socks
Kevin Mitchell
It was going to be the last big fight of the century, a chance to bring a hundred years of chaos and unmatchable drama to something of a dignified close.
And, before a new outbreak of shenanigans last week, we had every reason to believe that the fighters involved – Lennox Lewis and Evander Holyfield – were the sort of upright members of the fistic community best equipped to give their heavyweight unification contest at the Thomas and Mack Centre in Las Vegas this Saturday night at least a patina of integrity. Then came the bombshell. Nothing to do with the fighters, just the clowns who facilitate their fisticuffs. Again!
A federal grand jury in New Jersey last Thursday alleged that Robert W Lee Snr, 65, his son, Robert Jnr, 38, Donald William Brennan, 86, and Francisco Fernandez of Colombia, had received $338 000 in bribes between 1985 and 1998 to fix the ratings of the International Boxing Federation (IBF). This put well-connected boxers in position to contest lucrative title fights, many of which were promoted by friends of Bob Lee Snr, who has been investigated before and is the IBF president. (The others named are hired help of various standing.)
If this indictment stands up, the quartet face 20 years in jail and the IBF might fold, which would put in jeopardy not only all upcoming IBF title fights, but rob current title-holders of their belts and earning capacity. The unification fight everyone wanted is now just another moment in boxing’s unstoppable march into the dark.
Holyfield holds the IBF’s heavyweight championship, as well as that of the World Boxing Association, and is promoted by Don King, a long-time associate of Lee and the survivor of several investigations himself.
Born-again, divorced-again Holyfield, who has never lost a rematch, is making no divinely inspired predictions this time and admits he underestimated Lewis in March. Lewis promises there will be no arguments – but he admits he has not ruled out another controversy. I expect him to stop a battle- weary Holyfield in the later rounds.
Before he left his training camp in the Poconos mountains in Pennsylvania last Friday, Lewis, who holds the World Boxing Council belt, said he now reckons his first fight with Holyfield was “a conspiracy rather than incompetence. It was blatant. It was right in front of the whole world. The excuses they made afterwards were terrible.”
The judge making most of those excuses was Eugenia Williams, a council worker from Atlantic City who left Madison Square Garden that mad March night widely pilloried for awarding the fight to Holyfield on the grounds that she was unsighted for much of Lewis’s effective work.
Lewis added: “All I’m saying is that before the fight, they all knew who they wanted to win, from the promoters to certain officials. They are all in cahoots. Where did the lady judge come from? Funnily enough, it was the IBF, which speaks for itself.”
Lewis will be happy to accept Holyfield’s belts, however. “Even though there are a couple of dodgy people in the IBF, I hope to decorate their belt with distinction, to do it with my performance in the ring. I look on myself as an ambassador of boxing.
“I’m happy with the three Nevada judges that have been appointed, but anything can happen in boxing.”
The judges have been appointed by the Nevada State Athletic Commission, who are recognised as a body of passable reliability, and they must decide now if the presence of the IBF is appropriate. If one were to be cynical about the state of professional boxing, the view would be that it would be entirely appropriate.
The New Jersey case is among the most serious since the days of the Mob, when Blinky Palermo and Frankie Carbo were finally driven out of boxing. Seven promoters and managers, as well as 23 unnamed boxers, are being accused. But it might be only a precursor of other scandals. The day before, the Miami Herald reported they had affidavits from several fighters alleging they had been involved in fixed fights over many years with such diverse personalities as George Foreman and Eric “Butterbean” Esch, claims dismissed by the fighters.
On top of all this, various fighters have been covering themselves in horse dung away from the ring, from drunken driving, to rape, to brawling, to drug abuse, to kidnapping – a compelling disincentive for sponsors to go near the sport.
When Lewis and Holyfield get in the ring, Ike Ibeabuchi, a formidable unbeaten Nigerian prospect, will be listening on the radio from his nearby cell in Clark County Prison. He faces a long stretch for alleged rape.
Despite what apologists will tell you, professional boxing does not have an endless capacity to absorb the punishment that such financial and moral skullduggery brings to the business. In the past few years it has become increasingly marginalised as mainstream TV sports entertainment and in America, where these trends are set in motion, it is even giving ratings ground to wrestling.
Those who imagine that boxing could never be supplanted by wrestling have not paid attention to their relative rise and fall. In Britain, for instance, small hall boxing promotions are supported now by a small knot of enthusiasts. Most of the 700 or so registered professionals box for less than they could earn as bouncers. Champions walk the streets unmolested by autograph- hunters. Wrestling, meanwhile, plays to packed houses.
Mike Tyson, whose 11th comeback was predictably spoilt when he hit Orlin Norris after the bell, has been the wrestling route already. He might yet end up there, if his threat to retire is genuine. (Lewis, a decent man obviously tiring of it all, says he could quit after this fight.)
It was King who first took Tyson wrestling. It is a world of comebacks (his specialty), of retribution and of manipulation. And of unashamed farce. A wrestling mainstay is a guy called Mankind, whose specialty is stuffing a used sock into the mouths of his fellow Equity members. The victims, like so many boxing punters, succumb to the fumes.
I have seen the future. It is a dirty sock.