Details

Published: 14 March 2012

The Story

This weekend I took part in the Saarland Amateur Boxing Championships 2012. The exact date was 9th and 10th March 2012 and the time was planned to be after 20:00 o'clock. Although I haven't heard anything positive about those amateur championships, I decided to participate and check out what's really going on. And yeah, even precautioned and theoretically ready, in the practical application I was literally blasted off! Felt like being in a swine farmyard and no joking at all! I've encountered numerous old and new intrigues, people suffering from all kinds of complexes, displaying arrogance, greed and schizophrenic behavior (excuse me for missing the words for the rest of psychiatric disorders, but believe me - there were plenty of examples for any of them). Anyway, I'll choose the story-like art of telling and won't be that concrete with names and won't dig deep into the wounds of the practically dead boxing scene here.

Friday

Friday the weight in was at 18:30 so we met us in front of our boxing gym a bit earlier. The weather was nice and sunny so the possibility for some swinging on the big swing nearby. The overall mood was excellent considering that sever hours later all should box good. Although we were a lot of boxers, almost all were young and I was the oldest (I first think about that now). After everyone came, we got into the cars and went to "Hirschberghalle Furpach" ("deer hall Furpach" in exact translation). A place google maps or bing maps never heard of, hidden near a village called Furpach. The event itself was left unadvertised and maybe google won't know that it actually took place. I won't mean that it is absolutely necessary to advertise in that way, but consider that this is the single and biggest event around here, as there is practically no professional boxing in this state, so at least a flyers or some posters or whatever would be cool. Only the dates were mentioned in couple of calendars, but no starting time, no price - nothing! This made me prepare myself for awful organization :)

We arrived. In this hidden place there was a small hall with two dressing rooms for all clubs. There we around 8 clubs, 3 out of them were the big ones - our club from Voelklingen followed by Neunkirchen and Saarlouis and the rest were St. Ingbert, Homburg, Saarbruecken, Wellensweiler and I think I am missing one more. Friendship between clubs or at least some respect between them was completely missing...

After stucking to the small dressing room we went to weight in. We we two boxers from my club at 69 and we were about to box in two different groups as we were told. My mate had to box in B group against some unexperienced fighter and I had to box in A group against experienced ones. On the weight in one of my then possible opponent went with 1.5 kilo above, but he was from the organizers team - no problem! Good boy, well done! Nevertheless, we were weighted exact :)

The next awesome piece of new was just about to come... Namely, I was dropped down to B group to let the homeboy to fight a single fight directly to the finals against some solid guy, instead of qualifying against me (consider that there was a fourth one that ducked even the possibility to fight the solid guy already). Great news for the home boy as he went directly to the finals! Strangely, he ducked that fight too and by doing this got the "second place". How silly?! I won't say in no matter that I would have won him, or especially won't say a word about my miserable chance to win against the solid guy, I would have not ducked that fight however...

All of this is only the first part of me being rescheduled. The second part was I had to fight against my teammate to qualify for the finals in saturday. My mate had some issues with his nose and chose to participate only because we weren't in one group, as there was no sense to make a fight against me. Knowing this we were totally blasted and felt really fucked up. A great scenario - let the both fighters from same club to fight themselves and then have the winner tired for the finals! How great!

Nevertheless, we told ourself to give a good fight and let the better one win. I was a bit experienced and showed some technical skills so I won that one. Unfortunately, I have no video of that fight, but a few nice photos by friend of mine:

I got tired after fighting, but it was not only physical fatigue. It was the hours of being involved in this shit and in many more small shits that happened like the one that the fights started two hours later, or the absolute tiny place to move, or the aggressive looks by everybody in this swine farmyard... So physically and more mentally worn out I came home around 2:00 o'clock...

Saturday

I got up wishing all to be gone. I was thinking only about the pancakes, that I promised to organize the next day at my home with friends and prepared myself with shopping on thursday for that (shopping on empty stomach is painful thing, believe me). At least that day, there was no second weight in and we went a bit later for the show. I promised a knockout just to show those guys that there is no free lunch and that their calculations for a win would fail.

Time went slowly. The only place to take a seat was near the ring. Awful things happened there and worst thing that comes to my mind was a kid fight with one kid being about 120 cm big and the other one about 150 cm big. The difference between their boxing skills was also that big, as their size. The awful thing was the aggressiveness that the bigger kid was showing against the smaller one, considering that the smaller one had not a single percent chance to win. Kids will you say... And the trainer of the bigger kid screaming with all of his voice power "DESTROY HIM! PUT HIM ON THE CANVAS!!!"! That made the trainer of the smaller kid to go to the other side mad to tell him that he is insane or something like that, and he had the right. Nevertheless, the crowd enjoyed that as well...

The only good word I have to say here is that almost all of the other fights were really tough and all guys left it all on the ring.

Suddenly it was my time to fight again. I was terribly tired in my mind and just a little bit physically tired, but that was not the problem as I am used to train every day. I didn't knew who my opponent was until we both got into the ring and I was pretty surprised, as he was the last one expected (I though my opponent was another one). The fight started and I was really tight so in the end I got really worn out physically (today I thing I did very little sparring sessions prior the the battle and despite my superior physical condition I worn out very fast). My trainer advised me to do something, but I was too slow to realize the instructions and just fought in cautious way and won by leaving the other guy with injured nose. He made it all three rounds and proved to be really tough guy and made my promise, for taking him out, to fail. I have some partial recording of that fight, which you can see too:

There was I - a champion, and the only thing I was happy about, was that it's all over and I was looking forward in my dreams about biking and climbing in the forest tomorrow and then making pancakes!

This was the last fight with a fighter from our club involved so I was cheered really hard and I am thankful for that :) Here to note that although the other clubs hated themselves too, in every our fight they joined forces against our club (our is the biggest one, so the small snakes gather together as everyone would expected).

After taking a shower I managed to make some photos with my club made we fought and with some others:

Another mate watching the knockout he did the fight before me :)

Here with my trainer and friend couple of days after the event :)

 

 

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The End

So this is my short blog entry about unforgettable experience called Saarland Amateur Boxing Championships 2012! I missed a lot of things to write and may write some more besides adding the videos and some more photos. For me all the happening was a real book of life - I learned so much and I am happy and thankful for that!

I almost forgot to thank a lot to Eduard, the man in the shadow, just like in the photo, who took care of all side stuff around the ring like taking me to the event and warming me up!

Also big up to all other trainers Heiko, Bernd and Michael from Voelklingen, for making this event possible for all the kids in the club :)

Details

Published: 08 March 2012

 

Definition of the Boxing Cancer

Boxing Art turned into Boxing Industry long time ago. The roots of this industry cancer dig very deep and replaced the art that once existed. There had been very few people, that intended to cure this disease, and dozens that backed the illness. Maybe since the cancer was pretty small in at its beginning and no one could recognize it, but nowadays it's that obvious that it disgusts casual observers and forces involved people to commit suicide or to be killed.

In the beginning the boxing cancer was small, it was on a small personal interest scale and was more like dirty childish games compared to what would mutate out in the future. The first big mutation milestone was the fight Joe Louis vs. Max Schmelling. It was no longer boxing - it could be rather associated with words like politics, propaganda, industry, mind control, racism... All of these cancer aspects found in boxing a perfect nest to grow.

Nowadays all of this is destroying boxing with huge power. The cancer is everywhere - inside the local gym and local shows to the big scene public shit. There's shit in the working place on every boxing related subject - the boxing press, the boxing managers, the boxing promoters, the boxing trainers and of course the boxers themselves. All of this smells to the general public, which is becoming thinner with obvious tendency - few new attracted stupids and dozens of lost more intelligent people. And nothing strange here, because shit attracts stupids and repels intelligent ones!

I'll like to give some examples here and to initiate my list of shame, which will be like list of worst boxing decisions in recent years, or list of worst match-ups, or list of biggest boxing shits, or just list with random cancer branches! I'll keep the list unsorted, because I'll always put here and there what comes down to my mind, but you may sort it by yourself! I'll fill all examples with more explanation and will comment what is the most disgusting there:

• Sergio Martinez vs. Paul Williams I 2009

A small robbery in my eyes, as I had actually Martinez winning. The strange thing is that one judge gave it 119-110 to Williams! How corrupt! Nevertheless, Sergio got his revenge with Knockout of the Year 2010 :) Will have some relief to see Sergio banging Kermit Cintron for the shameless draw decision in the fight, which he clearly won, or to see him revenging his loss against Margarito.

• Erislandy Lara vs. Paul Williams 2011
  

Just check the facts written in Boxrec (click) or watch the whole fight. All of this decisions together with his fight against Kermit Cintron ruined Williams's reputation. One another thing is disgusting me too - the HBO commentators, that were commenting the Paul Williams vs. Noburo Ishida. In order to keep their image of selling best fights they told only good words about Williams and the same people that told Lara was robbed, told later on that it was just a controversial decision. What a cheap commentators. Sadly they are between "the most respected". Another thing to note here is that Erislandy Lara got backed up in his previous fight against Carlos Molina, who actually won the fight, which was not supposed to happen!

• Tomasz Adamek vs. Vitali Klitschko 2011

Tomasz is one of my favorite fighters and it was really sad to see him blowing his own reputation by engaging himself with Vitali. A small cruiserweight versus the number one ranked super heavyweight - what a lost cause?! Just to prove something or to satisfy stupid managers?! Adamek displayed courage and heart, and my compassion goes to him, as I know how it's like to be pummeled by a bigger, stronger and skilled boxer.

• Floyd Mayweather vs. Jose Luis Castillo I 2002
  

A fight you may never heard of. A fight, no one likes to speak about. A fight, which Emanuel Steward mentioned accidentally during the Floyd vs. Cotto fight, but the other old dog commentators shrugged off his comment immediately. So what happened back then? HBO's unofficial scorer Harold Lederman had Castillo winning 115-111. I got it even with a wider margin for Castillo. Compubox said Castillo landed 173 power punches and Mayweather only 66 (think also that Mayweather has actually no real "power punches"). So clear win for Castillo and you might watch it by yourself. Nevertheless, this would kill the new industry product called Floyd Mayweather, who called himself with the nickname "money". Think about what would be Floyd Mayweather now with having one lost in his record?! Well, I'll leave it to your fantasy.

• Floyd Mayweather vs. Juan Manuel Marquez 2009
  

Despite Floyd Mayweather trys to create his own reputation of honest guy and intends to be remembered clean, the regular boxing observer wouldn't forget his honest match-up with Maquez. First Floyd dragged him to his weight class and then himself failed to make weight with two pounds! Then it was pretty clear what would happen the next day, when taller, 20 pounds bigger and faster fighter meets someone smaller who is couple weight classes below. This literally destroyed the reputation of Mayweather in my eyes, and he shitted on his talent and on his skills that day. He still continues shitting with saying how all fighters are on survival mode, and if his opponents try to do something, he would have knocked them out. Just sad to remember that the smaller Marquez was going 12 rounds forward in a lost cause and Mayweather failed even to hurt him on his own land (despite the knockdown, I never saw Marquez hurt like he was against Diaz).

• Adrien Broner vs. Vicente Escobedo 2012

Steve Kim out of MaxBoxing.com wrote an excelent article suggesting to rename "Boxing After Dark" to "Boxing After Farce" (click). For me a more justified name will be "Farce After Farce". All started up with Broner failing to make the 130 pound weight, which he didn't bothered to do. Escobedo on his behalf made the weight and was firstly unwilling to fight, which in actual language meant "give me more money to do this". So they negotiated a second weigh in on the fight day, where Broner had to make 140 pounds. Just think about how ridiculous that is?! Anyway, Broner didn't mind to fail making even those 140 pounds, so Al Haymon and HBO had to dig deeper in their pockets to buy Escobedo and push their new "future boxing super star" on the TV.

What choice did Escobedo had? I've saw his eyes in the interviews immediately before the fight, where he read the script with big pain inside. I can see how he was told noone will ever televise him if he drop that out, although he was surely aware of that already. I can see how in such case noone will ever pay him a cent for the hard work he put in the gym, or even the opposite - they'll sue him for leaving the ship (and yes, no matter if they'll win the trial, they'll chop him into pieces for the edification). What's Escobedos choice in life with this cash handicap and without boxing?! That's his situation - take it or not, on his maybe last big payday with having recently a baby in the family. Last big cash beating. It was a beating for sure, because although he was a big underdog he actually wasn't even worth of having the miserable chance that the bookers gave him. I'll appeal here to stop repeathing the well known phrase that all commentators love "Everything is possible - this is Boxing!". Well, they are right - in boxing everything is possible. The small problem is that this is no boxing anymore!

Unlike Marquez after fighting Mayweather, Escobedo is not going to have more big cash days. For those unfamilar, there are even worst cases on "small scale" boxing. People banged under the circunstances even without that big payday. And those "worst cases" are more likely to happen than a good cases. This of course is not televized, because noone likes to kill his own TV with such shit. A small problem is that, what we see televized is even "big scale" shit, just being covered very decent.

How can we avoid weight problems like that? How can we avoid further problems and somehow "punish" boxers like Broner for disrespecting the rules? Well simplest solution will be to square Broner with bigger guy like Sergio Martinez, so that he can taste what means to be pummeled by "bigger, stronger, faster". Well, it's not that simple. The current solution to take his 130 pound belt didn't seem to bother him at all, because he already moved up in weight. So why not putting him down on the food chain again to struggle to receive a title fight in the new weight class because of this failing? Why not giving the title to Escobedo, besides throwing him crying beaten down and workless to the streets? And I was terrified to see him crying on the post fight interview, knowing what boils inside him! What is so "professional" in the current situation?! Even in "amateur" boxing the guy that failed the weight limit, has a technical lost and even if the other guy has a good will to fight him and the rules allow this to happen just for the spectators, then the medal or the title is issued to the clean guy, no matter what the fight outcome was.

• Travoris Cloud vs. Gabriel Campillo 2012

Recently I read an interesting article in MaxBoxing.com by Allan Scotto called "Another Fan Lost" (click), where he described his experience of watching that awful corrupt decision that gave the victory to Travoris Cloud. As his experiences was exactly the same as my experience when watching with friends or my trainers experience, which we discuss after every weekends bad decision I felt obligated to write an email to Allan Scotto to give positive feedback and will just paste a little part of that email:

"been watching boxing over time and me and my trainer (or actually more friend than trainer) had been talking exact the same story after each weekend. We live in Germany and here you got every time the famous "German Decisions". This is the exact reason, the people get disgusted by boxing, because they end up with this awful feeling after watching.
In the Travoris fight, Cloud earned my compassion from the entrance, when I saw him with Don King... "the next fucked up Tyson", I thought. Then they announced the judges, two of them completely casual, very strange I though, although the fight should not go to the judges. But then Campillo entered and his trainer was the Martinez trainer, Juan Leon Diaz, which is a statement on itself so I checked his record, that was good as well. At that time I was certain, "if he don't knock out Travoris, he'll got robbed", as it happened. Although I knew he'll got robbed, I was still surprised that it happened to him after dominating the whole fight after the bad start! It is sad that such obvious decisions are finding their way in the states too, and the last big one was just Lara vs. Williams..."

• Felix Sturm vs. Oscar de la Hoya 2004 and Felix Sturm vs. Matthew Macklin 2011

I'll put those fights with same caption as they were almost the same decisions. After watching Felix Sturm vs. Oscar de la Hoya and the obvios win for Sturm, who outpunched Oscar de la Hoya and won even in the eyes of Harold Lederman, I thought that it should be forbidden for promoter, manager and matchmaker to be involved in fight himself (namely Oscar was all three together). So Sturm got robbed and the money fight Oscar de la Hoya vs. Bernard Hopkins had green light!

Exact same story happened in 2011 when Matthew Macklin banged on the head of promoter, matchmaker, manager and boxer Felix Sturm in his promoted fight for his title. The decision disgusted even the Germans here in Germany!

• Manny Pacquiao vs. Juan Manuel Marquez I 2004, II 2008 and III 2011

My compassion goes to Marquez, who had the bad luck to meet the biggest boxing money machines of our time - Mayweatehr and Pacquiao.

First fight Marquez went three times down, but then displayed tremendous heart and dominated the rest of the fight. Compubox had him also on the lead. It was a close fight indeed, so the draw was kind of small robbery.

In their second meeting Marquez outlanded Pacquiao again, also according to Compubox and in my eyes controlled the show, but got robbed again. Money machines should never loose a decision you know it already! Anyway with a bit hesitation I might call that a draw, so the split decision is also kinda small robbery.

The huge robbery came on their third meeting. Marquez literally gave Manny a lesson. Such a great lesson! Even Manny was disappointed badly and was in terrible mood after the fight. Freddie Roach admitted Manny didn't do enough and admitted loosing the fight by saying "you need to knock this guy out" in the last rounds. He was in terrible mood as well as disappointed too. Even Pacquiaos teammate Amir Khan said he lost the fight on the British broadcasted show. This time all popular media should be corrupted. Compubox as well. There is simple no way Manny outlanding Marquez (count it by yourself). "Huge left hand by Manny Pacquiao" screamed Jim Lampley, however watching those "huge left hands" on HD slow motion looks like they barely touched the guard of Marquez, who had a tremendous defense skills.

I don't think it is necessary to write more lines here, just watch the fights by yourself. Watch them without the HBO commentary or just find them with the british broadcasting versions - its much more fair! You know HBO commentators should keep the golden boys golden and make money. Otherwise if Manny lost three times how could you sell him for tens of millions every fight?!

Anyway, I truly admire what Juan Manuel Marquez gave to boxing and wish him all well in his life!

• Manny Pacquiao vs. Timothy Bradley 2012

After taking the decision present from Marquez it was time for Manny to be on the other side of the coin. In a fight where Pacquiao totally outlanded Bradley and was even able to hurt him, and his well known iron chin, all the experts gave at most 1-3 rounds for Tim. However, the three judges saw things differently. Although I cheered Bradley and wanted him to win, this decision made me bad about him, because I know it will ruin his respect by wide public. He was immediately booed, which I don't thing he deserved and also tied up by aggressive questions, which I don't think were that appropriate at the ring after the fight. There are a lot of speculations about this bout, why it was judged by that way. Whether it was Bob Arums decision to have a new unbeaten boy, while Manny declared he might fight only couple more times and willing to become a promoter too? Yep, the same Bob Arum that greeted happily Bradley after the fight and gave him a hug, also the same Bob Arum that claimed moments after that, what happened that night was ridiculous. Truly hypocrite indeed. Maybe he got too upset that in the biggest fight he was building up with years "Mayweather vs. Pacquiao" no one will actually need Bob Arum! So Tim beats Manny - huge upset, the dogs are wagging, making Bradley a brand, so there you get the new product "Bradley vs. Mayweather"... Nevertheless, how can you tell the people that gave money to watch this fight, that they weren't fucked up, even when the fight was decent? Can you really sell Bradley now? How can you sell boxing now?

Another thing to mention here is that there were many "respected journalists", who were actually worse than low level paid bloggers, that called "conspiracy theories" all of the "negative" talk about this match and the Bob Arum relation. To answer them here - only a idiot could miss what actually happened that night, and only fool can be fooled like that (again and again). But as I wrote in the beginning of the article - boxing is already overwhelmed by idiots...

• Johnny Tapia vs. Paulie Ayala II 2000

After both fighters met in a great battle selected for fight of the year 1999, they met once again in 2000. I've watched both fights and I must say that the first was very even and I won't score anything else than a draw, while in the second one Johnny clearly learned his lesson and outboxed Paulie for 10 out of 12 rounds. Johnny, who blamed Bob Arum for his first loss against Paulie, has certainly the right to blame him again (Johnny refused to extend his contract with Bob Arum).

• Antonio Margarito wraps

We all know the story of Margaritos wraps. The disgusting thing here for me is the he still refuses to say that he cheated. What a fucking behavior (I cannot find harder words in English language, but definitely deserves them). With his actions Margarito screwed his whole career and shown boxing in awful image, not only that boxing has cheaters on world title level officially, but also that couple of years later they can get over it and fight again for a world title! As long as the millions of dollars are on the stake, of course! And yeah, Margarito did shit and by the law of shitting, he was shitted too on his second fight against Cotto. I think every normal spectator would though that if Cotto could survive the rounds he would get the decision, but the problem was that he would rather fall down like in their first fight, that Margarito would have won also clean, but due to his cheating no one believed him. So to come back to their second fight, at the point where Margarito came strong and Cotto was fading the referee stopped the fight, to avoid "further problems". How cute! But we all remember Pawel Wolak vs. Delvin Rodriguez couple of months earlier and we all remember the face of Wolak (check pictures in internet if you have strong nerves). Bottom line here is that no one is winner from this shit games - there are only loosers, also innocent ones (or at least to certain degree innocent).

• Carlos Molina

There might be no other so badly smashed by the system boxer as Carlos Molina. He is just the best example of how ignoring the boxing cancer is. In his career he confronted so many fucked up decisions like noone has. He had a hard time landing in the professionals with having only 6 amateur fights (just like me for example I have also 6 and I could barely imagine myself landing on the professional ring). So he entered there and had some 3 victories and then lost with split decision I could not comment as I haven't watched. The first thing to comment are his both fights against Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. He clearly won the both fights and even the crowd having Chavez for favorite booed his own favorite and recognized Molina as the winner! First bout was declared draw and the results was never published (WTF?). The second bout was gave to Chavez for granted with one round difference... You know - "Chavez" is perfect dollar brand, no matter that it is based only on the Senior. So after meeting the HBO cash cow, Molina was forced to "resurrect" his career with several "easier" fights. Then his fist big fight again was against Erislandy Lara. Everyone, that watched the fight saw the obvious - Molina won! But you know, Lara was scheduled to face Paul Wiliams so it would be a very bad beat to let him loose, so the judges scored the bout a draw... No further comment here. The poor Molina faced couple of fights later James Kirkland and was disqualified absolutely ridiculous. He was winning the fight obviously, although by a pretty dirty way (he even should have been deducted a point at a time maybe, but hey Kirkland was obviously bigger and let himself being smuggered, so no excuses here). Nevertheless, he was leading on two of the scorecards (besides the corrupted and/or blind third judge) and only knockdown should have saved Kirkland, who dropped him in the 10th. After Molina got up the referee Jon Schorle disqualified him for his corner entering the ring (which was after the bell so actually against the rules). This defenately ruines the reputation of boxing and displaying it in light of primitive idiocratic sport. I believe everyone, who payed tickets or watched the match was brutaly disappointed by this judge action. Here I am asking - why no one disqualified the judge?! Why there is replacement judge there?! Why after all immediate replays the judge was shown wrong, and still even up to date this stays as a lost in the record of Molina? Everyone saw the referee wrong there, even Kirkland and his team, as they also recognize that their reputation is ruined too (considering he was in his flow and may have knocked out Molina, who knows). All of this big shit put back boxing about 150 years in the past and modernization in terms of adding the replay into account and/or allowing the ringside judges to decide to kick out the ring judge and replace him with the second one immediately after seeing him acting ridiculous and idiocratic. So far for this poor, and I am sure angry at all the boxing world, man Carlos Molina, who although being a top fighter seems to be no one's favorite with his 6 amateur fights and his 19-5-2 professional record, despite the truth that he is fighting above his natural class and actually won all of his big fights! And I feel bad that all of this that happened to him actually doesn't hurt him only, but ruins all the boxing scene!

• Brian Vera vs. Julio Cezar Chavez Jr. 2013

If JCC Jr. continues to box I might consider a special article for him, because every of his fights is usually surrounded with multiple rule violations and suspicious circumstances. For this concrete fight JCC Jr. was supposed to make a tune up comeback in order to get his ring feeling back again and climb the Pound for Pound rankings, after loosing a lopsided decision against Martinez and failing the drug test afterwards. Considering the impossibility of Chavez making the middleweight limit and the fact, that every good fighter in 168 would simple crush him easily, Bob Arum had a good plan of bringing some not bad, but at least known to the public, middleweight fighter, and so was Brian Vera (23-6) chosen. Shortly before the scheduled fight date Chavez and his team noticed, that there is no chance of him making even the 168 limit, so they forced Vera to sign for 173. If you think Vera had any real choice of not signing, well it's only an ilusion. So Vera came into the fight about 20 pounds lighter and won it pretty clearly to me, to all other fans (including the mexicans) and to all the press scores (54 out of 60 had Vera winning, while 6 had it a draw (click 1, click 2)) by pressing the action for all ten rounds, outworking and outlanding Chavez. The only four people, that had it wrong were Bob Arum, stating "Boxing got it right. I thought so" (click), and the three judges Carla Caiz (96-94), Marty Denkin (97-93) and Gwen Adair (98-92). Now grandpa Bob will sell a rematch to clear the circumstances and will hope to cash out a future fight between JCC Jr. and the likes of Andre Ward. Seriously, if I was living in USA, I would just transfer my PPV dollars to Brian Vera, as the one who truly deserves them, and skip any bad beat of watching a shameless set up fights...

• Marco Huck vs. Denis Lebedev 2010

What a robbery! Even Marco Huck didn't believed the decision in the end, but it was a fact! I call this "German Decision"! The guy that became German native couple of years ago was screwed this year against Alexander Povetkin in pretty even fight. I mention this just to note that every one is screwed by inner circle games like that, even those who seem to be on the right side once or twice.

• Orlando Salido vs. Juan Manuel Lopez I in 2011 and II in 2012

Can be called also operation "save money". Salido with his terrible record blown away Juan Manuel Lopez with TKO in their first fight in 2011, where the judges strangely saw it a draw up to that point (they wear strange goggles indeed).

However, the big money was about to come next year. Young Lopez, with perfect record except those "controversial" TKO lost, should came out in his own country again and do the business. What an eye catching and good advertised redemption. The only problem - no one told Salido that! The fight was a serious candidate for fight of the year and the advertised as "aging" Orlando blown the young money prospect Juan Manuel away. The most strange thing here were the judges scorecards - Lopez ahead up to that point on couple of them and even on the third! You have to be really fuckin corrupt to see things in that way! If Lopez had survived and took the decision, couple of years later no one would have remembered Salido. No one would gave him a tough match (no one wants to mess with tough cookies). "Lopez had personal problems, but redeemed his career", would everyone thought. What would the people remember - the fight or the numbers in terms of record?! What a lovely money machine would have been Lopez?!

And I admit, both fights are must see fights and especially the second one will never be forgotten and might be also chosen for fight of the year! So see here how the boxing cancer puts shades on such fantastic happening. Another aspect or branch of the cancer is the fight promotion - people outside Puerto Rico or the normal boxing fans might never heard of that fight happen, but they hear everyday the thrash talk called "promotion" of fight, that is most likely never going to happen - Floyd vs. Manny. And to end up with this fight analysis, check out the post fight interview gave by Lopez... And no one told him to shut the fuck up. No one from his team, forget about the reporter too... It's pretty clear that he got himself into talking clear bullshit, but hey - he just got knocked out and was blasted with bombs for 10 rounds! So I am more like to ask for explanation the people around him and instead of suspending him, I would suspend his people there, I'll get him to clearer ground and let this young man redeem his career and let his potential grow far away from idiots, that spread all types of cancer in boxing!

• Joseph Agbeko vs. Abner Mares 2011

I don't know what they gave or how they have threaten the official judge Russel Mora on that fight. The whole fight he backed up Abner Mares and with the 11th round eye catching low blow, called a knock down, all became clear! Watch it by yourself!

• Lucas Matthysse vs. Zab Judah 2010 and vs. Devon Alexander 2011
  

The poor Matthysse was not supposed to win those fights! He outlanded both money machines popping punches with power punches, but lost those decisions! The old money machine Zab still works and besides - how would you advertise his match against Amir Khan, who was supposed to fight against an easy old fighter and not some Argentinian hell like Maidana was! And about Devon Alexander - you should put some oil in this money machine and to his record!

• Bernard Hopkins vs. Jean Pascal I in 2010 and II in 2011

A perfect match up with respect to the old time business mechanism - replace old money machine passes away for a new money machine that comes! However, this couldn't happen and although this event made even more money for those both events, in the long term, the potential of having gold mine, like Pascal for maybe ten years, screwed up!

• Brandon Rios vs. Richard Abril 2012

Well, I really loved Brandon and his "leave it all in the ring" style, but this was just an awful fixed decision. Brandon failing to make weight for a second straight time was completely dominated by the Cuban technician for 12 rounds and I personally can at most give couple of rounds even, but actually no clear round for Rios at all! This decision definitely harmed boxing again and gave the new beloved boy with nickname "Bam Bam" just another victory in the record and the "poor" Richard Abril his third split decision lost, where he actually won them all. So if you like boxing and good boxing, watch Richards other fights and while enjoying them you actually are giving him also a credit and support good boxing!

• James Toney vs. Dave Tiberi 1992

Well, you all can see this fight online and can decide by yourself what happened. Supposed to be a clear record fill fight for Toney, who was given a lesson for 12 rounds by Tiberi, who didn't got the decision. It is one of the reasons why I think Toney is just a jackass and was never anything more, because in the post fight interview he played a dick ass and later on still never confessed like a man, that he lost that one. Dave was so upset by this shit, that he never fought again. It's a clear case how odd the boxing system was and still is and leaves us the spectators with dickass like Toney, while taking away from us the better fighters like Dave. And the cherry on the top - two of the judges that scored the fight for Toney were unlicensed in the state, where the fight held. And of course, as you might suggest, the fight was neither scored again, nor replayed...

• Mauricio Herrera vs. Danny Garcia 2014

Sold as a "coming home" fight for Danny Garcia, who actually never was in Puerto Rico, which supposed to be his home, it was one of the fights, which just couldn't have gone the wrong direction. Danny who was coming after 182 days layoff in "his country" to build up a market there with Al Haymon, Golden Boyd and Showtime behind, did what he should have done - took the decision. The only problem is that he was beaten by Mauricio all night long, but as open scoring shown the results after round 4 with Herrera dominating all those first rounds and Garcia somehow leading in score, it was clear that Herrera wasn't gonna make "W". I though that even if he knocked out Danny at the end, something close to happen, he would have been disqualified for some reason.

• Broadcasting

The broadcasting is responsible for making up the public mind. When it suffers from "cancer", it is the most responsible for spreading this cancer in epidemic waves. In our daily lives we are overdosed by propaganda and boxing makes no exception at all. Even the opposite - boxing is on the edge of the propaganda, which has been foreseen two thousand years ago and was called "panem et circenses" ("Bread and Circuses"). It would be good if the public recognizes the hidden machine, which lies behind the pretty advertised mask. The main goal of the mass media has nothing to do with trying to give you the highest quality fights or the fair point of view. It deals only with taking your money and making you narrow minded in order to take your money in the long term future as well. To emphasize again: boxing makes no exception at all, in contrary - it's even on the edge of it. Joe Louis vs. Max Schmelling was just one of the biggest first example of full packet propaganda. And as it was some 65 years ago, one might see easier the whole picture, compared to the current picture, which has evolved much since then.

And yeah, I am sick of listening to the one sided comments of HBO, who take care of their own interest. It's kinda sad that they can comment fights good only when they have no particular interest of that fight, or its outcome. So I understand the point that Floyd made, about Jim Lampley, who never gave him fair shake, but what about Floyd himself? Whom he gave a fair shake?! He hadn't even offered such one!

I'll give some more concrete examples here in the upcoming days. I'll also start some thankful list for all of the people making positive impact in this sphere like:

Thomas Hauser of sbnation is maybe the top respected journalist in the boxing society, well known for his great bibliographies like the one for the life of Muhammad Ali. He is always on the controversy for his honest opinions about performance enhancing drugs and cruel intended politics in boxing.

Steve Kim of Maxboxing, who is always writing a bitter but fair articles about the sport, risking his own connections by doing this. Dancing on thinner ice is not for everyone, so I admire this and even when he spares some information, the intelligent people can still read it between the lines.

Gabriel Montoya of Maxboxing, who is digging with his articles in places, where no other journalist wants even to look at.

British Crews like Boxnation and Sky are pretty fair, so when it comes to choice, choose them :)

Channel One in Russia is always a good choice for Slavic speaking people.

I'll keep this list going, together with the opposite list:

Showtime Crew - stop spitting on names of fighters, who didn't gave you what you want. You look like a porn freak, who isn't satisfied by the last series of porn. This is boxing, so stop whining about stuff like Rigondeaux isn't worth money or whatever. In reality Rigondeaux is what boxing is all about, so stop making up the public mind with illness.

HBO Crew - stop lying to the people that Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao are the greatest fighters in boxing...

ARD Crew - well you may hear in US broadcasting some honest sentences, but you'll never hear something similar in the German broadcast. Those of you, who don't understand German language are lucky ones. There is no coincidence, that when I look at boxing fights with German commentator, I always turn off the sound and put some background music...

• Drug Testing

A big surprise for the casual boxing fan or for any normal man is that in professional boxing there is practically no drug testing! How would you explain to a normal man that the fighters are checked with ancient urine test before and after the fight, considering it is a kids game for them to clean themselves and every regular spectator knows that. Friend of mine is a gymnast at international level and he must be available for phone calls 24/7 and when he gets called he got asked where he is and then the commission comes shortly after and performs drug testing! Can you imagine?! And what are the money there?! He needs to work for living although having good results and being in the national team already for a long time! And what we had in arguably the top match up in for the last 10 years Manny vs. Floyd? Tens of millions of dollars for everyone! But failed to happen, because Olympic drug testing was proposed by Floyd! How sad! The same testing that every normal athlete going to Olympic games does (even then these athletes do drugs!). This includes every amateur boxer as well! So dear boxing fans, please wake up and demand some drug testing!

Strangely, no one talks about this problem. No one even asks! From time to time there are some scandals that find their way under the table suspiciously fast. None of those scandals had a serious consequences too. There are some rare cases where some fighters got caught by accident, like James Toney winning WBA belt after taking drugs and got banned for 90 days! How ironic?! The fight was changed to "No Contest"! WTF?! Other case Roy Jones Jr. defending his title with positive test and they let him keep his title! WTF?! Then you have Shane Mosley winning very tight second bout against Oscar de la Hoya and surprise - he was positive! Another surprise - this win still stays in his record and respectively a lost in Oscars record! It couldn't be worse! Tedy Atlas made also a great statement considering the higher risk in taking drugs in boxing: “Look, someone using PEDs (performance-enhancing drugs) in baseball, you hit more home runs; in football, you tackle better. In boxing, you’re throwing fists at another man’s head, and PEDs put that opponent in much more danger, and boxing is a dangerous sport to begin with!”. Similar thoughts were shared by Andre Berto appealing for expensive drug check for his fight against Victor Ortiz (Berto hired BALCO co-founder to back him up with the nutrition and got familiar with whats happening behind the curtains). So I'll appeal here too - make your statement against drugs too! Because right now the only popular article you may find in internet is "Only Drug Testing Can Save Boxing" by Jose Espinoza (click), so it seems like no one really cares! Couple of months after writing this article Gabriel Montoya came up also with a great article called "Floyd Mayweather and the new wave of drug testing in boxing" (click), where he made some reasonable accusations, tried to do some sort of investigation and asked a lot of open questions.

Couple of weeks after writing this article, there were some big payed cards ruined by that, so I decided to start performance enhancing drugs wall of shame and I was happy to see that, there is already similar article in wikipedia (click). The doping cases there are only listed, but not concrete enough, so I'll list them too, but with some information :)

1995-12-9 Frans Botha vs. Axel Schulz for the vacant IBF world title. Francois Botha took Nandrolone and was caught 8 days after the fight. A bit later, but at least caught. Shamefully the bout was declared as "No Contest" and Axel didn't received the title!

1996 Vitali Klitschko in the Olympic Games Atlanta. Vitali got caught with Nandrolone, which forced the Ukrainian team to replace him with Wladimir, who took the gold medal.

1997-6-28 Mike Tyson vs. Evander Holyfield for the WBA world title. Tyson admitted in a documentary about him, that he was high on cocaine for his bout against Holyfield.

1997-10-17 Pernell Whitaker vs. Andrey Pestryaev. Whitaker tested positive for cocaine after the bout and the result was changed to No Decision.

2003-9-13 Shane Mosley vs. Oscar de la Hoya for WBC, WBA and IBA titles. Mosley injected himself with EPO, which he confessed in interview with the investigation jury for the BALCO scandal.

2005-4-30 James Toney vs. John Ruiz for the WBA world title and IBA title. James got caught 10 days later with Nandrolone, but luckily this time the title found its way back to Ruiz.

2009-11-14 Julio Cezar Chavez Jr. vs. Troy Rowland. In a match that was scored for Chavez, but was actually more like a draw, so one might add this one to the list above. Anyway, Chavez got caught with diuretics after the fight and it was turned into "No Contest" and Junior was suspended for the funny 7 months and fined only 10 grans. Still it is a sad and shame that in any sport, who ever is caught with drugs will be punished with loss, but only in boxing you see such miserable rules in order to save the record...

A new update to this article are the both failures by Chavez Jr. in his last fights to provide urine probe. How strange is that? How silly is that? Just think about it! Full and great article about those cases can be found on the eassideboxing website (click).

Another new update is that Chavez Jr. continued to destroy his fathers name by testing positive for the Martinez fight! Aah not to forget - he "apologizes"! (click 1)(click 2)

What I am going to ask here is why is all of this shit still allowed to happen?!

2012-03-23 Enzo Maccarinelli vs. Shane McPhilbin for the British title. Enzo was caught with Methylhexanamine after the shameless delay of 3 months and still has it with win on his record! (click for ref)

2012-5-19 Lamont Peterson vs. Amir Khan II for WBA and IBF world titles. Finally a fight didn't happen because Lamont was caught with higher testosterone levels before the fight (click 1, click 2 for articles by Gabriel Montoya). He later whined that had some sort of low testosterone levels and received medical treatment in october 2011. Why I am telling this? Well, that means that for his first bout with Kahn couple of months in december, he was on doping as well...

2012-6-23 Andre Berto vs. Victor Ortiz II for IBF title. The second fight that didn't happen lately due to Berto caught with Nandrolone (click for blog by Gabriel Montoya about the case, click here for follow up article too). Shame on Berto who accused Ortiz for taking PEDs after their first bout without any proof!

2012-06-02 Antonio Tarver vs. Lateef Kayode for the IBO title. Antonio caught with Drostanolone a.k.a. Masteron. Pretty tough as Tarver is very public person and tries to hold some reputation as a commentator. Tarver recently tested positive for synthetic testosterone, in a drug test before his heavyweight draw with Steve Cunningham on 2015-08-14. Well, some things never change.

2012-10-20 Erik Morales vs. Danny Garcia II for the WBC and WBA titles. Can you believe that this fight happened despite positive test by Morales couple of weeks before the fight?! A fight for two world titles? Gabriel Montoya as usual wrote a great article following this story (click).

2013-02-02 Mickey Bey vs. Robert Rodriguez. Just the next "prospect" had 30:1 testosterone levels and won by brutal KO. Another coincidence is that he is promoted by the "anti-doping advocate" Floyd Mayweather and trained by his father, both seemingly aware of his "low testosterone treatment. The top of the story comes with the "fair shake" penalty of $1000 and 3 months suspension... (click)

2015-05-12 Floyd Mayweather vs. Manny Pacquiao. For me it was pretty clear that the so called "pretty boy" was dirty just by seeing he is always the one who chooses the dates and when to sign. He always acted as boxing’s anti PED advocate, but you know it is usually vice versa for such loud mouths. For his particular fight with Manny he signed 2 months before the fight, which considering his last fight in September makes an easy 6 months of dope test free time. Not saying Manny is clean at all, as he is apparently doing his political career in the Philippines away from the gym, while any normal sportsman knows he is hiding in the mountains in modern training facility with dozens of "nutrition specialist". However, it was Floyd who got caught with Intravenous infusions and/or injections after his weigh-in with Manny. For those who think this is fine - well don't know, whether I have to tell you anything more all... I just suggest you to read the article of Thomas Hauser regarding this case (click). Oh, yeah and Manny declared after the fight that he will retire from boxing considering his shoulder injury as well, which in translation should be something like "I need some time to juice myself for a faster recovery".
As I wrote in previous versions of this article Floyd Mayweather who is one of the drug free boxing leading preachers, just like every preacher seems to be doubtfully clean. There was again Gabriel Montoya here, who wrote his drug contracts, which he fully controls include excusing positive test if it was the result of "inadvertent use". According to rumors, Floyd had "overseen" things three times, but excused of course. This pissed of Golden Boy Promotions, who activated their lawyer (click). So the rumors might be pretty true.

I'll fill the list in the coming days, because it's pretty much to search right now... There is also a book about "Doping Cases in Boxing" (click), which I haven't read, but some of you might want further information...

• Money

Although the money in our sport have their share in its perfection, this small positive impact can barely cover all other negative consequences. Money is one of the main reasons for doping. Money is behind the corrupt decisions. Money is why commentators avoid telling you the truth. Money is why desired fights won't happen. Money is why some fighters are underrated, while chosen few are overrated.

• Promoters

Golden Boy vs. Top Rank "cold war". Instead of giving the fans what they want to see both of those sides are trying to make up the public opinion for a boring fights. A recent addition is the rising power of "manager" Al Haymon, who is slowly taking over the whole boxing business.

• Behavior

One very important factor that affects the boxing public is the behavior of the boxers. Just to mention few examples here:

2003 - James Kirkland involved in armed robbery and possessed firearm in 2009 while still in probation and therefore landed in prison for one year.

2004 - Hector Camacho involved in burglary and got caught with drugs when being arrested in 2005. (click)

2005 - Naseem Hamed seriously injured and almost killed couple of people with his McLaren-Mercedes SLR.

2010 - Edwin Valero hadn't got enough after beating his sister and mother in 2009. So after beating his wife and sending her badly damaged in hospital in 2010 he was sent to psychiatric clinic for six months, where he escaped due to his reputation. That of course didn't helped. Even worse. He killed his wife and then hanged himself in the prison cell.

2012 - Floyd Mayweather is in jail for three months for domestic violence. A recent article by Daniel Roberts reminds of his history of violence against women (click), also arguing that he doesn't deserves his current role in boxing and in the society at all.

2012 - Hector Camacho and his collaborate drug dealer were shot dead in a car. Ten bags of cocaine were found in the car, one of which opened. Needless to say how this affected the profile of one of my favorite boxers and the boxing profile overall. (click 1, click 2)

All of those examples are of a fighter in their active years, without concerning what is happening before and after. So there you got boxing saving so much lives, but how many were damaged by the cancer in boxing?

• Amateur Boxing

Amateur Boxing suffers from all shits as well. I read an interview with one world champion in amateur boxing, whose name I'll leave untold. He talked about the scheme how the best fighters are drop down with bad decisions in the early stages of tournaments like world cup, European cup or the Olympic games, so that such kick off won't come to the observers attention. Later on the observer is most likely to see only the finals televised with the chosen to win boxer and some bad opponent for him that rose because of the scheme. Of course it happens also there that the chosen to win is not that good so the public should swallow the point system and should wonder how his is getting more points in a fight he might obviously loose. To come back to the interview and the boxer, he was very angry about that system, because after becoming a world champion he was always kicked out in the early stages. The strange thing is that he might not realize that in the world championship he won, he was pushed up by the same scheme and was supposed to loose against the chosen to win fighter. However, he clearly outboxed the chosen for the win and completely overrated boxer, so he made the scoring. To give more exact example I'll just mention Lomachenko and his last World Cup. He smashed one Brazilian fighter there and they tried to kick him off in the early stage, as he is obviously the best amateur boxer nowadays. The bad guys had chosen another fighter, but even the system failed with such an obvious winner!

I wrote above the most popular amateur cancer in world level, but from my personal experience there are dozens of small cancer branches that are growing every day even in the smaller shows!

 

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Bottom Line

To end this article I'll like ask the open question "How far will mutate the boxing cancer and do we work on removing it?!". I'll like to say that I'll update the article with the time to add new fucked up decisions or stupid match-ups or diverse shit from the scene.

Details

Published: 21 December 2011

Just watched another stunning documentary about boxing and its consequences. It's called "The Fight of Their Lives" and narrated by Phil Davis. It follows the story of one of the most controversial fights in boxing Benn vs McCellan held in 1995. It is definitely something to watch!

Details

Published: 09 August 2011

I just watched some episodes from the Robert Garcia Reality Show and I must say I was really impressed. All of them are created by Elie Seckbach, who seems kinda crazy guy, but in the good meaning of the word crazy :) So as it seems Elie has the will to do something for the sport putting all of these videos together, and letting things happen in these videos. All of the videos are so raw, like you'll never see on any TV "live show". There is no cut and censor at all and the video work is completely amateur and absolutely loosely cut later on, filmed of course with cheap camera with no sign of operator qualities on top of that :) However, I found that really charming in the video.

I was mostly impressed how honest and humble are the guys there, besides talking bullshit all of the time it is pretty obvious that they are just joking all of the time. This reminded me a lot of the situation in our "boxing gym" (if ours could be called like that compared to the real boxing gym that Robert Garcia owns). For these people boxing is life and they really live it. They are all together in tough place, almost all of them visited jail multiple times, but anyway after any step aside they go all back to gym later on, like the guy that came to the gym straight after he was released. Although it may seem asocial in the eyes of the narrow minded people, all together with "bad language", I am happy to watch every single one of these.

So you can check out what's happening behind the scenes by yourself:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xyJ0Etq75zs&feature=list_related&playnext=1&list=SPACAD803266666667