The Shame of Boxing (Page 9)

A Bill of Rights for Boxers

(1) Create a national commission with enforcement power to regulate the sport. Every other major sport has a national commissioner, and boxing reform depends on some central authority that can administer and enforce improvements. The current system of state commissions, dominated by political appointees, cannot do the job.

Senator John McCain and New York State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer have both urged the creation of a national commission as the key to any purification of the cruelest sport. They understand that only a national regulatory authority can enforce such things as standardized tests and licensing for ringside doctors, judges and referees; national suspensions after three straight knockouts; a central repository for CT scans, MRIs and blood tests for drugs, steroids and HIV.

(2) End all recognition of the international sanctioning organizations--the WBA, WBC, WBO and IBF. "They serve no useful purpose," Attorney General Spitzer told me. "Their only function is to sell title belts and issue false rankings."

"All it would take to make them irrelevant is for the TV networks to announce they no longer will recognize the ratings of these groups," Spitzer said. (Spitzer knows his boxing; he was the lawyer for champion William Guthrie in a lawsuit against King before he was elected in 1998.)

(3) Create a poll of boxing writers and broadcasters to generate impartial ratings. This is the way it works in college football and basketball. The writers covering the games vote on the best teams. There is no reason boxing ratings can't be compiled the same way--as long as it is a truly international poll. If a few popular champions recognized these rankings, that would be the final interment of the sanctioning bodies.

(4) Establish a pension system for boxers that includes a health plan and death benefits. This could be accomplished if the fighters, promoters, cable TV networks and casinos agree to allocate just 2 percent of the revenue from all the mega-matches on pay per view to underwrite this endowment. Three such fights in one year would start a fund of $5 million or $6 million. A top accounting firm should audit and administer the fund. Any boxer who has been active for four years, or has had twenty bouts, should qualify for the system. But nobody who has taken a lot of beatings should be allowed to keep boxing just to qualify.

(5) Health and safety standards must be improved. Ringside doctors should be competent and well trained, and should not be assigned or hired through politics. They should be qualified neurological experts.

Any boxer who has lost more than ten fights over two years, or has been knocked out three times in a row, should have his license revoked. This would retire punching bags like Samson Cohen, who has been knocked out fourteen times--even by Richie Melito in 1998.

Every boxer should have a CT scan and MRI every year. A prefight drug test can detect steroid abuse, which Dr. Margaret Goodman says can make a boxer "more susceptible to blood clots and a brain hemorrhage."

(6) Organize a labor union, or guild, of all boxers. Paul Johnson and ex-champ José Torres have been agitating for a union for years. The best model is probably the Screenwriters Guild, since fighters are independent contractors. Traditional union solidarity and collective bargaining may not be practical among men who have to fight each other. But a union could provide a collective voice for individual rights. A union could audit pay-per-view revenues and the expenses promoters bill to fighters that often seem illegitimate or padded. A union could also demand a higher minimum payment for preliminary fighters.

(7) When I talk to fighters, their most emotional complaint is about biased and unfair decisions by judges. This angers them even more than the inadequate safety precautions. It demoralizes them to know they won a fight but did not get the decision.

Over the past thirty years I have witnessed some indefensible decisions in championship fights. David Tiberi fought his heart out, but was robbed against James Toney in 1992. Tyrone Everett was robbed against Alfredo Escalera in 1976. Pernell Whitaker beat Julio Cesar Chavez in 1993, but the draw decision allowed Chavez to keep his title. Lennox Lewis beat Evander Holyfield in 1999, but the decision was a draw, allowing Holyfield to retain a portion of the divided title.

In all these matches--and many others--the judges were picked by the promoters and the sanctioning bodies, not by the state commissions. Two of the three judges in the Tiberi-Toney fight were not licensed in New Jersey, where the fight took place. They were from Illinois and Michigan. The three Lewis-Holyfield judges were not licensed in New York but were allowed to officiate the fight anyway by the NYSAC.

In many cases the judges are paid by the promoter, including travel expenses. They know which fighter is under an exclusive contract to that promoter. They don't have to be told that if they favor that promoter's employee, they will get future assignments from that promoter. Can you imagine a baseball owner picking and paying the home-plate umpire in a World Series game?

A special panel should monitor the performance of judges. Those who are biased or engage in favoritism should lose their licenses. Judges should be required to make full financial disclosure to this licensing panel.

• « Previous
• 1
• 2
• 3
• 4
• 5
• 6
• 7
• 8
• 9
• 10
• Next »

• Get The Nation at home (and online!) for 68 cents a week!
• If you like this article, consider making a donation to The Nation.
• Reprint this article. Click here for rights and information.