By: Shane Willoughby
It isn’t a rare sight to see governing bodies squabble in boxing, whether it’s sanctioning fees, rules or mandatory defences, there is always something. But what is rare is for them to bicker like toddlers whilst a fight is going on.
If you were at the Riga Arena for the WBSS semi-final, you would have seen three fantastic triple headers. Dorticos vs Tabiti, Briedis vs Glowacki and the main event the WBO vs WBC. Caught in the middle of all of it was the German Promoter.
I would not want to be you Kalle Sauerland. Earlier in the day the WBC decided to withdraw their belt from the main event between Breidis and Glowacki as they felt the WBSS had violated there rules.
Which meant the winner of the final bout of the night wouldn’t become a unified champion winning both the WBC and WBO titles.
One of the selling points of the WBSS is the fact that they are able to get the governing bodies to come together and solve the divide with all the championship organizations. And the WBSS definitely succeeded in the Riga Arena.
Not only were they able to get the governing bodies to come together, they almost got into full blown fight. Forget Dorticos vs Tabiti, the real war was the one happening at ring side. Not only were they able to out do the co main event, they were able to out do the 9,000 screaming fans.
The argument could be heard from the car park. There were arms flying, voices raised, at one point the fans stopped watching the main event and started watching the madness outside the ring.
People were criticizing the referee for not signaling the end of the 2nd round, he was most probably distracted by the fight outside.
Why were they fighting you may ask? Well that’s a question for Mr Sauerland. “I’ll leave it to the governing bodies to make a decision” Sauerland added “at the end of the day the discussion [argument] was about referees and point judges and we didn’t need them”.
With all due respect to Mr Sauerland, that answer was probably as clear as mud. It appeared that the German was probably as shocked and as lost as anyone. And that answer from Sauerland embodies his confusion.
But let’s try and pick sense out of nonsense. The row was probably about the WBC not being happy with the judges and referees. And as Sauerland said they were not needed. However, if the WBC were arguing about the referee then after watching that fight it makes sense.
The referee was clearly incompetent. In all the years of watching boxing you won’t find a referee say to the fighters “you are big guys, I’m not going to split you guys up”. Which was said by at the start of the fight.
But probably the funniest moment was when he was giving Glowacki instructions. The polish men doesn’t speak a word of English.
Mauricio Saulimann you might have been right about wanting to select the right referee after all. Either way, it doesn’t appear to be any resolution to this stalemate and the only loser in this is the Mr Sauerland.