?
Such a moral crusader is out there. His identity needs only to be announced, ~
