Boxings activity man

Boxers in this day and age often get an awful lot of stick from fans for not fighting often enough. Of course most fighters at world level fight only twice, maybe thrice, a year at a push or if you're Floyd Mayweather you fight maybe once a year in the ring and twice a year outside of it. Though it's time to give a little bit of respect to probably the most hard working “championship level” fighter around at the moment. 28 year old Ramon Garcia Hirales may not be a fighter you're familiar with, his record of 15-2-1 (8) doesn't look like he's been a particularly busy fighter, especially not when you realise he's been professional since 2007.

Since July last year when Hirales fought Filipino fighter Johnriel Casimero for the Interim WBO Light Flyweight title and won a close split decision he has suddenly become super active. He would defend that title twice in just 5 months with his 3^rd defence coming in February of this year. Although Hirales would lose that fight by being controversially out pointed by Jesus Geles and losing a split decision he's preparing for a rematch that is set to be fought in April, yes just 2 months after losing his title. This will be Hirales' 5^th fight in just over 7 months, all of which have been for the Interim WBO Light Flyweight title. The hectic schedule of Hirales may well cut his career shorter than it should be, though for fight fans this is what the sport needs more of. Instead of fighters like David Haye fighting as little as once every 12 months we need more Ramon Garcia Hirales'.

An Argentine with no power? :-O

This coming Saturday sees everyone's favourite light punching Argentinian Light Welterweight fighting for the 42^nd time in a career spanning back over 8 years. That's right Cesar Rene Cuenca, the man nicknamed “El Distinto” returns to the ring after 7 months out. Cuenca's record looks impressive at 39-0-0-2 though you look deeper and you notice he's fought a lot of nobodies, in fact he's fought a lot of nobodies several times. His most impressive facet though is his KO success, he has scored just 1 KO in his 39 results (he's had 2 No Contests due to head clashes).

Cuenca, currently the #3 ranked Argentinian at the weight according to Boxrec.com is the WBO #2 and the WBC #10 ranked fighter and his up coming fight comes against a giant test in the form of Juan Jose Dias . Dias has the impressive record of 11-10-4 (2) and has only been stopped once in his career so it's fair to assume that he should be going the distance against Cuenca.

Although Cuenca has faced some moderate opponents with semi-decent records the problem is that their records are just generally more padded than Cuenca who really shouldn't have a top 15 ranking with any body. Hopefully the light punching Argentinian ends up being pushed into a fight with one of his fellow countrymen who hit much harder (Marcos Maidana or Lucas Matthysse would be nice) though sadly theirs nothing in it for them when they have title aspirations compared with Cuenca's somewhat yellow streak.

If you love Paulie Malignaggi you'll love Cesar Cuenca!

Audley Harrison-Twitter Warrior!

A recent newspaper reported Audley Harrison claiming he would “prove doubters wrong”, and now, the 39 year old Harrison, seems to be on the warpath. Yes this is the same A-Farce we all love to hate, the problem is that his war path isn't on the heavyweight division but instead on the world of Twitter where Audley, presumably feeling safe is happy to swing his shots. He seems to throw more verbal jabs over the site than he did at David Haye.

The ever confident Gold Medal winner has come out with some of those lines you know only he could ever come out with. When asked whether or not he still believes he'll be a world champion he replied with “Long way, but a few good wins and I'm back in the huntRT”. A possible early contender for under-statement of the year. “:Long way”? I'm nearer having a threesome with Kelly Brook and Briana Frost than Audley is from ever winning a world title. A “few good wins”? Has Audley ever actually had what we'd consider a good win? His best victories are against British standard heavyweights in Williams and Sprott, both of whom have already beaten him anyway. Although a lot of people want to downplay the Klitschko's they spar with Sprott and Vitali famously beat Williams senseless well before Audley faced him. If the A-Farce wants a good win what about guys like Povetkin? Arreola? Chagaev? The talk is that he will face a British fighter, in fact he's called out Tyson Fury and Dereck Chisora, more British level fighters.

The Olympic Gold Medal winner has also recently come out with this. “Listen, all the big talking wanabee bad boys on here, don't watch me. I'm all good. My life is gravy, no complaints. Can you say the same ?” He doesn't seem to have any idea most fight fans watch him to see him layed out on the canvas all over again and hopefully retire. We thought Danny Williams would have embarrassed him into retirement, then we were sure Michael Sprott had done the job, then hoped Martin Rogan had managed it. We've realised he's not going away until someone literally gives him brain damage, sadly I'm not to sure he'd realise it. In a fair honest retort:

“Listen, you big talking boxing wannabee bad boy, don't call yourself a fighter when your not willing to fight. My life is pretty good, can't complain and I'm sure many others can say the same”.

When a “fan” asked “For your fans, why should we still follow you?” Audley retorted with “If your a fan, I don't need to answer that” almost expecting the blind followers to keep following him. It was as if the blind man expects people to be as stupid as he himself seems. Is it impossible for poor Audley to realise weren't all delusional fools? He's giving people no reason, in or out of the ring, to remain fans. He needs to grow up, this is a man who's been a pro for 10 years but has done nothing of note.

A protective fan was kind enough to offer this “Have you got keyboard gangsters on your case?? Bless the clueless bastards.” Sadly the “clueless bastards” are the those following the A-Farce despite the let down, the talk and the repeated failure. Though as Audley said “A wise man once said ' if they are writing about you, they are thinking about you, if they are thinking about you, they are dreaming about you' can u imagine :)” can you imagine some of the things I must be dreaming about? A nude Marco Antonio Periban for a start (actually...). Shame I find it hard to dream and write things because, believe it or not, I get paid! Well done Audley, I'll mis-quote a very wise man myself “I write, therefore I am” (long live Descartes).

Sorry for the language with this one but....well it's Audley's fault “When my day comes to shit, I mean quit :) I promise to let u know”. Shame he's been shit for the past decade and he's certainly let us know about it, repeatedly. If he quit I'd rather he just faded off into obscurity rather than announced it to the world. He's resorted to throwing personal insults “I'm joking butt head” though this is nothing of a surprise, he needs to throw something, sure as hell didn't throw anything at David Haye in November.

Before leaving Audley alone (I didn't want to catch whatever mental problem he has) I saw this gem. “Fact: I don't give a flying f..k what people say. Fact: I fought Michael Sprout for 8 rounds with one ARM, do you not think I would have found a way to come back: fact: I should of got asking out on a stretcher, its for the world title”. Now I understand the start of that. Yes yes he fought a 35 year old journeyman who had gone 2-4 in his last 6 one handed, well we say fought he didn't really fight but that's a technicality. Though the second part I have no idea about, is he saying he should have had to go out on a stretcher against Haye? If so it's probably a shame the referee did save his life.

Anyway thank you Mr Harrison. Been nice to vent after Man United's garbage first half, not quite as bad as your beloved Arsenals though I guess. Stay on Twitter, your more active on there than you ever were in the ring.

Old men tussle

Some fighters just don't know when to call it a day one such man is former world heavyweight title holder Oliver McCall. The Atomic Bull, now a month shy of turning 46, and 14 years since he lost the WBC title to Lennox Lewis in that infamous bout that saw him break mentally in front of the worlds eyes is appearing once again in the ring. On Friday night Oliver McCall will face the once beaten Cedric Boswell in a fight for the vacant NABA Heavyweight title at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Hollywood. Boswell (33-1) is himself 41 and was originally scheduled to face Bert Cooper, who like McCall is 45.

Whilst I personally have nothing against older fighters carrying on if they are either fighting completely meaningless fights, for example those that were had by Hassan Chitsaz against relative nobodies. The fighters that are “older” and still able to compete with the best are also fine, fighters like Bernard Hopkins, Vitali Klitschko and fighters of a similar ilk are completely fine, they take care of themselves and also don't take a great deal of damage in the ring. Though when 2 fighters are getting US TV exposure with a combined age of 86 and are neither going places nor particularly worth watching I can't really see the point of it all.

The “old” heavyweights appear to be out in force this year though with Evander Holyfield, Ray Austin, Antonio Tarver, James Toney, Hasim Rahman, Shannon Briggs, Lance Whittaker, Rob Calloway and several others all ranked by Boxrec.com in the top 100 American heavyweights. I've written in the past about the lack of American heavyweights who are young and breaking through, it doesn't help that the older guys won't go away. Until something major happens the future looks as bleak as the past has been for the big Americans, those that want to complain the division is dead only need to look at fights like this one.

I keep losing gimme a title fight!

This sports a funny sport. One day you could have lost 7 of your last 9, you could have lost 4 world title fights in those 7 losses, you could be 35 as well, and yet tomorrow you could have made it 7 losses in 10 and be the world champion. Don't ask me how Jose Antonio Aguirre managed to get his recent WBC Light Flyweight title fight and we, as boxing fans need to feel a little bit relieved he's not going to wake up tomorrow as the champion but what were the WBC thinking?

Aguirre,who fell to 35-10-1 challenged Gilberto Keb Baas, now 35-20-4 for the title. Aguirre had some how been ranked #8 by the WBC in a weight class he hadn't made since May 2007 and hadn't scored a win in since August 2006. Not only had he gone 2-7 entering the bout but he'd been fighting at a higher weight class, his wins had come fighters with terrible records (4-5-1 and 8-16-3) and he'd fought only once in 2 years.

Although Keb Baas has a much worse record his recent form has genuinely been half decent. His previous 9 fights had been 6-1-2 including a brilliant win over Omar Nino Romero for the title. Most of his career losses were to decent fighters, guys like Pongsaklek Wonjongkam, Victor Zaleta and Omar Salado and he was in the form of his life, he was active, he was tick all the right boxes as a fighter. Don't get me wrong, he's nothing more than a title holder waiting for a challenger to come along and take his belt away, but he's an active fighter over the past few years on a run. Aguirre is an inactive fighter, who has been on the receiving end of a lot of recent beatings and should NEVER have been world ranked. Only the WBC ranked Aguirre which says it all.

Aguirre had, once, almost a life time ago (2000-2004) been the WBC's Minimumweight champion, maybe this is what helped lift him to such an over-inflated ranking, though it's stupid if it was and would allow fighter 5 years deposed to challenger for titles a division up. What may be the worst problem though is that this is the 3^rd attempt at the same title that Aguirre has had since 2005. His first attempt was a loss to Eric Ortiz (TKO7), his second was a 12 round decision to Brian Viloria. He would also challenge Roberto Vasquez (WBA champion) and Ulises Solis (IBF champion) for the title during his 2-7 run.

Imagine if tomorrow, Monte Barrett stood at #8 in any of the heavyweight rankings and the slaughtering a fighter would get for facing him. Oddly Barrett would, on paper, not me a much worse challenger. Barrett is 4 years older (39 to Aguirre's 35), with 1 draw more on his record (34-9-2 to Aguirre's 34-9-1) but 3-4-2 in his last 9. This really is the scandalous world of boxing rankings folks. A real joke.

Oh and just to test a theory. Manny Pacquiao.

Bloody fake records

Boxing fans often complain about “padded records” in boxing, where a fighter fights no one to create an artificially deep looking record. Although the term is often unfairly used against fighters who fight average opponents when they, themselves, are supposed to be world class it's more annoying when young you find fighters with around 20 fights who has never faced any sort of a test at all. I've been ultra critical of Deontay Wilder, a fighter who some Americans are cheering on as their future heavyweight champion and saviour. Wilder is a major case of a fighter with a padded and “perfect” record but he's far from the worst offender. In fact with out trailing through boxrec.com with a fine comb it's impossible to be sure who actually does have the most padded record.

One man that does need to be mentioned as a probably contender though is the 18-0 (17) Dzmitry Lubachkin from Belarus. You maybe asking what makes Lubachkin's record so padded? Well just take a look here:
He has faced 13 debutants
He has never faced a fighter who was better than 1-1-1 (his 14^th opponents-Aliaksandr Kuryanovich)
His opponents have a combined 1 win amongst them
The combined record of his 18 opponents have a record of 1-6-2

I've also complained a little about the likes of Nenad Borovcanin who also has a very padded record (27-0 with 19KO's) but even his is record isn't this poor.

The problem isn't that fans are asking too much of fighters, but that Lubachkin's record will be seen seriously by those outside of the sports actual fans. If Lubachkin was to meet a half decent fighter he'd be on paper an “impressive” opponent, though everyone would expect him to be badly beaten by any sort of semi-decent professional fighter. It's not fair on the fans and it's not fair on the guys he fights.

The WBA, oh the loveable WBA and their bizarre decisions

The WBA have again gone and done it, they've made even the most knowledgeable of boxing fans scratch their heads wondering what happened. British fighter Amir Khan has been made “The Super Lightweight Super champion”. The reasons for this are business, the WBA are wanting their title to be fought for between Marcos Maidana and Erik Morales. That fight has all the ingredients of a short lived but very exciting war as an ageing veteran faces off against a powerful punching but limited prime opponent. Though the fight it really not one I can agree with that's a completely different matter. What I want to look at is the WBA title policy. No not the one in the rule book (sorry but I can't be bothered to read 72 pages of “rules” that can be found on here http://www.wbaonline.com/) but the one that appears to be made up as they go along.

The WBA has no less than 29 fighters walking around claiming to be “world champion” (be it “super”, “regular”, “interim”). They have 3 Middleweight “world champions” and now have a vacant world title at Super Lightweight (thanks to Kahn's title being upgraded). The “super” title rule was generally thought to have been brought in to allow unified champions some leeway in facing mandatory WBA challengers, though now appears to be nothing more than another way for the organisations to collection sanctioning fees. Current “Super” champions include not only Khan but Juan Manuel Marquez (Lightweight), Chris John (Featherweight) Miguel Cotto (Super Welterweight), Felix Sturm (Middleweight)and Andre Ward (Super Middleweight) with some boxing fans (who have read the WBA's rules) also calling Yuriorkis Gamboa a Super champion.

From the WBA's website:

WBA SUPER CHAMPIONSHIPS

(by WBA - Feb 11, 2009 - 11:12:37 AM)

DEFINITION

The SUPER WORLD CHAMPION CATEGORY OR UNDISPUTED WORLD CHAMPION was created for those World Champions who hold the title of two or more organizations recognized by the WBA, like the World Boxing Council (WBC), the International Boxing Federation (IBF) and the World Boxing Organization (WBO).

Gamboa currently holds the WBA's belt and the IBF's belt at Featherweight though on the website is classed as a “Unified” champion and not “Super” whilst John is the WBA's “Super” champion.


We all know boxing awarding bodies like to make things up as they go along but the WBA's proliferation of “World” titles is beyond a joke. It's due to the WBA's title policy, joke rankings and bizarre mandatory defences that have left me creating my own championship, the Scott Graveson is Awesome title. I have declared myself the Super Duper Awesome Champion for eternity at everything ever...can't be much more of a joke than the WBA's world title.