By Norm Frauenheim-
Olympic boxing is about to become what it has been known for making.
History.
At least, it sounds as if it’s closer to Olympic abolition than it ever has been.
Boxing, which has been around since the ancient Greek Games, was not included on a list of sports for the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics, The Associated Press reported this week.
The story didn’t get any attention. No surprise there. Nobody much cares anymore. Olympic boxing is already a ruin, unrecognizable and seemingly beyond repair after more than three decades of uninterrupted scandal and rank corruption.
Other than last rites, there doesn’t seem to be anything left to say. But there is concern. After all, the prize-fighting business has relied on Olympic boxing. From Muhammad Ali to Andre Ward, Olympic gold has led to box-office gold. It has been a place where talent can be discovered, refined and introduced to a diverse audience.
Even now, it’s a way of re-creating the game. To wit: Keyshawn Davis. The Tokyo silver medalist is an interesting prospect. Will he make it to the top of the pro game? Who knows? But we know him because of the Olympics. He’s a lightweight worth following.
Seven years from now, however, the Keyshawn of a new generation might not have that Olympic platform. That robs an emerging generation of fighters of an early goal. It also robs the business of prospects who sustain its future. An Olympics without boxing is one step toward the end so often predicted by the Boxing-Is-Dead crowd.
Mauricio Sulaiman knows that. Olympic boxing is a cornerstone to his place in the pro game. He plans a fight to preserve it, which is in effect a fight for his sanctioning body, the World Boxing Council (WBC).
“It’s a matter of great concern,’’ Sulaiman, the WBC president, said Thursday in an annual year-end zoom session with reporters from his office in Mexico City.
Sulaiman said he is communicating with the bodies supposedly in charge of amateur boxing. Trouble is, it’s not exactly clear what – who — those organizations are anymore. It was AIBA a year ago. Now, it is IBA. There’s acrimony in the acronyms, neither of which were supposed to be within earshot of an opening bell at the Tokyo Games last summer.
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) decided to keep amateur boxing’s ruling cartel as far away from a scorecard as possible. It looks as if nothing about the IOC’s evident exasperation has changed. It was expressed all over again with the decision to keep boxing off its initial list sports for 2028.
Initial is the operative word here. According to the AP, there’s a chance that boxing could still be added – restored? — if it gets its act together. Big if. We’ve been waiting for Olympic boxing get its house in order for more than three decades
No matter what the letters are in the ever-changing acronym, there’s still the whiff of more scandal.
A year ago, Russian Umar Kremlyov was elected president of the governing body. Kremlyov is still the president. And the IOC is still skeptical, according to an AP report, which a year ago cited his promise to clear up the acronym’s $16-million debt if boxing’s Olympic status was retained.
Now, Kremlyov is promising to reform boxing’s judging system, which has been riddled with corruption ever since Roy Jones Jr. and Michael Carbajal were robbed of gold at the 1988 Seoul Olympics.
I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again: If Olympic boxing is serious about cleaning up its act, go back to the initial scene of the crime. Give Jones and Carbajal their rightful gold medals. Those are the fixes that never got fixed. There’s been a long succession of them ever since.
Despite Kremlyov’s lofty promise, he’s not willing to go into down and dirty details
“We have nothing to hide,’’ Kremlyov told the AP this week.
Then, however, Kremlyov was asked about allegations of fixed fights reported in an Olympic investigation of the 2016 Rio De Janeiro Games. Kremlyov said he couldn’t he couldn’t be specific about what fights were fixed. Or who did the fixing.
A memo to Kremlyov and everybody else with AIBA, IBA or whatever it’s called today: Get specific, or stay off that list.
