The Privilege of Being a Champion and The Advantage of "Resident" Champions
By Teodoro Medina Reynoso
PhilBoxing.com
Tue, 03 Jan 2023
Ioka (R) and Franco duke it out in Tokyo on Dec. 31, 2022.
I recently watched the replay via YouTube of the Kazuto Ioka and Joshua Franco fight for the WBO and WBA super flyweight unification held at the Ota City Gymnasium in metropolitan Tokyo, Japan to find out for myself if the draw result that robbed Franco of a deserved win was indeed controversial.
After watching it twice, once to get the feel of how it was like if I were to watch it live and once more for post fight analysis, I came to the conclusion that the majority draw was par for the course for a fight that was closely contested by two world champions whose reputation precedes them.
The official line of the immediate post fight reports have Franco dominating the first half of the fight and Ioka rallying strongly in the second half to pull even as was reflected in the cards of the two neutral judges which overruled the two points margin given to Franco by the third neutral veteran South African judge Stanley Christodoulou.
The line also said, to which I and everyone greed, Franco threw and landed the most number of punches while Ioka landed the clearer and cleaner scoring punches. It was the classic age old debate between quantity versus quality which remains unresolved as Christodoulou was voted out by his two fellow neutral judges.
But more than the technicality, I think the also age old tradition of giving the champion the privilege of the benefit of the doubt in closely fought fight that prevailed in the determination of the final result. The unwritten rule states that the challenger has to take the fight to the champion and convincingly demonstrate superiority in most aspects of boxing in order to take the crown from him.
Of course, both Ioka and Franco are reigning champions. But Ioka is the more senior champion, having legitimately won his WBO regular belt in 2019. Franco on the other hand had a circuitous route to his WBA belt having first to vie for the secondary title in three fights versus Australian Andrew Moloney in 2020-21, one of which ended in controversial no contest, before being upgraded to regular champion later.
In that sense, Ioka could be considered as the more legitimate world champion who has "paid his dues" and hence earned the right to the unwritten privilege of a boxing champion.
As I have stated, this practice has been observed especially in world championship boxing since the earlier days even benefiting the likes of Muhammad Ali, Sugar Ray Leonard up to the time of Floyd Mayweather Jr.
But another thing going for Ioka is that he is a "resident" or home world champion. Not only he is from Japan but he has made many and most of his world championship fights and title defenses in Japan. The hometown edge is nothing to be ignored in boxing.
Again, Ioka is just among the world boxing champions, including many American titlists, past and present who make it a habit of fighting exclusively in their home countries, some even in their hometown, adopted or otherwise. To this classification also belonged Floyd Mayweather Jr who fought most of his major fights if not in his hometown Grand Rapids in Michigan, in his adopted hometown of Las Vegas, Nevada taking full advantage of its reputation as the boxing capital of the world.
Likewise the then unbeatable Thai pair of Wanheng Menayothin and Thamanon Niyomtrong aka Knockout CP Freshmart who held sway as WBC and WBA world champions at minimumweight since the early 2010s yet. Menayothin who at one time broke Floyd Mayweather Jr's unbeaten record has already been defeated and unseated by a fellow Thai, Panya Pradabsri who has continued the tradition of home or resident world champion by fighting exclusively in Thailand as like Niyomtrong.
Challengers now therefore have to come to grips with the traditional benefit of the doubt in favor of the champions but also and more so of fighting and trying to take the world crown from the champions home country or even hometown.
The degree of difficulty gets higher in some cases today.
So best of luck to our Filipino world title challengers this 2023!
The author Teodoro Medina Reynoso is a veteran boxing radio talk show host living in the Philippines. He can be reached at teddyreynoso@yahoo.com and by phone 09215309477.
Click here to view a list of other articles written by Teodoro Medina Reynoso.
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