Is boxing the most corrupt sport in the world?

[Controversial]

Be it hometown decisions, fighters taking a dive, bribes, corrupt officials, PEDs, fights offered at late notice so one fighter can't train properly, one sided weight stipulations, all the antics away fighters have to endure, fighters avoiding each other, fighters pretending they are fit when they are injured, fighters being propelled up the rankings for no reason, fighters not offered title shots when they deserve it etc etc..., what other sport has so many things that affect the outcome?

[Ambling Alp II]

Have always pretty much take this as a given. Maybe there is some minor sport that most people don't even think about, but yes it is and always has been very corrupt.

[Controversial]

Have always pretty much take this as a given. Maybe there is some minor sport that most people don't even think about, but yes it is and always has been very corrupt.

Me too, just when you actually think about it there are so many levels where cheating and/or corruption can affect a fight to the point officials can be involved too, I really can't think of a sport where the injustice is ingrained so deep.

[RScarf1]

I can't think of a sport that is more corrupt than boxing, but I think governments in America such as county, state, and federal are more corrupt than boxing.

[gilgamesh]

Pretty much. The only way to guarantee victory is a KO, and even that can be f*cked with. Such as the time a referee gave a guy a 1 minute warning for a "foul" after having his opponent out of his feet, he took the hurt opponent to his corner to be held up by his cornermen by his shorts. Tried to make up reasons why he was chastizing the guy who'd hurt his opponent, and then eventually let it continue after the guy had had all the time in the world to recover.

[Controversial]

Pretty much. The only way to guarantee victory is a KO, and even that can be f*cked with. Such as the time a referee gave a guy a 1 minute warning for a "foul" after having his opponent out of his feet, he took the hurt opponent to his corner to be held up by his cornermen by his shorts. Tried to make up reasons why he was chastizing the guy who'd hurt his opponent, and then eventually let it continue after the guy had had all the time in the world to recover.

What fight was that, not in Italy or Germany was it?

[gilgamesh]

Pretty much. The only way to guarantee victory is a KO, and even that can be f*cked with. Such as the time a referee gave a guy a 1 minute warning for a "foul" after having his opponent out of his feet, he took the hurt opponent to his corner to be held up by his cornermen by his shorts. Tried to make up reasons why he was chastizing the guy who'd hurt his opponent, and then eventually let it continue after the guy had had all the time in the world to recover.

What fight was that, not in Italy or Germany was it?

Nah I wanna say it was in South America. I always forget the names of the two combatants, but I can probably rack my brain and track it down.

[gilgamesh]

Here it is.

Always takes me a while to track it down as I forget the names of the fighters

[Controversial]

Here it is.

Always takes me a while to track it down as I forget the names of the fighters

Wow, Coggi went on to win that too, disgraceful

[margaret thatcher]

Anything with as much subjectivity as boxing is prone to lots of corruption. boxing obviously is riddled with stuff dirty stuff, from how disproportionately often its the a side who benefits, it goes beyond incompetence

[Onetimeonly]

Yes, always has been. The biggest issue, in the States, is boxers are insanely overpaid.

[dagosd2000]

The slave owners would put their toughest slaves in an enclosure together and stage what they called "Battles Royales .The last man standing was the winner-a fight to the end. Bad enough those fellas' were hijacked from Africa,stuffed on boats(around half of them died before they got here),women separated from their babies,humans bought and sold as property( upheld by our Supreme Court), and then had to work all day long for nothing.The women were raped by their masters and the men (and some women) were whipped if they got on the wrong side of their owners. So what other purpose could they serve?Put them all together in a ring and have them fight to the end so people could bet on them and in return they weren't paid a nickel.The sport was invented by creeps who wanted to exploit the combatants. It still goes on today but the way they can market the sport to the public is a stroke of a good brainwashing.

And as far as boxers being overpaid in the U.S. or anywhere else the solution is real simple-stop buying these fights on Pay TV,streaming,or any way you have to stay at home but pay to see it on the tube.I know they're not going to put the good fights on regular cable(still you're paying for that)so don't watch the news the next day and catch it on YouTube.

[Ezzard]

Not anymore, I don't think.

Investigators will tell you the most corrupt sport in the world is the one that generates the most money. That's football. Boxing doesn't even come close to the corruption that goes on in that sport.

[JxhDel.]

Boxing's industry was born on sharing the bets and thus accepting money laundering by rich patrons (you can see this by some boxers getting hefty guarantees despite not drawing that much), corruption is necessary to go on... but the sport itself has indeed realized this and regularized some controversial aspects or given sops to the offended part. However, the more interest the more money and the more corruption: some scandals happened in soccer football makes alone boxing really look like "the noble art".

[Noxy]

Boxing seems to have improved over the years. So, that’s something.

[DrDuke]

Boxing seems to have improved over the years. So, that’s something.

Really? It's vice versa actually. The sanctioning bodies create more and more paper belts, make undeserving championship bouts and call undeserving challengers for actual championships. Arguable decisions appear very often. Side A is being backed up by judging and refereeing on the regular basis. How is it improved? It's only getting worse.

[Noxy]

Boxing seems to have improved over the years. So, that’s something.

Really? It's vice versa actually. The sanctioning bodies create more and more paper belts, make undeserving championship bouts and call undeserving challengers for actual championships. Arguable decisions appear very often. Side A is being backed up by judging and refereeing on the regular basis. How is it improved? It's only getting worse.

Yes, but I don’t necessarily see all those things as bad. For example, if a fighter can make more money by having a title of some sort, then I’m all for it. The problem is if they then don’t meet other champions, which can happen. But then boxing is a business, so the people with the money call the shots.

What I meant was that the business is more out in the open now. So it’s harder for promoters or other people involved in management to deal in a dodgy way. There’s also more competition on the business side, so it seems almost impossible to behave in a cartel-like way. It wasn’t always like that.

[DrDuke]

Boxing seems to have improved over the years. So, that’s something.

Really? It's vice versa actually. The sanctioning bodies create more and more paper belts, make undeserving championship bouts and call undeserving challengers for actual championships. Arguable decisions appear very often. Side A is being backed up by judging and refereeing on the regular basis. How is it improved? It's only getting worse.

Yes, but I don’t necessarily see all those things as bad. For example, if a fighter can make more money by having a title of some sort, then I’m all for it. The problem is if they then don’t meet other champions, which can happen. But then boxing is a business, so the people with the money call the shots.

What I meant was that the business is more out in the open now. So it’s harder for promoters or other people involved in management to deal in a dodgy way. There’s also more competition on the business side, so it seems almost impossible to behave in a cartel-like way. It wasn’t always like that.

Those things are very bad. The best bouts are often marinated. There are a lot of mismatches.

[Controversial]

Not anymore, I don't think.

Investigators will tell you the most corrupt sport in the world is the one that generates the most money. That's football. Boxing doesn't even come close to the corruption that goes on in that sport.

Do you mean American Football or soccer? I'm not sure people expect to be cheated in football do they? I mean fighters will go to an away fighters backyard and it's almost expected they need a KO to guarantee a win. And that's after they might have had to concede on time to prepare, what gloves are used, ring size, being stuck in some grotty hotel miles from a gym etc etc.. These things are not "cheating" per se but certainly help tip the balance in who has the advantage. Germany and Italy are renown for looking after their fighters, I can't think of a sport where you are expecting foul play.

[Ezzard]

The WBA/WBC/IBF/WBO have nothing on FIFA. The bribes and backhanders involved make boxing look like afternoon tea.

And players are tapped up, bribed, bought and sold, made to sign for certain agents, taken from their parents as kids... The list is endless. I had to write a proposal for a football story on corruption. When the head of police in the UK was asked about corruption in boxing compared to football he laughed.

I know what you're saying about stipulations made by stars like Alvarez and Mayweather etc... They stink. But football clubs constantly do the same thing. But it's now been accepted.

[Controversial]

The WBA/WBC/IBF/WBO have nothing on FIFA. The bribes and backhanders involved make boxing look like afternoon tea.

And players are tapped up, bribed, bought and sold, made to sign for certain agents, taken from their parents as kids... The list is endless. I had to write a proposal for a football story on corruption. When the head of police in the UK was asked about corruption in boxing compared to football he laughed.

I know what you're saying about stipulations made by stars like Alvarez and Mayweather etc... They stink. But football clubs constantly do the same thing. But it's now been accepted.

I hear you but what football clubs are doing isn't cheating in a way that affects results, its morally, financially and ethically corrupt but it doesn't guarantee a win as too many players involved. Whereas boxers lose fights they should have won because of corruption or they get blocked from title shots or given title shots when they don't deserve them.

[gilgamesh]

First you have to ascertain that boxing is actually the most corrupt sport. While there certainly is a lot of corruption in boxing, the magnitude of corruption in Olympic selection committees and FIFA makes any boxing related corruption look penny ante. Best Boxing Gloves

The sport of Boxing is corrupt on every level. Corrupt decisions and officials. Joke title orgs with fake Champions just to bilk money out of Fighters while giving them nothing in return.

Corruption in the Amateurs and the Professional ranks.

Other sports may be AS corrupt, but no sport is MORE corrupt.

[p4p1]

First you have to ascertain that boxing is actually the most corrupt sport. While there certainly is a lot of corruption in boxing, the magnitude of corruption in Olympic selection committees and FIFA makes any boxing related corruption look penny ante. Best Boxing Gloves

The sport of Boxing is corrupt on every level. Corrupt decisions and officials. Joke title orgs with fake Champions just to bilk money out of Fighters while giving them nothing in return.

Corruption in the Amateurs and the Professional ranks.

Other sports may be AS corrupt, but no sport is MORE corrupt.

I think this is probably spot on.
*warning guys, a hate of the corruption in a sport and ADHD could turn this into a long rant*
We can talk about how corrupt FIFA and the Olympics are as far as committee's and selection boards go. But Jesus Boxing is corrupt everywhere.
At the world cup or important finals matches normally the most competent people are selected for officiating positions. In boxing how many totally incompetent referees and judges have we seen continually and consistently given jobs for some of the most important fights of the year? Ones that spring to mind are Cortez's terrible handling of the Hatton vs Mayweather fight when you compare it to how he refereed the Hopkin fight that took place just before or after. Cortez allowed Hopkins to fight on the inside but not Hatton. Then of course you have C.J. Ross who scored the Canelo vs Mayweather fight as a draw somehow. They also have judging training and conventions that go directly against how the fighters and trainers score a fight. This might not seem like a huge issue but the fighters and trainers have forgotten more about boxing than *most* of the judges will know. That's not to say fighters and trainers are always correct.

I don't think any sport matches what some of the organisations do as far as having a super champion, regular champion and an interim champion all defending at the same time. Could you imagine the outcry if other sports did that? It's so corrupt that the organisational bodies do nothing that is good for the sport. Other sports generally recognised one body, I know the history and what happened etc. but if the bodies cared more about the sport than their own pockets then we would have one universally recognised championship in each division. Other sports have done it, both for the good of the sport and their own pockets of course. But the WBA/WBC/WBO/IBF love the confusion and the ability to collect more fees.

More locally for me Billy Dib knocked out a downed opponent (Kenichi Yamaguchi) after he slipped and the referee awarded him the win. The result was overturned into a NC but I would argue that Dib should have been DQ'd. Hometown decisions have been covered but they are by far more noticeable and have more impact and influence than the corruption at the higher levels of other sports.

Lets look at the new weight class that the WBC created between CW and HW. I won't put all the details from my post here (viewtopic.php?f=22&t=243100&start=175). But essentially the weight limit is so poorly thought out that even the top "SHW" size guys could make the weight limit by using the same weight cutting techniques that guys in the smaller classes and the UFC do. I think Valuev is proabably the only champion in history that would have no chance of making the weight limit. Dropping the CW limit back to 190lbs barely makes any sense either. I could see an argument for it if you decided to make the new weight 210lbs which would stop all but the smallest HW's making the weight. Realistically though the new weight class isn't something for the good of the sport. It's so that HW's who aren't good enough to beat the top guys can drop to a new division win a title and the WBC can collect more sanctioning fees. But perhaps the bigger issue is that incompetent people made such an important decision.

Then how often do guys suddenly get included in the top 10 or 15 so that the champion can defend against a guy who doesn't meet the criteria? Or when fighters from particular stables get ranked despite having no opponents or wins that justify their rankings? There's the blatant ducking/dodging of opponents that doesn't take place in non-combat sports as well.

The states (or country) regulatory bodies themselves are so corrupt that they turn a blind eye to everything and anything because they are getting money from it. It's not boxing related but the fines that Khabib Nurmagomedov and Connor McGregor both got for their roles in the a brawl after their title fight abhorrent.

We should criticize the Olympics, FIFA and anyone other sporting organisation that takes bribes for overlooking countries poor human rights records etc as they do. But boxing is so far ahead of everyone when it comes to corruption on every level of the sport its embarrassing. The saddest part is that I feel like I've barely scratched the surface of the corruption in boxing.

[589335]

N0 I wanna say it was in california boxing. I continually forget about the names of the 2 fighters, but I can likely rack my brain and tune it down.

[jimglen]

Second only to Figure Skating...

Of Course it IS, and it always has been. a terrible insult too Fans, Fighters and History alike. Shame too, so many deflated Young men, some Mother's Son(s).

Worse however, are the Ones Who DO IT, Assist it, Support it, Cover it up and Deny it - Devious Pricks really.