Does the Mares vs. Agbeko Rematch Herald a New, Cleaner Era?
In ordering a rematch between Abner Mares and Jospeh Agbeko, the International Boxing Federation (IBF) has made the right decision. Their clash for the IBF Bantamweight Title (and Showtime’s bantamweight tournament crown) ended in controversy as referee Russell Mora warned Mares for flagrant fouling over and over again, yet failed to deduct any points from Mares for his unsportsmanlike behavior. Worse, when Mares nailed Agbeko with an obvious below-the-belt shot that sent the Ghanaian to the canvas in the 11th Round, Mora counted it as a knockdown instead of deducting points from Mares and giving Agbeko time to recover.
The fight was widely perceived as a travesty, and the IBF has made the correct move in ordering a rematch. While some pundits have called for the IBF to overturn the verdict altogether and retroactively disqualify Mares, the precedents for such a move are very weak, and the IBF would provide Abner Mares with excellent ammunition for a lawsuit if they did so. Also, if Mora had penalized Mares early and Mares behaved from that point forward, it does not automatically follow that Agbeko would have won the fight. Ordering the rematch is the best the IBF can do.
The IBF’s Recent Record
This move highlights the IBF’s status as possibly the cleanest of the Big Four sanctioning bodies. One might argue that ordering the Mares vs. Agbeko rematch is something any of the sanctioning bodies might have done, and my reply to that is maybe they would have, and maybe they would not. If Mares had been a WBC crony fighting for the WBC Bantamweight Title, I have a hard time seeing Jose Sulaiman ordering him back into the ring in a risky rematch where the referee will probably penalize Mares with strictness.
Another comparison is how the IBF has yet to take action against Russell Mora, while the New Jersey State Athletic Commission (NJSAC) suspended all three of the judges involved in the Paul Williams vs. Erislandy Lara fiasco. It might not be a flashy and dramatic action, but I don’t think we will see Mora officiating at any high profile IBF fights in the future. Besides, Russell Mora is licensed by Nevada and New Mexico, not the IBF.
Furthermore, it is important to remember that the IBF and the NJSAC have been closely intertwined since the IBF’s foundation as a splinter group from the WBA. I have little doubt that had Mares vs. Agbeko taken place in New Jersey, Mora probably would have been suspended with the support of the IBF.
The IBF is also the only one of the Big Four sanctioning bodies that has yet to dilute its own fragment of the world championship with meaningless sub-titles. The IBF has 16 divisions with one world championship per division, and nothing like the super or diamond titles that allow other sanctioning bodies to have two or more men carrying the title belt for one division. At the present time, the IBF is the closest boxing has to championship purity.
Are Government Takeovers the Way?
In 1999, the IBF was taken over by the federal government, with the singularly beneficial effect of removing longtime IBF honcho Bob Lee. The unofficial rule for a boxing sanctioning body is that if you become the president of the organization, you effectively rule that organization for life and de facto own it. If an independent faction forms inside a sanctioning group, it inevitably splinters and forms its own fiefdom (as was the case for the IBF and WBO), so kicking out the guy at the top will always be a necessary first step towards reform.
That is not to say that the IBF is perfect. In 2006, the IBF seriously blundered in allowing Zab Judah to retain its welterweight belt despite his loss to Carlos Baldomir. Their grounds for doing so was on a stronger footing than the WBC’s recent move to give Timothy Bradley’s title to the winner of Morales vs. Matthysse, but it was a bad move nonetheless, and the intention was clearly to allow Mayweather vs. Judah to proceed as a title fight. Also, the rankings of the IBF are no better or worse than those of any other sanctioning body. Even so, it is clear that while the IBF might not have too many top champions carrying their red belts, but they are running a tighter ship.
This was possible in the case of the IBF because it was the only one of the Big Four headquartered in the United States. The WBC, WBA and WBO operate out of South America and the Caribbean, and I doubt we would ever see any meaningful action from that sector. However, the federal government is not powerless to deal the other sanctioning organizations a serious blow, depose their leaders and prompt real reform. A government investigation could lead to any of the sanctioning bodies being labeled as a foreign criminal enterprise, and bringing charges would effectively block the charged organization from operating in the United States, even if it never resulted in a trial. The overwhelming bulk of the money in championship boxing is in the US, and the only boxers who would want a title belt that was worthless in the US are those minor figures who fight entirely in Asia and Europe. If anything could prompt a rebellion within a sanctioning body, it would be getting banned from title fights in America.
The IBF is not clean by any measure, but frankly, what professional (or even amateur) sports organization is? It has become clearer, however, that the IBF has cleaned up its act to a large extent since the 1999 takeover. While the organization still manages to stumble into corrupt fiascoes from time to time, it has done so less often than its rivals. Furthermore, winning the IBF title means something, because the champion can at least be certain no other guy will carry the same title at the same time.
