Snips and Snipes 2 February 2021: The WBA's Farcical Manipulation of its Titles and Rankings
By Eric Armit
PhilBoxing.com
Wed, 03 Feb 2021
Last year “Canelo” Alvarez was the “Flavour of the Month”. It seemed that almost every week there were stories about who he would be fighting and in the case on Avni Yildirim-who he would not be fighting. Names and legal writs were flying about. The WBC had the embarrassment of their “Franchise” champion refusing to fight for their title illustrating clearly who was the dog and who was the tail. In the end Alvarez fought Callum Smith which was probably the best options he had at the time. He is now scheduled to face Yildirim for the vacant WBC title on 27 February. It then looks like Billy Joe Saunders for the WBO title in May leaving only Caleb Plant between Alvarez and total dominance at super middleweight. Then we can start all over again with rumours of where/who he will conquer next.
As we get into 2021 it seems the Manny Pacquiao is donning the “Flavour of the Month” tag. He is going to fight Conor McGregor-no he’s not. He’s going to fight Ryan Garcia-no he’s not. He is going to fight Floyd Mayweather-god I hope he’s not.
Pacquiao celebrated 26 years as a pro last month and up until the pandemic struck last year he had had at least one fight in each of those 26 years (* not a record see Kid Azteca at the end of this column) over ten different weight divisions. He was 42 in December and this will almost certainly be his last year as a pro and he won’t want to go out on a loss so you can expect quite a few more names being floated until Manny makes his choice.
When he does fight he will not be fighting as WBA champion as the WBA decided that due to inactivity (i.e. not paying sanctioning fees for a while) they were replacing him as Super Champion with Yordenis Ugas and designating Manny as “Champion in Recess” a term coined by Jose Sulaiman for stripping a champion of his title without stripping him of his title!
Manny’s mistake was not being promoted by Don King. King’s fighter Beibut Shumenov won the WBA secondary cruiserweight title in July 2018 and never defended it. Various proposed fights fell through and at one time Shumenov was named Champion in Recess but no effort was made to replace him as champion. The WBA finally stripped him off the title last month after 2 ½ years. King’s fighter Trevor Bryan won the WBA interim title in August 2018 and the WBA still showed him as interim champion in their January 2021 ratings so although he did not defend the title for 2 ½ years he was never stripped-but take Pacquiao’s title away after 17 months and no matter how they dress it up they have taken his title away as Yordenis Ugas now holds the WBA Super welterweight title.
The Don King show on 29 January illustrates the level of King’s influence. The original intent was for Bryan to fight Manuel Charr the holder of the WBA secondary title. According to Charr’s team, in order to obtain a visa that would allow him to fight in the USA, Charr needed to be able to show a valid contract for the fight. Charr’s team had signed the contract from King and sent it back to King but they claimed that King never signed and returned a copy of the contract so they could not travel. The outcome was that Charr lost his secondary WBA title and was made “Champion in Recess” and King got to replace Charr with a 42-year-old Bermane Stiverne who had not won a fight since 2015, had lost in one round against Deontay Wilder in 2017 and in six rounds against Joe Joyce in February 2019, had not fought since February 2019 and was not in the WBA ratings. Strangely Stiverne was in training which would only make sense if King knew Charr would never be able to get to Miami!
In the case of Shumenov the WBA told Shumenov on 30 November that his mandatory defence was more than a year overdue and that Ryad Merhy was his designated mandatory challenger. They also reminded Shumenov/King that the champion could not fight any other fighter within sixty days of his mandatory period expiring. They ordered negotiations but nothing was heard from King during the mandated period. Then Merhy’s team found out King had asked for a Special Permit (allowed under WBA rules) to put on a voluntary defence for Shumenov against another King fighter Rafael Murphy. There should have been a $20,000 fee for the permit but King asked that be waived and he also asked VADA to waive testing of Shumenov and Murphy. That whole farce fell apart and in the end the WBA finally stripped Shumenov appointed Merhy champion and ordered him to defend against Yunier Dorticos.
Shumenov is a Kazak and yet there was never any mention in newspapers or web sites in Kazakhstan of Shumenov being in training for a fight.
All done in accordance with the WBA rules and King's application for Special Permit also in accordance with the rules and Merhy nearly got shafted.
This whole sorry mess took focus away from Shumenov’s proposed opponent Murphy and the disgraceful manipulation of the WBA ratings.
How did Murphy suddenly leap into the WBA ratings in 2019?
Murphy’s last four fights have been: Feb 2017 Hugo Trujillo L TKO 5, Trujillo's record 2-0-1, Murphy unrated by the WBA;
July 2018 Juan Reyna W KO 1, Reyna's record 6-9-1, Murphy unrated by the WBA; May 2019 Oswaldo Ortega W RTD 2, Ortega's record 3-11, Murphy unrated by the WBA; August 2019 Larry Pryor W PTS 4, Pryor's record 11-20, Murphy rated No 7 by the WBA.
Going into the Murphy fight, Pryor had lost 6 of his last 7 fights. In the WBA ratings for 31/10/19 Murphy having never previously been rated suddenly appeared at No 7 for beating a guy with a 11-20 record in a FOUR ROUND fight. He has not fought since August 2019 and he is No 7 in the current WBA ratings.
And these are the guys that wanted to help clean up Olympic boxing!!
The WBO are making life difficult for whoever wins between Tyson Fury and Anthony Joshua. If their June fight does come off the WBO have stated that the winner will have to defend their title against the winner of the fight between Oleksandr Usyk and Joe Joyce. Sounds good except that it seems if Fury and Joshua do fight the contract will include a return fight clause. Would the WBO really strip the winner of Fury vs. Joshua?
Some fights to look forward to: February 13 in Indio Joseph Diaz defends the IBF super featherweight title against Shavkatdzhon Rakhimov and Patrick Teixeira puts his WBO super welterweight title on the line against Brian Castano. On the same night in London Josh Warrington makes his first appearance since relinquishing the IBF featherweight title with a ten round fight against 21-2 Mexican Mauricio Lara and Zelfa Barrett faces former IBF super bantamweight champion Kiko Martinez. A great all-Mexican fight on 20 February in Las Vegas will see Miguel Berchelt defend his WBC super feather title against Oscar Valdez a real mouth-watering clash. Their combined records are 65-1 with 55 wins by KO/TKO. Also on 20 February in London we have the much anticipated European welterweight title defence by David Avanesyan against Josh Kelly. The undercard of Alvarez vs. Yildirim will feature Julio Cesar Martinez defending the WBC flyweight title against Puerto Rican McWilliams Arroyo. Anthony Dirrell returns to action on 27 February against Kyrone Davis. March 18 in Puerto Rico French super middleweight hope Christian Mbilli 17-0 faces his test to date in the shape of Ukrainian Ievgen Khytrov 20-2 with former WBA title holder Alberto Machado 22-2 against 19-0 Hector Tanajara. March 20 is the date for Lawrence Okolie and Krzys Glowacki to face off with the vacant WBO cruiserweight title on the line. March 31 will see Tim Tszyu take on Dennis Hogan and if Tszyu wins that he will be looking to get a shot at a version of the super welterweight title later in the year and also on the card a good domestic scrap as Billy Dib tackles Kye MacKenzie. It seems that the plan is for Josh Taylor and Jose Carlos Ramirez to each put their two titles on the line to establish the king of the super lightweights on May 8 in Las Vegas so some exciting times ahead.
Felix Trinidad scored a win. This one came in a legal battle with the Banco Popular in Puerto Rico. Trinidad is taking action against the Bank alleging mismanagement of his funds. A court had ordered Banco Popular to pay $1-1 million to Trinidad but the Bank had appealed against that ruling. Last week the Court of Appeal voted 2-1 to reject the appeal but the Bank says the fight is not over-a different sort of return match to the ones Trinidad is used to.
South African Kevin Lerena is seeking to become the first title holder in the new WBC Bridgerweight division. That dream almost came to nothing last week when a helicopter Lerena was in crashed. Both Lerena and the instructor survived without serious injuries. Lerena is No 2 in the new WBC ratings with Oscar Rivas at No 1 but it remains to be seen how any eliminators are structured.
Old habits really do die hard. It is amusing in theses closed-doors days to see a winning fighter race to a corner and climb the ropes to waive triumphantly at um-four people!
Boxing’s heart is in the right place. Saul Alvarez has appeared on a video with an appeal for funds to help young David Antolin who is suffering from cystic fibrosis, Tyson Fury has donated a signed pair of silver boxing gloves for an auction run by CancerCare entitled “The Month of Love” . This is to support local people in Kendall and Barrow in North West England affected by cancer and bereavement during COVID-19. The gloves are just one item of many which will be offered in online auction throughout February with people invited to place silent bids. Finally Pole Kamil Szeremeta auctioned off the shorts he wore for his fight with Gennady Golovkin to raise funds for a 20-month-old baby boy with an extremely complex heart defect. As a sport we do care.
* Kid Azteca: Real name: Luis Villanueva Paramo was Mexican pro who had 252 fights 192 wins (114 by KO/TKO),47 losses, 11 draws and 2 No Decisions. He fought from 1929 until 1961 so he fought over four decades and had at least one fight a year in every one of those 31 years.
About the Author
Born in Scotland, Eric Armit started working with Boxing News magazine in the UK in the late 1960’s initially doing records for their Boxing News Annual and compiling World, European and Commonwealth ratings for the magazine. He wrote his first feature article for Boxing News in 1973 and wrote a “World Scene” weekly column for the magazine from the late 1970’s until 2004. Armit wrote a monthly column for Boxing Digest in the USA and contributed pieces to magazines in Mexico, Italy, Australia, Spain, Argentina and other countries. Armit now writes a Weekly Report covering every major fight around the world and a bi-weekly Snips & Snipes column plus occasional general interest articles with these being taken up by boxing sites around the world. He was a member of the inaugural WBC Ratings Committee and a technical advisor to the EBU Ratings Committee and was consulted by John McCain’s research team when they were drafting the Ali Act. He is a Director and former Chairman of the Commonwealth Boxing Council. Armit has been nominated to the International Boxing Hall of Fame the past two years (2019 and 2020) to which he said, “Being on the list is an unbelievably huge honour.”
Click here to view a list of other articles written by Eric Armit.
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