[kenyan_cheena]

The New York Age

SUNDAY, 25 JUNE, 2006

Brawl ensues after insults traded
at weigh-in for Atlantic City fight card

Story by James Reynolds

For the last seven days middleweight boxers Jake Morrison and Nigel Benn have been taking shots at each other through the media ahead of their anticipated clash at Bally's in Atlantic City tonight. Yesterday the two combatants finally met face-to-face at the official weigh-in and, unsurprisingly, emotions boiled over. After Benn got into Morrison's face one too many times a brief but fierce brawl erupted on the stage of the venue's conference room. Neither man was seriously hurt although they had to be physically restrained and taken out of the room seperately. Some of their support staff suffered a few cuts and bruises in their haste to either break up the melee or take part in it.

The Englishman Benn is the 3rd seed in the Middleweight Challenger's tournament and brings an impressive 13-0(11) record into the fight while Morrison, a native of Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin, has won all of his eight professional bouts by knockout. Their clash tonight is not even the main event but both men are counted amongst the most promising, damaging individuals in the division and to see two fighters of such talent face off so early in their careers is a rarity. With them both out to destroy each other most observers are predicting that the fight won't last more than three rounds, Benn a slight favourite to emerge as victor on the basis of his greater experience.

Apparently there was also a verbal altercation between the camps of Florida's Holman Williams and New Jersey slugger Mickey Walker. According to reports Williams' fellow "Florida Alliance" member Elmer Ray was seen trading some heated words with a friend of Walker's not far from the conference room, although it's not known how the argument started. Williams and Walker have some history, as it was the Pensacola native who eliminated Walker from the Athens Olympic selection trials. It was the fourth and final amateur meeting of the two, with Williams winning three of the clashes. If both men are victorious in their respective bouts tonight they'll then meet in the tournament quarter-finals. Like Benn and Morrison both Walker and Williams are regarded as future world title contenders in the middleweight division. If their quarter-final clash does eventuate Walker will have a golden opportunity for some revenge and redemption while it'll present Williams with the chance to continue his domination of the Elizabeth-born 23 year-old.

Alphabet organisations
are own worst enemies

With the International Boxing League taking the sporting world by storm this month you would think that their competitors would be doing everything they can to take advantage of the boost in interest boxing has received. Instead the leaders of the WBA, WBC, IBF and WBO are too busy either getting themselves arrested or squabbling over what the IBL has left for them. True, there are still some fantastic fighters competing for the alphabet soup gang, such as the multi-title trio of Mike McCallum (WBC/IBF junior-middleweight), Jim Driscoll (WBA/WBC featherweight) and Mexico's Patricio Marquez (WBA/WBC lightweight). But when one looks at the overall picture, the established sanctioning bodies took a huge body blow from the IBL.

The WBA will be staging what they're calling a "Night of Champions" next Saturday at Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas. The card is scheduled to feature four 12-round world title fights, with vacant titles in the heavyweight, middleweight, welterweight and junior-lightweight divisions to be contested. The organisation's president Pedro Vielma held a press conference at the venue yesterday during which he tried to "talk up" the event but when one looks at the fighters who will actually be involved in the bouts it seems to be an unappealing evening, at best. The heavyweight title fight in particular is beyond laughable, with Oakland's Marcelo Franks squaring off against Pittsburgh native James Anders. Yes, it's the very same Marcelo Franks who was knocked out in three rounds by Ken Norton on the 15th of April in a challenge for Norton's WBC belt and the same James Anders who hasn't fought since scoring a KO win over Tyrell Biggs fourteen months ago.

Meanwhile WBC boss Luis Velazquez has been more concerned with bringing down the IBF following the recent death threat-related charges made against that organisation's president Michael Jacobs. Velazquez has stated that he believes the IBF is "corrupt to its very core" and has "no business being involved in the sport of boxing". It must be said that of the alphabet "gang of four" the WBC can hold its head above the others as the most reputable but Velazquez will only harm that status by bad-mouthing the IBF. Like the WBA, Velazquez's organisation also lost a number of world champions to the IBL and he should be making it a priority to fill the void that has been left.

In April Vielma floated the possibility of a WBA/WBC merger in order to combat James Molk's new organisation but dismissed such talk yesterday, confirming that he's determined to "go it alone" and meet the challenge of the IBL head on. They were fighting words but I seriously doubt how he'll live up to them, especially with either Marcelo Franks or James Anders as his heavyweight champion...