21.05.05 – By Christopher Dawson: It would be comical if it weren’t so sleazy. Boxing has had it=s presence since the beginning or it’s existence. Anytime you allow the fate of the outcome of a bout to lie in the hands of a person or people, you take the risk of encountering incompetence, or worse, outright criminal activity. When the decision for was read for last nights IBF Cruiserweight title belt fight, between Alberta, Canada’s “Cowboy” Dale Brown and American boxer O’Neil Bell, I felt a deep wrench in the pit of my stomach.. It seems no matter how long I stay around the game, and how many times I get that feeling, I still get blinded by my high hopes for the sport I love, and end up greatly dissappointed when I see a blatantly crooked score by a judge, or worse by three.
Brown dominated two thirds of the twelve round match, landing more, landing clean and by repeatedly wobbling his opponent. Bell was game, however seemed drained (perhaps from weight loss) and unable to mount any sort of a sustained attack. Incredibly, judge Richard Green scored the bout 117 to 111. I hope he got paid well for his ‘work.’ Judge Robert Hoyle’s score of 116 to 112 was nearly as absurd, neither of these men should be allowed to score another fight in their lives. Judge Michael Pernick’s score of 115 to 113 was off, but you could at least count that one up to mere incompetence. All in all, perhaps Brown foreshadowed that he knew what was about to come when he was stretching down grabbing his ankles while warming up before the bout began. It was that bad.
This is the reason why fighters from foreign countries are not interested in venturing in to the border of the United States, to box. Boxing is a risky sport to begin with. You can train and train, but one punch can change any fight. The risk of fighting in the US, for a non-American fighter is far worse. They know that they must stop their opponent, or face the likely chance that they will be robbed. It=s a legitimate scare, as Friday night reinforced.
You can’t blame fighters like Joe Calzaghe, Dariusz Michalczewski or Sven Ottke for having no interest in making the trip. The extra money paid isn=t worth the heartache of getting robbed in front of millions of people with no recourse. (Do you think that Felix Sturm has any interest in returning to Las Vegas any time soon?)
It’s unfortunate, because this one of the major reason that boxing is blooming across the world, yet remaining stagnant at in America. It’s also the reason that the WBO belt has taken on some form of legitimacy. The WBO seems to be one of the least crooked of the organizations (if that’s anything to brag about), and has always been held in higher regard over seas than in the States. People don’t want to see bullshit decisions or crooked judges, and there is one simple way of ending it. If a judge hands in a blatantly crooked score card, they should be put on a global watch list, and if they do it one more time, they should receive a life time ban from the sport. It may be the only way that boxing can be a legitimate prime time sport and gain new fans -that are so important to the survival of a sport- in order to thrive in the future.
To Dale Brown, I offer my apologize for the embarrassing display of the worst boxing has to offer, despite his excellent showing. To me, he is the current IBF cruiserweight champion, more of a champion than O’Neil Bell is. Brown, for his part, was humble even after the robbery. Most foreign fighters are after they are ripped off. Probably because they unfortunately expect it. Maybe Dale should begin pursuing the WBO Cruiserweight title and forget the others. Maybe all fighters from outside the US should say ‘enough’ and boycott any title fights within the American borders. Maybe, just maybe, the WBO is the better of the four major championship belts, because having a ‘champion’ like O’Neil Bell, that required blatantly crooked judges to garner a victory, is not how you legitimize an organization.