I’ve just read Boxing Confidential (by Jim Brady)* which includes an absolutely fascinating account of how corrupt he IBF became under Bob Lee.
I find the uncovering of corruption at this level thrilling, particularly (as in this case) where you get to see the detail of the wiretaps, so you see everything warts and all. It really is hilarious, from the ‘code’ of Don King as ‘Fuzzy Wuzzy’, Cedrick Cushner as ‘The fat man’ right through to the reaction of the ratings chairman when he finds out Marco Antonio Barerra is fighting for the USBA title:
‘They said he lives in California? He goes to the mother effing University of Mexico! That’s a pretty big commute don’t you think? The lyin mother effer’
They also discuss arranging escorts, bribes (‘turkey’) and it’s really amazing how little Lee Snr actually knew about boxing. In one discussion he didn’t recognise a name which happened to belong to his own organisations then lightweight champion!
Anyway, (getting to the point) it is black and white and case closed that promoters (in particular Don King/Fuzzy Wuzzy) were bribing the IBF. Is there any proof that the same was true for the other organisations? Brady refers to the fact that during his title run under King that Tyson routinely overpaid on sanction fees to the three alphabets. As Brady asks, if these weren’t pay offs, what where they?
I’d be interested to hear any other tales of outright corruption since Brady’s book was published (2002)
*PS thanks to ‘jim wright1’ and ‘lorez’ for recommending it on the books thread. I got my copy pretty cheaply from Amazon (I highly recommend it).
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