Corruption In Boxing For World Class Boxers

Introduction to Corruption in Boxing

Discuss about the Corruption in Boxing for World Class Boxers.

World class boxers used to battle their hearts out in the ring. As standing on the edge of disaster boxing nowadays fails to take the sports over the edge. The sport has today been lost in the maze of moral deprivation, corruption and scandals; the sweet of the boxing dynamics has seemed down (Wadler, 2010). The basic idea remains the same, ‘vile on the one hand and irresistible on other’.

Following the trail of investments HBO, a Time Warner Company leads the pack with investment over 100 million USD every year. Showtime figures or TRP of Viacom shows around 25 million USD (Vermeulen, 2013). Over on that pay-per-view technology has made boxing more lucrative than it was ever. The networks work to manipulate every aspect of every match to generate most revenue on a considerable investment. As the current situation is concerned super welterweight sessions with suspicious results gather more than 500,000 purchases, produce over $50 million, as the Oscar de la Hoya-Shane Mosley meeting did this past September 2003 (Morrison & Wensley, 1991). On the other hand 1.4 million purchases and $71 million, as the Oscar de La Hoya-Felix Trinidad session did in 1999. On the contrary, more than 2 million buys and $100 million, as the second Holyfield-Tyson battle did (Streible, 2008). As the natural of sports, two men beating each other to submission is, of course, a lucrative way to earn money or put bets. The lack of a single governing body puts the future of sports in jeopardy (Morrison &Wensley, 1991).  The situation to make money through boxing can be well imagined. Promoters, Networks, casinos, state athlete commissions, managers, and governments are crowding to gain some green bucks from the situation (Rudd, Lewis, & Wang, 2016). It’s like the bunch of hyenas that prey on the dead body and jostle for the pieces. The conflicts among the self-interests have infected the world of boxing. In the particular state, commission boxers are robbed of their minimum protection enacted on them by federal law (Schaap, 2005).

Boxing has been prey to corruption since the time of its professional days. The very first example was the incident of Jake Lamotta. Jake LaMotta’s career was on the rise in 1947. He looked for further raise and favour of the crowd. The group controlled boxing then (Boddy, 2013). They wanted Lamotta to take a dive for 20,000 USD and guaranteed title shot against Marcel Cerdan from France (Ross, Casson, Siggel, & Cole, 1987). Match situation depicted Lamotta taking dive. Two rounds were fixed were in 4th Lamotta just lay on the ropes and gave chance his opponent to pounce on him. Lamotta lost the fight, got his title bout as promised (Woods J. , 2016). The FBI investigation was initiated in the later years on Lamotta and the dive incident to end the situation. The following sections will discuss the types of corruption prevalent today in boxing.

Types of Corruption

Boxing today is a gamblers paradise. Though the sport is not famous throughout the world, it is quite famous in the West as a professional sport. The pay-per-view system and the media attention have given boxing the hype it required to draw money to itself.  Boxing is considered among the most adrenaline charged games when two fighters face-off to beat down each other for the victory (Disney, 2010). Gambling on these one-on-one fights makes online gambling a practical and unique situation to place the bets. More to advantage if the judges’ fix can be figured out, it will lead to possible betting situations. The involvement of celebrities drawn to a big fight welcomes the big bets to come out (Nappo, 2015). The boxing world is already filled with instances when even the fighters had resorted to illegal betting during an on-going tournament or big money fights.

The current and most famous name in the list is Floyd ‘Money ‘Mayweather. Mayweather justified his nickname when he earned around 1 million USD just by gambling. His record-breaking money fight with Manny Pacquiao already made him 180 million and later added 827000 USD to his income (Riess, 2011). The following revenue was a result of gambling in NBA games and middleweight boxing match between Gennady Golokvin and Willy Monroe. Mayweather is not the only one in the celebrity list. American Rapper 50 cent was known to place 1.6 million USD on Mayweather to beat Pacquiao (Roberts, 2010). Apart from him, Mark Wahlberg, an actor, set 250,000 USD to bet with rapper P.Diddy on the win of Pacquiao against Mayweather. All these reports were confirmed by CNN report of May 18, 2015. In Rio Olympic 2016, Independent.IE said about warnings received by Iris boxers for involved in illegal betting. Two Irish fighters were identified and warned by Olympic committee and Irish Sports organisation (Clausen, McCrory, & Anderson, 2005). Since the sum was small in an amount the fighters avoided stiffer sanctions.

The use of PEDs or is widely practised in the world of boxing. Since boxing is a combat sport, the physical fitness level is a major issue. Due to lack of disciplines or other reasons boxers tends to lose it quickly. But to keep the income flowing players have to pound it out in the rings (Figueroa, 2013). Whether it’s Olympic or the professional stage, use of doping has risen above the level repeatedly. The worst case which shook the boxing world was the case of Panama Lewis. Lewis was a world-renowned trainer. But his character held some other image about him. He was charged with instigating his boxers with the use of illegal stimulants (Forster, 2016). Jeff Powell, a writer for Daily Mail, proclaimed that no other sports are so much under drugs as is boxing. He further claims that there is no surety about what we are watching in the ring. David Price’s career was cut short when he was knocked out by some doped American boxer. The fighter knocked out Price twice before ending his career. Later Tony Thompson was found with traces of diuretic and masking agent in his system. The British Boxing Board of Control had suspended but could not hold the suspension in abroad (Jable, 2010). For a boxer to put his life on the line is his choice. One never gets to know where the opponent is chemically charged making him more lethal in the ring. The use of these stimulants comes with a life-threatening risk in the long run (Wadler, 2010). Unlike other sports, boxing is body contact sports, and it has the history of life long head injuries. The issue of doping has further posed a significant problem in the long run beside its other controversies (Jordan & Zimmerman, 1988).

Gambling

Dives, manipulating judges, referees are all part of match-fixing in boxing. The vast amount of beyond records money flowing in and out of boxing world. In search of more income from the bets and channelizing the bet amounts, match-fixing were practised in boxing (Boddy, 2013). Players would take dives; referees would become partial, and even the judges would go for the favourites despite the performance in the rings. As the incidents suggests, hunger for more money for the investors and fighters has been the cause of such situations (Jordan B. D., 2014).

The Mayweather and Pacquiao in recent times raised an issue of scandal related to match-fixing. This fight created quite a stir among the latest times in the sports world. The allegations arose that Mayweather and his associates fixed the fight (Sotomayor, 2016). A judge later came out to reveal that he including three other judges was paid to make their judgement in favour Mayweather on many occasions. Though a small investigation from Boxing Association is in progress, no formal charges are placed, and he won’t be stripped of the title until results are out (Rudd S. , 2013). Mayweather has not put any response regarding the accusations surrounding his fixing allegations. Though Pacquiao lost the fight, the scorecard is far from reality.

James D Norris made match-fixing an art long time back. James Norris was a wealthy man who was heavily involved in the world of sports. In the mid-20th century, he owned National Hockey League Franchisee, a significant share at Madison Square Garden and champion racehorses (Ingen, 2015). His unsavoury attitude as an individual was rumoured to have links with criminals. As president of International Boxing Club, he had an unwritten monopoly over championship fights. He was responsible for fixing many matches which included big names like Harry Thomas, Jake Lamotta (Mullan, 2010). Allegations went further when he was accused of forcing boxers to hire his associates as their advisors. He was responsible for disrupting the integrity of the boxing world.

The Olympic event was also not lacking behind in case of fixing. Rio Olympic came under such controversy in case of the boxing game. Many judges and referees were moved from their positions in Olympic Boxing after officials suspected their decision bringing dubious results in many matches in Rio games (Vermeulen, 2013). Later spokesman from the Federation revealed the names and declared the events to be tainted.AIBA monitored all the events and showed that many game results were not as what was expected.

Doping

The world of boxing is also known for an aggressive and rash behaviour of the boxers. Many of the fighters are stained with criminal records and such other abuses. The situations are plenty and are an outcome of stressful lives which are often faced by boxers. A fame of few years often leads to future of darkness.

Mike Tyson is one of the big names in the world of boxing and infamous at the same time. A match was on-going between Evander Holyfield and Mike Tyson in Las Vegas. The previous meeting between the two fighters saw Holyfield beating Tyson badly until the 11th round (Chappell, 2014). The rematch which was set up was the richest rematch ever in the history of boxing. In the third round, Tyson bit off Holyfield’s right ear which resulted in the warning and three-point deduction from the referee. Tyson was soon disqualified after another attempt on the ear of Holyfield during the same match (Rudd, Lewis, & Wang, 2016). The history of boxing would remember this situation on the act of nuisance in the ring.  Mike Tyson had already been charged with criminal offences. He was accused of striking an intervening police officer in the ring that was deployed to stop any violent situation when the bout was stopped (Vaughn, 2010). Moreover, Tyson had already a case of rape charges in Indiana.

Records of crime with boxers are very common. Getting into brawls in parties or elsewhere is easily found in the police records. The feasible solutions to these problems are counselling, and rules set forward to guide the actions of the fighters. Boxing is an aggressive sport no doubt, but this should be limited to the rings only. The other problem is that the boxers get easily attracted to the little fame which bouts bring them. Many of them fail to judge the situation beyond it. Hence, the down periods invite stress, frustration and often indulge in drug or criminal activities to maintain the lifestyle or flow of money.

The previous sections clearly reveal the various crimes related to the sport of boxing. The most relevant corruption is caused by the absence of a single governing body. It gets controlled by organisations who act according to their advantages. The fighters become money-earning machines which can be manipulated with ease (Dhillon, 2012). In the current situation its money from organisers, sponsors and promoters who keep the control of the fights in the ring. Added to it are the pay-per-view and million dollar media networks who like to have things according to the viewership. There is almost no control over the money which is being moved around in the matches of boxing (Judkins, 2011). Moreover, there is no company overseeing the activities of the officials.

Match-Fixing

The boxing world has four major world championship governing bodies. They are the WBC, WBA, WBO and IBF. IBF is younger of the others which began its road in 1984. The scandal was that their ranking and championship title shots could be bought with a bribe of 338,000 USD. In simple terms, IBFs rankings would depend on the merits of the fighters but were easily obtained if people like Dong King came with large pockets (Woods J. , 2016). It went around for 13 years before IBF President Robert Lee was arrested with charges along with three other officials. Further revelations showed that 23 boxer and seven promoters were involved in fights bought with bribes.

It was in 1976 when Dong King took the chance of US Olympic boxing team to bag five golds’, to start the United States Boxing Championships. Later King sold this idea to ABC news and in stepped Ring Magazine (Wilde, 2016). It was revealed that King bought the rankings which were being published in the magazine. Ring made its publicity with help from Don King and his ideas. King used it to get the market validation for his fighter whenever needed. Later in-depth investigations from boxing journalists exposed King (Figueroa, 2013). Moreover, it was further known that fights were rigged as to favour King’s opponents.

These incidents are examples of how different bodies of boxing have utilised the situation at their advantages. Also, the power holders (rich people) have manipulated the sport to make them more profitable in the long-run. When there is no control over income and betting systems or no set of rules scheduled to control the situation, the problem will raise every day (Figueroa, 2013). Even the Olympic boxing was contaminated with match-fixing and referee manipulations which caused the integrity of the game.

Conclusion

The lack of a single governing body has always been a problem to the world of boxing. McCain’s bill proposes substantial portions of the proposals put forward by the GAO, which, to any rational eyewitness of other expert games, seems sensible: annuity arranges least uniform contracts amongst boxers and promoters, full money related revelation by promoters, and mandatory preparing and enlistment for judges and authorities. It puzzles the brain that some of these, the last for instance, are not set up at present to safeguard nonpartisan and safe results of sessions. However, this is boxing, the far outskirts of expert games (Washbourne, 2013). It is agreed that any governing body, which has a limited time promotional contract with a boxer and is principally in charge of sorting out and advancing a fight, must be liable to the arrangements of the Act. In any case, it would be patently uncalled for and wrong to characterise and manage broadcasters that broadcast bouts as “promoters” in essence (Rudd S. , 2013). The perspective that broadcasting companies ought to be directed as though they were promoters mirrors a misperception that the media business and boxing promoters perform the same capacity and have comparable associations with and financial control over boxers (Wamsley, 2010). But still, the reasons are unclear as to why till date the boxing world hasn’t come under a single governing body. Many say in that way many investors would lose their grip and the money flow would be controlled. Opportunities are plenty, and the integrity of the sport is easily disfigured to earn the dollars.

Other Corruption Issues

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