George Kimball America at LargeIn my youth, The Ring magazine claimed to be "The Bible of Boxing", and it was. When newspapers published the monthly ratings in each of the eight divisions, they generally ran The Ring's ratings alongside the "official" NBA tabulations, and although they for the most part represented the opinions of a single man - the late Nat Fleischer - it was widely accepted the magazine's rankings were the more credible.
In the late 1970s, The Ring took a kick in the teeth when it was discovered that Fleischer's successors - his son-in-law, Nat Loubet, and the infamous Johnny Ort - had taken to falsifying records, and accepting bribes, largely at the behest of prospective entrants into a made-for-television venture called the "US Boxing Championships", jointly sponsored by promoter Don King and the ABC network.
It has been a long, slow climb back to respectability. For a time in the late 1980s I served as a voting member of The Ring's ratings panel. I'm not certain who the other voters were, or how many there were, but I suspect not many, since on the odd occasion I failed to get my ballot in on time there were noticeable fluctuations.
A few years ago HBO, the cable network and largest single bankroller of boxing in the world, conferred a new respectability on the magazine when it opted to scrap the ratings of the four major sanctioning bodies and rely on The Ring's.
This has made for an uncomfortably cosy relationship in which conflicts of interest should be apparent. The magazine is heavily dependent on the network for advertising revenue, and there have been occasions when The Ring ratings appear to have been twisted to accommodate the programming desires of the network.
The most conspicuous case in point came last year when The Ring, by fiat, proclaimed Dr Vitali Klitschko the heavyweight champion of the world, and awarded him its own version of that belt to accompany the somewhat gaudier WBC version he had acquired by beating a mediocre South African named Corrie Sanders in a fight for the title vacated by Lennox Lewis.
Up until then Klitschko's principal claim to fame had been a valiant effort against Lewis, in which he put up a good fight before being stopped on cuts. It was a performance that surely marked him as a man to be reckoned with in the heavyweight division, but it didn't exactly make him the logical successor to John L Sullivan.
HBO almost immediately took to introducing Klitschko as the "undisputed" champion. When the other claimants - John Ruiz (WBA), Chris Byrd (IBF) and Lamon Brewster (WBO) - have fought on HBO, their status has been relegated to that of "belt-holders" and "title claimants".
And HBO must be be feeling pretty silly now. Having anointed Klitscho (with the connivance of their obedient servants at The Ring) the heavyweight champion, they are now scrambling to explain his reluctance to face even the most remotely threatening opponent.
In the more than two years since he became the last man to lose to Lewis, Klitschko has fought exactly three times, feasting on a creampuff diet of Kirk Johnson, Sanders and Danny Williams, and, claiming an assortment of injuries, hasn't fought at all in 2005. He has assiduously avoided Ruiz, Byrd, and Brewster, and has shown no inclination for mixing it up with any of the top contenders - including James - Toney, the end of whose New York Commission-imposed steroid suspension figures to coincide with Klitschko's rehabilitation from his latest injury, prompting him to clamour for a spot on Klitschko's dance card.
An August 13th WBC "interim" title fight between Hasim Rahman and Monte Barrett was supposed to produce a mandatory challenger for Klitschko, but the "champion", his alleged infirmities now miraculously healed, intends to fight on September 24th, probably at Atlantic City's Boardwalk Hall - but not against the Rahman-Barrett winner. Klitschko first entertained the notion of fighting Oleg Maskaev, and while HBO appeared willing to go along with that mismatch, the outcry was such that he is now talking about fighting unbeaten (though largely unproven) Calvin Brock instead.
In his only bout against any of the current champions, Klitschko, claiming injury, retired on his stool in a 2000 fight against Byrd, thereby earning himself the sobriquet "Dr Quitschko".
Citing first a thigh injury and then "minor" back surgery (we weren't aware there was such a thing), Vitali has already pulled out of three scheduled dates (April 30th, June 18th, and July 23rd) against Rahman. Amid mounting derision, he has been widely described in the American press as "Chicken Kiev", and, more recently, as "Duck Kiev". And while the ridicule has thus far been aimed mostly at the boxer himself, HBO and The Ring should not be absolved from their part in what is becoming an international joke.
"HBO keeps saying they want to unify the titles and would like to see a tournament involving all the heavyweight champions, but the truth is they've been the biggest single obstacle to that happening," said King's director of boxing operations Bobby Goodman.
"All the other top heavyweights are ready to fight," adds Dan Goosen, the co-promoter (with King) of Toney. "But Vitali Klitschko doesn't want to fight anyone."
Klitschko, through "adviser" Shelly Finkel has petitioned the WBC for permission to sidestep the Rahman-Barrett winner for a "voluntary" (read "tune-up") defence. Earlier this week WBC president Jose Suliaman told the Chicago Tribune that Los Bandidos would decide by tomorrow whether to grant that request.
There would seem to be little question that, if it follows its own regulations, the WBC should not only deny the request, but ought to relieve Klitschko of his title. The operative question would then become: will HBO and The Ring have the stones to do the same thing?
