Deon Potgieter boxing Dingaan Thobela has appealed to the World Boxing Council (WBC) to declare his super-middleweight world title fight against Dave Hilton in Canada last month a no contest.
Thobela is not contesting the ludicrous split points decision which robbed him of his title, but rather the gross neglect of world boxing regulations.
Dave Hilton, who is undergoing drug rehabilitation, admitted prior to his December 15 fight with Thobela that he was using a medication for his sinuses. The identity of the medication was not revealed and no urine test was done to establish whether Hilton was using a banned substance. Doping tests are standard procedures at world title bouts.
“No urine tests were done,” said Thobela, “When we approached the fight commissioner, Mario Latravese, before the bout, he said it would be done afterwards. After the bout Hilton disappeared before any testing could be done.”
When the Thobela camp approached the promoter of the bout, Yvonne Michelle, about the breaking of the rules, they were offered a bout for the interim title with a view of challenging the winner of the proposed Hilton-Glen Catley bout after that. The fact that WBC rules had been contravened seemed to have little impact.
“I’m happy to fight Hilton again,” said Thobela, “but he must be clean. If he was using a banned substance then I wasn’t fighting a normal man.
“We would have been happy even if Hilton had done the test the next day, but we were told he was out of state. How could this be? He was serving time in a rehabilitation centre so couldn’t have left the state.”
To add insult to injury, the Hilton camp borrowed Thobela’s belt for display purposes and neglected to return it before the South African camp left Canada.
World champions keep their respective belts and the world sanctioning body then issues the new champion with his own belt.
By the look of it, it appears as if there was an agenda to ensure that Thobela would lose his title in Canada.
Not only did he receive the butt end of a bad decision, but the WBC did not adhere to its own rules and regulations to ensure a fair fight.