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January 2000 Each month we bring you a selection of articles from the current and past issues of BOXING MONTHLY. To buy the magazine, see our subscription or back issues pages, or use our world distribution map to find a news-stand copy. Why not use our Interactive Forum to express your own boxing comments and opinions!

	BRITISH BEAT - WISHES FOR Y2K MICK GILL pins down 14 major players in the British game to find out what dreams, wishes, fears and ambitions they may have for Y2K

COUCH: Wishes the BBB of C would be more demanding of their licence applicants - Get Big Pic VIC WAKELING (Managing Director of Sky Sports): All Boxing fans would love to see one world champion at every weight, but the best we can hope for is a reduction in the alphabet nonsense, and honest ratings from the organisations which survive. From Sky’s point of view, I would like to see a broader acceptance of the many good aspects of British boxing. We now have the world’s best heavyweight and another half a dozen world champions. We also have good, brave and entertaining fighters at every level. All of them - the champions and the journeymen - deserve our support, as do the people who run boxing. We can never be complacent, but officials and promoters have all contributed to vastly improved medical facilities. With more television companies showing an interest in boxing than at any time in the past, we all have good reason to be positive about the future. FRANK WARREN (Promoter): We need to get rid of at least two of the four main governing bodies. People might think this would lessen the opportunities for my fighters but I disagree because I like to think I’m capable of delivering title shots and my boys are all capable fighters. Just one governing body wouldn’t be very healthy because it could be monopolised by one promoter. But with just two, unification matches would be far easier to make. FRANK MALONEY (Promoter): Scale down the sanctioning bodies. While it wouldn’t be practical to do away with them all, the TV people, governing organisations, managers and promoters need to come together to create one supreme overriding body to create champions that the world can recognise as the leaders in their division. Presently, greed and politics are preventing the promoters from making the fights which the public want to see and the sport desperately needs if it’s to regain its credibility. And if that doesn’t happen then I honestly fear boxing will be reduced to a minority sport within the first 10 years of the next millennium. The public will simply lose interest. JOHN MORRIS (General Secretary of the BBB of C): I’d like to see the emergence of a single, strong, effective world boxing commission that is responsible for the sport’s whole ethic, image and code of behaviour, has the authority to standardise rules and medicals and could control the selection, operation and payment of officials. And it needn’t just be a dream. The passing of the Muhammad Ali Bill in America will greatly increase the jurisdiction of the Association of Boxing Commissions [ABC]. Together with the European Boxing Union, which encompasses 28 national federations, and possibly the Commonwealth Boxing Council, which includes South Africa and Canada, the ABC intends holding a seminar to consider world boxing. The vision could soon become a reality. COLIN McMILLAN (Secretary of the Professional Boxers Association): The welfare of every fighter must always be paramount, but while in most other major sports participants are well insured against permanent injury, presently the Board’s insurance policy is very bare. Basically you need to lose a limb or become blinded to benefit. Fighters like Rod Douglas and Mark Goult who suffered brain damage in the ring received nothing except a few fund raising events. Therefore, we need a structure which enables those fighters permanently damaged to receive substantial compensation and I’d like to see a certain percentage of all TV money used to create a benevolent fund for the welfare of ex-boxers. BRUCE BAKER (Chairman of the Professional Boxing Promoters’ Association): To progress, boxing needs a strong, more democratic, government-controlled governing body with statutory powers. And it needs a younger guy at the helm because the present administrators are just too old. Today, the sport is dominated by a few big players who monopolise TV and there is nothing in the Board’s present constitution to prevent this happening. Ideally, I’d like to see a centrally regulated Board pooling the TV revenue and then redistributing it at all levels, as happens in football, tennis and cricket. This will allow the sport to cater more for its grassroots because at present small promoters dream of breaking even, not making profit. If it continues to shrink at its present rate, within a generation there won’t be boxing; the amateur game is already dying and last season there were 20 less shows, 100 less active boxers and nowhere near as many youngsters coming in. STEVE BUNCE (Boxing correspondent at the Sunday Telegraph): One simple improvement would be to get the good British fighters to fight each other. At the moment there is a ridiculous situation with Robert McCracken, who is unbeaten and the WBC No 1 yet has never beaten a British middleweight. The game would improve if McCracken fought Eastman, Rhodes or Matthews. But promoters and managers, who have obvious financial interests to protect must realise that more quality British fights need to take place. Presently there are just one or two divisions in Britain that have undisputed leaders. The others will improve if boxers, their managers and promoters could agree deals. There is no shortage of potentially fantastic British fights out there. RAY MONSEL (Ringside doctor/medical official): Obviously boxing’s a dangerous sport and the injury that most worries us is acute sub-dural brain haemorrhage. In our sport, if that injury is so predictable then the medical response needs to be equally predictable - and the only person qualified to provide the right level of care is someone with anaesthetic training. It is now essential that this is made a mandatory requirement at ringside. MIGUEL MATTHEWS (Long-serving journeyman): Boxers deserve better representation both at promotions and Area council meetings. A position needs to be created either by the PBA or a new body to look after the needs of all fighters at a show, ensure that the running order isn’t continually changed to favour house fighters, and establish a more level playing field. These agents could also speak up on a fighter’s behalf if they’re hauled before the Area council for a string of losses or a disciplinary matter. At present, fighters usually go alone to a meeting behind closed doors without representation. Finally they could have an input into which referees get upgraded, because there’s far too many dodgy decisions. Really of course, these should be the jobs of the fighter’s manager, but too many are only after what they can get for themselves. JANE COUCH (Britain’s leading female fighter): At the moment, I think the Boxing Board are handing out their professional boxing licences too freely. Too many boxers are licensed without any amateur experience and don’t even know how to throw or block a jab. Therefore, I think the Board should introduce novice pro licences restricting kids to four-twos, or four-threes until they’ve reached an acceptable standard. This would also prove cheaper for the small hall promoters who consistently lose money. BILLY GRAHAM (Trainer): I’d like to see fighters, particularly at the basement end of the sport, get a greater share of the pot because at present the money’s divvied up all wrong. I haven’t a problem with the big promoters as such because if you’re a real sharp businessman, generating loads of income for a kid, sure you deserve 25% (of their purse). But I detest seeing a manager take 25% commission from a six-twos kid for doing nothing more than answering the phone. At the very most, 20% should be deducted and split equally between manager and trainers. A manager only deserves what they’re worth so why is there a set percentage regardless of ability? BARRY McGUIGAN (Former world champion and TV analyst): To generate interest and make the sport more widespread, I’d like to see: The media cover boxing in a more substantial, comprehensive fashion. Boxing brought back into schools. Perhaps not full-contact, but as a form of a physical education work-out, which gave kids the opportunity to experience boxing training so that if they enjoyed it they could go on and join a club. ROBERT W. SMITH (Southern Area Secretary): My wish would be for all managers and promoters to stop all their stupid feuds and start working sensibly together. Boxing is such a small industry and we all have to deal with each other, so preventing kids from one camp boxing on other promotions does nobody any good. Hopefully, that’ll help eliminate all these ridiculous Intercontinental championships in favour of meaningful Area title fights - usually they’re the best fight on the bill. IAN DARKE (Lead commentator, Sky Sports): I’d like to see us do what HBO have done in America and just cut right through the governing bodies. At present we’ve got a problem with all those titles because if the public who might be attracted to boxing can’t understand what’s going on, they lose interest. You can’t blame the champions for defending against relatively harmless opponents for decent money. But the time has come for the TV people to say: "Enough of this." With the power of money and in the absence of anyone else taking control, we’re going to ensure that a genuine attempt is made to rate the world’s fighters in their proper order, without any promotional interest, and for boxing to be organised in such a way that those fighters can then be matched against each other. This era is not altogether awful, it’s just got out of control. RON GRAY (Small hall promoter): Personally I hope the Michael Watson case makes the Board of Control skint so we can start again from scratch. All the new medical regulations they’ve brought in haven’t made the game any safer, they’ve just made it too expensive for youngsters to turn pro. Today it costs about £500. Next thing, they’ll insist on only having fights within hospital grounds! Instead we need a governing body made up of people who have held or currently hold a licence and who are democratically voted in and voted out by the licence holders. Within that framework it’s essential to appoint a marketing man to sell the game to doubters, highlight all the good the game does. Now he’s retiring, Mickey Duff would serve as an excellent figurehead.

Also available to read from issue: Magazine Contents: Full details of the January 2000 issue - the complete contents listing. World Rankings: See where the top fighters were rated when January 2000 went to press... HE'S THE BEST? Supposedly the People's Challenger in the heavyweight division, Michael Grant was dropped twice and a mile behind on points before, inexplicably, Andrew Golota let the giant contender off the hook. STEVE FARHOOD examines the dented credentials of the man who seems destined to challenge Lennox Lewis, whatever READY FOR ROY JONES? New York light-heavyweight David Telesco has been hounding Roy Jones Jr, stripping to the waist and issuing challenges whenever his path crossed with that of the undisputed world champion. GRAHAM HOUSTON catches up with the puncher and previews the showdown set for the Radio City Music Hall

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