By Scott Shaffer and G. Leon

In a 1982 case against the WBA, a United States federal judge ruled that sanctioning bodies perform a public function and that boxers have a legally protectible interest in their world rankings.  Since president Jose Sulaiman admitted last month that he allowed Danny Williams to compete for the WBC championship after Williams’ promoter Frank Warren agreed to make a “donation” to the sanctioning body, Boxingtalk has been following the WBC’s ratings with interest.  Recently, Bismarck Morales of the WBC ratings committee wrote to Boxingtalk saying, “we sometimes work day and night to make sure the people who have earned recognition are placed where they belong in our rankings.” Unfortunately, someone needs to work day and night to make sure the WBC is doing its job properly.  While Boxingtalk doesn’t doubt that there are good people at the WBC, we also are of the opinion that somewhere along the line, the decision-making process is often perverted so that financial and political factors take control at the expense of fairness to boxers.  Remember, for every undeserving mandatory contender or world-rated boxer, a worthy boxer is being denied an opportunity that he has sacrificed and worked hard to earn.  With that in mind, Boxingtalk has compiled a list of what we feel are the top ten current problems with the WBC’s ratings, starting with what we consider to be wrong and progressing to what we consider to be indefensible. Although ratings will always be subjective to a certain extent, Boxingtalk limited its choices only to those of the WBC's choices that are completely beyond the pale of debatability.  For comparison, the Boxingtalk ratings are listed next to each WBC rating discussed.

10. Lou Del Valle (WBC #5 light heavyweight, Boxingtalk not in top thirty)…
Del Valle has talent, and we believe a boxer should be allowed to take an over-the-weight bout without jeopardizing his world ranking, but let’s be serious here, Lou's a cruiserweight and doesn't deserve a top five (or ten or twenty) rating in any weight class. The WBC has no excuse for this one, since its officials were present in Madison Square Garden when Del Valle plodded his way to an excruciating TKO over an unwilling opponent, Tiwon Taylor.  Clearly, this was not a world-class performance. In Del Valle’s last nine fights dating back to 1998, he has made the 175-pound limit only twice (winning neither bout), and since mid-2002, he hasn’t been a light heavyweight at all.  He weighed 193 for a fight last month, and though he is a former world titleholder, Del Valle hasn’t won anything but tune-up bouts since beating Eddy Smulders way back in 1997.

9. Luis Pineda (WBC #13 cruiserweight, Boxingtalk not in top thirty)…
Considering Pineda has only one win in his entire career over a mediocre opponent (Earl Morais) and none over a true contender, it was shocking that WBC ever deemed Pineda eligible to fight for a world title. What makes his current rating absolutely reprehensible is that Pineda was demolished in 90 seconds by Wayne Braithwaite in late 2003, and yet he still shows up ahead of legitimate contenders such as Virgil Hill (Boxingtalk #8, WBC #24), Enzo Maccarinelli (Boxingtalk #11, WBC #26), Vadim Tokarev (Boxingtalk #13, WBC #30), and Grigory Drozd (Boxingtalk #20, WBC #39).  With no significant wins and the inability to last one round in a title fight, there can be no explanation for Pineda's presence in any legitimate top fifteen.  Rating Pineda ahead of more deserving boxers is either corrupt or incompetent.

8. Quentin Smith (WBC #6 middleweight, Boxingtalk not in top thirty)...
Smith’s nickname is Happy and that probably describes his mood every time he looks at the WBC ratings and sees his name at #6 without ever having had a real fight. His best win was over junior middle Marcos Primera and his last fight came against Michael Jackson (8-9 at the time). It’s unclear whether Jackson wore one glove or two, but we do know he couldn’t beat it and the Smith-Jackson bout was no thriller.  Meanwhile Sam Soliman (Boxingtalk #6, WBC #7) has wins over Ray Joval and Nader Hamdan plus a controversial loss to Anthony Mundine at 168 that some say Soliman should’ve won. Why in the world is he lower than Smith?  Also at middleweight: Aaron Mitchell (WBC #8), James Obedi Toney (WBC#9) and Kelly Pavlik (WBC #10). None of this trio is rated in Boxingtalk’s top thirty and the best win among them is Mitchell’s win over ex-WBO welter titlist Manning Galloway… and that was back in 2001. They have not proven themselves worthy of a top ren rating.

7. Humberto Soto (WBC #2 featherweight, Boxingtalk #25)…
The road to a world title at 126 pounds runs through… Humberto Soto? According to the WBC it does.  When representatives of #1 rated Rocky Juarez inquired about when his mandatory challenge would come due, the WBC pointed to a sometimes-enforced rule distinguishing the #1 contender from the mandatory contender.  Juarez was #1 but wasn’t the mandatory, his promoter (Main Events) was told. And how does Juarez become the mandatory?  By fighting an eliminator and paying another sanctioning fee to the WBC.  Of course, the winner would get a title fight and then have to pay 3% of his purse to this not-for-eprofit organization. So under the eliminator rule, boxers are charged a fee and if they win, they have to pay another fee. Even without this new, extra layer of sanctioning fees a boxer now seems to be required to pay to the WBC to fight for its title, the rating of Soto at #2 is troubling in and of itself.  Soto has done enough to crack Boxingtalk’s top thirty, but it is ludicrous to put him at #2 when he has barely even fought in a main event.  Luckily for boxing fans, a valuable ESPN spot wont be taken up by Juarez-Soto because Soto’s promoter got greedy and passed up a reported $90,000 offer to face Juarez on national television.  Guilty Boxing promotes Soto. The question here is are they guilty of anything to get Soto to #2 and how did the WBC come to rate Soto above men like Spend Abazi(Boxingtalk #7, WBC #6) and Michael Brodie (Boxingtalk#8, WBC #7)? Also at featherweight: Wayne McCullogh (WBC #8, Boxingtalk not in top thirty) has not earned such a lofty rating.

6. Fernando Beltran Jr. (WBC #14 junior featherweight, Boxingtalk not in top thirty)...
Let’s see if we can follow the relationships here... Fernando Beltran Sr. is a boxing promoter.  His company is Zanfer and he manages ex-WBC junior lightweight champ Erik Morales, who seems to favor the WBC, which is certainly the great champion's prerogative.  Recently, Morales gave up his IBF title and kept the WBC version for his third bout against Marco Antonio Barrera, a choice that netted over $100,000 in sanctioning fees to the WBC.  Fernando Beltran Jr., who fights for Zanfer, has beaten absolutely nobody of note, yet somehow, he is rated #14 by the WBC.  The younger Beltran’s best wins came against Victor Rabanales, more than a decade after Rabanales’ prime and a knockout of Jose Guadalupe Gastelum.  Given these modest credentials, one can only wonder if the WBC issued a thank you for being cut in for 3% of Morales’ purses, by rating Beltran ahead of legitimate contenders such as Yobert Ortega (Boxingtalk #7, WBC #34), Salim Medjkoune (Boxingtalk #8, WBC #18), Jose Luis Valbuena (Boxingtalk #11, WBC unrated), Sod Looknangtoy (Boxingtalk #17, WBC #40), Celestino Caballero (Boxingtalk #20, WBC #28) and Jose Aguiniga (Boxingtalk #30, WBC #23) just to name a few.

5. Gianluca Branco (WBC #2 junior welter, Boxingtalk #25) and Michele Piccirillo (WBC #5 junior middle, Boxingtalk #24)…
Both Branco and Piccirillo share the same promoter, OPI 2000, so we will address them together.  Please don’t tell us Piccirillo is rated this high because he is a former world champion.  Anyone who saw his 2002 title victory over Cory Spinks knows that this was one of the worst hometown decisions in recent history.  Piccirillo lost the immediate rematch to Spinks.  In a 154-pound division loaded with talented and worthy boxers, Piccirillo then moved up from 147 and fought only a few easy guys yet he snagged a top five rating.  As for Branco, quick, name one guy he has beaten… unless you are a hardcore Italian boxing fan or a member of Branco's family, you probably couldn’t do it.  He already got one mandatory shot against Arturo Gatti based on practically nothing and he was inactive for more than a year prior to losing to Gatti but stayed in the mandatory position in violation of the Association of Boxing Commissioners' ratings criteria.  In his title shot, he lasted longer than expected, but that was probably because Gatti hurt his hands in the bout.  Since then, he has done nothing to merit staying in the second position ahead of everyone in the world except Floyd Mayweather.  In fairness, he has a couple of decent wins, but he has never faced the top junior welters in Europe or anywhere else except for the loss to Gatti.  Europe is loaded with good 140-punders such as Ricky Hatton, Souleymane Mbaye, Junior Witter, Oktay Urkal and Andreas Kotelnik.  Putting Branco ahead of these guys when he hasn’t beaten any of them is a complete disgrace.  We would love to hear someone from the WBC explain this one explain with a straight face.  Also in Picirillo's weight class, Bronco McKart is rated #14 and Verno Phillips is #15.  The WBC must’ve forgot that Phillips gave McKart a whooping in 2003.

4. Miguel Angel Rodriguez (WBC #2 welterweight, Boxingtalk not in top thirty) and Miguel Angel Gonzalez (WBC #6 welterweight, Boxingtalk not in top thirty)…
Based in Mexico, the WBC has long been accused of promoting Mexican fighters at the expense of boxers from other countries.  If you want evidence, you need look no further than the 147-pound division, where it looks to us like the WBC has come up with a new criteria for rating welterweights… if your name is Miguel Angel and you are from Mexico, you go straight to the top six. Miguel Angel Rodriguez is 25-1, but if you know boxing, you know that with patience and the ability to pay for weak opponents, it is not too hard to build up a boxer’s record without testing him.  Rodriguez is a perfect example.  He has risen to #2 without beating a single legitimate contender. How can the WBC ratings committee ignore his lack of quality opposition when they work "day and night"?  Meanwhile, the WBC thinks ex-world champion Zab Judah, who gave Cory Spinks hell and beat several fighters with world credentials, is less qualified, and as a result, Zab languishes at #11. Gonzalez was once a fine lightweight, a longtime WBC champion to be exact, but those days are long past.  He has not been a world champ for nearly a decade and he’s done nothing since a 1998 draw against an aging Julio Cesar Chavez. He retired early in the decade, came back against a few handpicked opponents, and got a gift world rating from the WBC that allowed him to challenge Spinks for the world title.  He lost virtually every round and showed little of his early 1990s form. So what happens? The so-called experts on the WBC ratings committee keep him at #6, thus denying a world ranking to a truly deserving boxer.

3. Selective stripping of champions...
Perhaps the most unfair things the WBC does is selectively enforce its own rules.  The WBC arbitrarily decides which champions must strictly comply with the mandatory defense rules and which ones get to ignore them. For example, Winky Wright had to agree to a six-figure step-aside payment in order to avoid having to fight Francisco Castillejo.  Listed as the “interim” champion since July 2002, Castillejo has held that title longer than most full-fledged champions and the WBC had not aggressively enforced a mandatory on Wright’s predecessors, Shane Mosley and Oscar De La Hoya.  They didn’t have to face Castillejo, so why was Winky made to cough up the dough? De La Hoya fought Yori Boy Campas and Mosley fought Wright twice after Castillejo's title shot supposedly came due, but now all of a sudden Wright has to pay or give up his WBC title?  Meanwhile, Antonio Tarver was unceremoniously stripped of the light heavyweight title when he decided to face the best opponent possible, Glen Johnson.  Why is it permissible for Oscar and Shane to ignore the rules but Winky must pay six figures and Tarver gets stripped? 

2. Selective enforcement of mandatory challenges...
It’s the same selective application of rules for the WBC’s contenders.  Currently, the WBC is pushing Mzonke Fana as the 130-pound mandatory contender after Fana’s promoter admitted to a $10,000 donation to the WBC in his own press release.  When Boxingtalk publicized the press release boasting of the donation, the promoter recanted and now claims he never paid anything.  Fana is a good boxer, rated #10 by Boxingtalk but Boxingtalk does not believe he should be the mandatory nor would it be just to strip Marco Antonio Barrera for not facing him.  Barrera's promoter even says it was never informed the mandatory would be immediately enforced when it agreed to pay the WBC the sanctioning fee.  In contrast to the boost that the WBC is giving to Fana is the could shoulder given to O'Neill Bell.  If one boxer in the entire sport deserves to be a mandatory contender, it is Bell, a cruiserweight. The WBC has Bell correctly rated at #1, but it has totally ignored its own rules in Bell’s case and has denied him his mandatory challenge.  Wayne Braithwaite has held the title since 2002 and the mandatory, supposed to be made every nine months, has never been enforced on Braithwaite. While Bell waited for his shot, the WBC stood by silently (collecting sanctioning fees of course) and allowed Braithwaite to ignore his championship responsibilities by making optional defenses against Luis Pineda and Louis Azile.  Bell got tired of waiting and will now fight for the IBF title, but the WBC wasted plenty of Bell's precioius time at the peak of his career. 

1. Owen Beck (WBC #4 heavyweight, Boxingtalk not in top thirty)…
Owen Beck may be a very good boxer.  However, when a boxer gets rated #4 in the world and a shot at Monte Barrett in a heavyweight title eliminator, the rating should be based on acheivment, activity and performance against other contenders, not potential upside, or what he may become. A boxer rated #4 should already be proven to be world class in order to be elevated to such a spot.  But thanks to the WBC’s dubious rating, yet another farcical mandatory contender is about to be named, yet another bogus fight shoved down the collective throat of fans and networks and another champion will have to choose between his title and an unpopular, unnecessary bout.  Boxingtalk has no problem with Barrett (Boxingtalk #10, WBC #3) in an eliminator, but if the WBC were a legitimate organization that rated boxers on merit, Barrett would be facing one of the following men: Andrew Golota (Boxingtalk #4, WBC #6), Fres Oquendo (Boxingtalk #8, WBC not in top forty) or Jameel McCline (Boxingtalk #7, WBC #8).  Injured James Toney (Boxingtalk #6, WBC #1) and Hasim Rahman (Boxingtalk #5, WBC #2) may not be available, but the universe of suitable boxers pretty much ends with those six boxers.  Not only does Beck fail to crack Boxingtalk’s top thirty, he is merely part of a large group of heavyweight prospects who can best be described as potential contenders: Samuel Peter, Nicolay Valuev, Eliseo Castillo, Calvin Brock, Audley Harrison, Alexander Dimitrenko, Ruslan Chagaev, Leo Nolan, Faruq Saleem, Matt Skelton, Malik Scott and Cengiz Koc are twelve undefeated boxers with similar or superior credentials to Beck.  Three of the twelve (Peter, Castillo and Dimitrenko) have already beaten boxers who are or were in the Boxingtalk top thirty, while Beck has not.  Peter can actually be considered a legitimate contender already.  There are several boxers with just one loss against fellow contenders that expands the pool even further.  And it doesn't matter if Beck beats Barrett, that wont justify or vindicate the WBC's decision to rate Beck- he hasn't earned it yet and he is advancing at the expense of others who have sweated and bled their way to what should be the top of the sport.  At this point in the discussion, cynics often blame Don King because of the thirteen unproven, undefeated heavyweights, Beck is the only one promoted by King and he is the one getting the eliminator shot.  But blaming King for playing the game better than other promoters misses the point completely.  King’s role is to advance Beck’s career as best as he possibly can and he has done just that.  Congratulations to Don King on a job well done for Owen Beck. 

The WBC’s job, however, is to rate boxers fairly based on their merits.  For whatever reason, for whatever favors or donations it may or may not have received, the WBC has failed miserably at its task.  Shame on the WBC.

 

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