Looking Back a Quarter-Century to What ‘Hall of Fame’ Eyes Saw Then
By Dave Murphy
“It distresses me that the various state boxing commissions operate as independent fiefdoms and that there is no uniform code to deal with boxers’ safety, records, and ratings. Such a lack of national uniformity has led to many abuses; for example, a fighter denied a fight in one state could quickly obtain a license to fight in another state. I’m increasingly concerned about the power that is falling into the hands of Don King and Robert Arum, the kind of power that the courts had ruled illegal years before.
King derives much of his power through his sway over Jose Sulaiman, the President of the World Boxing Council. Arum’s connections are lodged in the World Boxing Association. The WBC is based in Mexico City, the WBA in Panama, and while each is supposed to be an independent regulator of boxing, both are in reality conspirators in rigging ratings. These organizations are basically instruments of extortion-playing by their own rules, creating their own champions-easily manipulated by the gifts and favours of promoters and managers who are seeing special considerations for their fighters. For example: If either king or Arum has a fighter he wants to get a shot at a title, or needs an opponent for one of his champions-presto!-the fighter is suddenly ranked in the top of his division to legitimize the match.
The WBC and WBA are allowed to exist for two reasons: one, the willingness of the overwhelming majority of sportswriters to tolerate them and concentrate instead on the fights-with the notable exception of a crusading reporter named Jack Newfield of The Village Voice; and two, the financial support of the three American commercial television networks, which continue to televise phony title fights and egregious mismatches. In their consuming hunger for ratings, it’s the networks that subsidize the WBC and WBA, and if they refused to recognize those two ruling bodies tomorrow and use some other independent source for ranking fighters, it could be the start toward cleaning up the sport.
(Ray)‘Boom Boom’ Mancini defended his WBA lightweight title against a Korean named Duk Koo Kim-because the WBA somehow managed to rate Kim the no.1 contender. There were much more worthy opponents-such as Howard David and Edwin Rosario-but Kim got the nod. By most reliable accounts, he did not even deserve to be ranked in the top ten. Mancini knocked Kim out, and later Kim lapsed into a coma and dies.
In a display of chutzpah that was enraging, Arum solemnly called for a two-month moratorium in the wake of the fight that he himself has promoted. It happened that all the major fights in that two-month period belonged to Arum’s arch-rival King”.
From an article by David Kindred of the Washington Post on why the above person left boxing:
“First the networks, who make possible the continued existence of the organizations such as the WBA and the WBC, which exist only for the purpose of creating championships that the networks, including ABC-TV, can, sell for top dollar.
“Second to blame are the ruthless, sleazy promoters. And third is the vast majority of the print-media members who are apologists for boxing”.
“If I were the networks, I would declare a moratorium on boxing until some form of legislation was passed to, !; protect the men who fight with the strictest rules for safety and medical exams , 2.create an honest system of ratings and records, and 3: create one federal government group to administer boxing.
“The print media should support such legislation instead of, by saying the federal government has no business in sports, vilifying those who suggest it. There should be licensing of promoters, and there should be accounting of money on every fight. It has to be in all 50 states under the administration of one group. Either that, or abolish the quote-sport-unquote”.
As you’ve probably guess by now, the quotes are from Howard Cosell in 1985, the ones before the Kindred article are from his book ’I Never Played The Game’, the ones in the Kindred article are after he’d called the Holmes-Cobb title fight that took place in Houston, Texas and was referred by Steve Crosson of Dallas, which was his last professional boxing telecast (he did continue to do amateur boxing through the 1984 Olympics).
I’m struck by some of the things that have changed over the last 27 years and by some that have not. First off, it’s interesting to note that the final fight he called took place in Texas and that it was the work of a Texas official that drew his ire…………let’s mark that up in the things that haven’t changed, given Texas’ embarrassing situation today.
It’s pretty obvious to even the most casual observer of the sport that the promoter influence and the organizations they cater to has if anything, increased over the last quarter-of-a-century. King is not the player he once was but is still active, Arum has outperformed his octogenarian rival over the last decade, and the new force, Golden Boy Promotions has joined the ranks of the corrupt……and we’ve added two more major organizations, the IBF in New Jersey and the WBO in Puerto Rico, along with a whole slew of minor players, both promoters and orgs.
The biggest change is with regard to network TV and also the print-media that Cosell mentions. Neither are really involved in boxing anymore. The major networks have been replaced by Cable entities, especially the premium networks HBO and Showtime, and the number of mainstream newspapers and magazines that even comment on boxing anymore is minimal. However, those who do bother to comment about boxing are still insistent that the government have no rule in reforming it, so that part of Howard’s thoughts still exists.
Cosell talked of the power that the networks had to change the game, that’s certainly gone now. HBO, etc. are important, but they can’t dictate, and we also have the rise of the sport globally, something the 1980’s Cosell would’ve found astounding. To put it simply, the Sport would’ve been easier to police at the time he spoke, and that opportunity was missed. Today, I don’t even know if it’s possible.
When Howard was inducted in the International Boxing Hall of Fame a couple years back, I wondered how he’d feel about it, considering the state of the game today, years after his death, and that he divorced from in 1983, when a situation existed that most fans would look at as being quite Rosie compared to today. My guess is that he’d have declined the honour.
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