By Jim Cawkwell

Photo © Chris Cozzone/FightWireImages.com

 

Sanctioning organizations are truly the most ridiculous purveyors of moral bankruptcy in boxing. Their self-serving stipulations and puerile procedures have become a cancerous infestation, causing the sport to suffer. And yet they remain a conspicuous feature of the boxing landscape.

 

They exist not because they are necessary to the betterment of the sport, but simply because they can exist. The notion of becoming a champion is fundamental in the ambitions of young fighters who are inspired to have their names carved into title lineages alongside the legends of the past.

 

But boxing is a ruthless business in every sense. Criticized as the sport’s marquee stars often are, none of them have reached the top without possessing serious substance. These elite few are leagues apart in quality from those lesser fighters who rely on struggling their way through sanctioning body rankings to achieve a title shot. Therefore, as long as such fighters dare to dream, sanctioning bodies will have opportunities to exploit.

 

Frankly, the flawed logic practiced by sanctioning bodies has produced a legion of illegitimate bargain basement champions that do not belong fighting the very best in the world, and any time that two such fighters clash, the difference in pedigree is almost always revealed in a brutal manner.

 

However, sooner than later, all fighters, regardless of status, come to realize that loyalty to one of the sanctioning organizations often goes unrecognized. Without exception, each of boxing’s sanctioning bodies has done its part to harm the sport; though it must be said that some of them are more dedicated in this pursuit than others.

 

In recent years, and at the most inopportune moments, the IBF has chosen to set itself apart from its peers with a catalogue of maneuvers against their champions. The sum of these actions one could assume to be a malicious campaign to disrupt and distort the championship scene.

 

When Lennox Lewis finally succeeded in unifying the heavyweight championships, laying to rest the immense controversy of his first fight with Evander Holyfield, a representative of the IBF disappeared from the arena, taking with him the IBF belt from its rightful owner in his moment of triumph, citing Lewis’s late payment of the sanctioning fee as the reason for doing so.

 

Lewis paid the fee, but, as has become a trademark of their dealings, the IBF then became impatient with the champion’s intention to fight the world’s best instead of the best as decreed by the IBF. Lewis soon found himself having to relinquish the title which duly found its way to yet another illegitimate holder.

 

Orlando Salido defeated Robert Guerrero for the IBF featherweight title on November 4 of last year. Days later, the IBF declared that it was stripping Salido in light of his drug test revealing traces of the steroid Nandrolone. Salido stressed his innocence and went public with a further test that appeared to clear him. But the IBF were not interested, and Salido’s title remains vacant until another fighter claims it in yet another illegitimate title fight.

 

Without a hint of hesitation, the IBF has stripped several more high-profile, legitimate champions including: Joe Calzaghe, Juan Manuel Marquez, Ronald “Winky” Wright, and Jermain Taylor.

 

Now the IBF is on the warpath to strip Ricky Hatton of his light welterweight championship. The same title for which he defeated Kostya Tszyu in one of the sport’s most shocking upsets; the title he just reacquired from yet another of the IBF’s illegitimate crop, Juan Urango. And if they follow through with their threat, the same title that the IBF will have taken from Ricky Hatton twice.

 

Hatton’s crime? The desire to galvanize his legacy by challenging Mexican Jose Luis Castillo in a certain fight of the year candidate.

 

Of course, if newly appointed mandatory challenger Lovemore Ndou is amenable to the idea, the IBF, this most righteous of organizations, might allow Hatton to keep the title, but only if he pays out some step-aside money. Could this get any sleazier?

 

You have to wonder why a fighter as successful as Ricky Hatton, who must pay an extortionate sanctioning fee each time he fight for the right to be sanctioned by the organization he already represents as champion, and has received little else but impatience and disregard in return, continues to pander to the whims of that sanctioning body?

 

Perhaps it is just that the dream of being a world champion is such a powerful motivator. Hatton’s current predicament shows us that even a fighter of such accomplishments can be a slave to the will of the organizations, simply to hold on to their hardware and remain the champion he has fought to become.

 

But how pathetic is it that we have come to an impasse where a fighter that has never been humbled in the ring is emasculated in the public eye by the threats of the organization he has risked himself to serve?

 

The dreams of lesser fighters may hinge on the opportunities afforded by the likes of the IBF, but true champions must do away with the petty annoyance of the sanctioning bodies’ influence, leaving the sport’s politicians to squabble over the details, while searching out the greatness for which their kind were born.

 

And quite apart from Hatton’s obligations to his own legacy, pulling a bait-and-switch tactic at this most crucial of career crossroads in order to satiate the demands of the IBF will do nothing but infuriate those fans he has impressed with his principles and honesty outside the ring, if not always his performances inside it.

 

Castillo will be hell-on-legs for Hatton in June or November; but HBO invested in the recent showcase of both Hatton and Castillo to ensure that their marquee fight in June goes ahead, and that the winner, as he should, claims his due as the best light welterweight in the world.

 

And if they tried to prevent such an event, the IBF should come to stand for: Ignoring. Boxing’s. Future.

 

Meanwhile, being unable to contest the “prestigious” IBF title, both Hatton and Castillo could find swift comfort in the many thousands in sanctioning fees they would no longer be forced to pay.

 

Years ago, fighters such as Lennox Lewis, Marco Antonio Barrera and others began to refuse the stifling protocols of the sanctioning bodies, relinquishing their titles because they understood that they indeed were not defined by the titles they wore. Such fighters went on to compete in some of the greatest and most significant events of the time. The absence of certain championship belts diminished neither their individual standings, nor the impact of their achievements.

 

It is as if fighters have been dependent on the substance of seeking and achieving world championships for so long, that even at the highest levels, few fighters can conceive of defining their identity without the validation of the symbolic strap of leather and gold.

 

But a select few of the elite can transcend these bounds. Those fighters whose superior courage and skill sets them beyond the norm and towards greatness itself are not defined by statistics or symbols, but by the indelible images their deeds leave in our minds.

 

Like a song waiting to be plucked from thin air by the imagination of a master songwriter, such images are Hatton’s to carve into boxing history if he ignores the rotten politics of the IBF and challenges Castillo now.

 

Contact Jim Cawkwell at jimcawkwell@yahoo.co.uk