Another killing for the sport of boxing

In my posts last week, I discussed how promoters and boxers themselves kill the sport by promoting a fight between totally mismatched opponents. The most recent examples are the fight between Sonny Boy Jaro and Ruslee Samoh of Thailand, and between Denver Cuello and Yanus Emuary of Indonesia.

Jaro, who had a record of 29-7-5, 18 knockouts was paired against Samoh who never had a professional record in the boxing ring except that fight. Cuello who had a record of 15-2-5, 7 knockout was paired against Yanus Emuary who had a record of 6-4-1, 3 knockout.

The result, Samoh was knocked-out in the first round while Emuary lasted--but only until the second round where he suffered the same faith as Samoh.

Gerry Peñalosa also promoted the two fights of the No. 1 featherweight Michael Fareñas October and December last year against Thai Sunan Those. The fighters were so mismatched that Those did not go far.

The foregoing incidents were referred to by the reverred boxing commentator and columnist Ronnie Nathanielsz as the acts that are killing the sport of boxing.

It's either that promoters and fighters do not read comments about them, or that they are too hooked on earning money that they keep on doing the very things that experts are telling them not to regardless of the effects of their acts to the sport.

The newspaper announced today that the World Boxing Organization bantamweight champion Gerry Peñalosa is scheduled to fight a tune-up fight on February 21, 2008 in Cebu against the Mexican German Meraz who has a professional record of 20-11 with 8 knockouts.

I wonder why they call this event a tune-up fight. Why not call it mauling. Gerry Peñalosa is scheduled to MAUL Mexican German Meraz on February 21, 2008.

This 22 year old, Meraz, fought 13 times last year alone. In fact, Ronnie Nathanielsz noted that in May he has fought 3 times.

If we take the 13 our of the 20 fights, German Meraz only had 7 professional fights until last year.

According to the report however, the World Boxing Organization has not approved the fight yet, and will not approve the fight until it receives the signed contract for the April 4 fight between Gerry Peñalosa and WBO super bantamweight champion Juan Manuel "Juanma" Lopez. In fact, by announcing the MAULING before it is approved Peñalosa's camp is concerned the Word Boxing Organization representative will be irked.

The WBO representative should be irked. Not because of the premature publicity but because of the riduculousness of the situation. Imagine arranging a fight between a starter against a world champion!