Tag Archives: commission

Posted on 11/13/2017

By: Ken Hissner

The Philly based writers like this one are quite upset with what Boxing Director Greg Sirb with the Pennsylvania Boxing Commission has permitted. Both promoters Marshall Kauffman of King’s Promotions and Manny River of Hard Hitting Promotions have no problem with it for both may sell out which Hard Hitting has done at all Sugar House promotions and King’s is the busiest promoter in Pennsylvania at this time. Whoever scheduled that date first should be the only promoter working that night. Why not have one on Friday and the other on Saturday of that week?

BUT, the writers who choose one show will probably be in the “doghouse” of the other promoter. Both shows look good. Christian Carto 12-0 (11) is on the Hard Hitting show and Jaron “Boots” Ennis, 16-0 (14), was just got added to the King’s Promotion’s show. Both are the two most popular and skilled young talents in the state and possibly the country.

This writer contacted the “Right to Know” Department in Harrisburg, PA, wanting an answer to such a thing happening in the same city. No results as of yet which is no surprise. Then, called Boxing Commissioner Rudy Battle who didn’t seem to know about this move by Sirb but I could hear in his voice he wasn’t for it and said he would to contact Sirb about it. It will do no good since Sirb runs the commission.

There are fans of boxers on both cards who also will be shortchanged. On the King’s show a good boxer in Tyrone Brunson is fighting a no name that lost to Kermit Cintron a year ago. Brandon Robinson against Christopher Brooker will be a possible barn burner. Joe Hanks, 21-2, is fighting one of those North Carolina boy’s with a 7-0-1 record. Popular Omar Douglas out of DE is looking to bounce back from his back to back losses though he got shortchanged in the last one. Another favorite DE fighter Kyrone Davis who trains in Philly is in with a 19-12 guy but who lost his last 5 of 6 fights. The rest are young boxers with 1 or less fights.

Hard Hitting has no opponents yet but has popular Joey Dawejko on top and rumors are he might be fighting for a minor title. There are 4 Spanish well known ticket sellers on the undercard in Branden Pizarro, 8-0, Jeremy Cuevas, 5-0, Angel Pizarro, 3-0 and Gadwin Rosa, 4-0. In addition former top amateur heavyweight Darmani Rock is making his Philly debut at 9-0. With just over 3 weeks to go Hard Hitting has to come up with opponents for a comparison.

Since Sirb, I admit is hard working though always has a good assistant and overworks his officials along with bringing in out of state one’s looks down on the press, especially this writer, and he could care less if we are shortchanged. My memory doesn’t come up with the last time this happened in Philly. Sirb has already allowed this writer to be removed from a Joe Hand Promotions weigh-in and threatened to ban me from ringside for reminding him of it at the next scheduled show. Like the phrase from a Jack Nicholson movie I can say “you can’t stand the truth!” That goes to all who read my articles and show results!

Posted on 10/12/2017

By: Ken Hissner

I have a 100 Club list of boxers with over 100 losses and others who have never won a fight etc. The UK seems to be the one country that allows so many of these boxers to continue no matter what their records are today. Yet I will point out countries with even worse record boxers.
Peter Buckley finally retired with a 32-256-12 record second only to the US’s Reggie Strickland’s 66-276-17 with the most losses I am aware of. After those two still active are Kristian Laight at 12-253-8, Matt Seawright is 5-146-5, Ibar Riyaz 6-126-4, Ibar Rivas 34-121-4 an Albanian fighting out of the UK.

Then there is William Warburton 29-123-9 and Yousef Al Hamidi 14-112-3 with over 100 losses but still active. The UK retired Jason Nesbitt 10-195-4, Tiger Bert Ison 114-179-41, Arnold Sheppard 95-169-38, Delroy Spencer 14-156-3, Billy Smith 13-145-2, Ernie Smith 13-142-5, Karl Taylor 16-142-7, Brian Coleman 24-141-7, Seamus Casey 30-129-5, Sid Razak, 9-128, Carl Allen 19-114-7, Daniel Thorpe 23-113-3, Dean Bramhald 42-106-15, Tony Booth 52-105-9, Peter Dunn 12-105-4 and Paul Bonson 21-105-8 all with over 100 losses.Then boxers who have less than 100 losses are Matt Scriven 14-91-1, Bulgarian out of the UK who is 6-88-1, Dan Carr 3-85-2.

UK boxers who have never won a fight are Chris Gargano at 0-44, Paul O’Brien at 0-23, Scott Hillman 0-21, Harjinder Gill 0-17-1 and Bryn Wain 0-16. Would you believe a South African who fought out of the UK named Bheki Moyo retired with a 0-73-2 record? Kalman Vagyocki of Hungary is still active at 0-45 but “only” stopped 34 times. Still active without a win are Dionisio Rodriguez 0-42 from the DR and Marius Sorin 0-42-2 of Romania.

Seems the Dominican and Ghana are countries where boxers to beef up their records. The DR has active boxers in Alexis Castillo 0-35 whose been stopped 31 times, George Estevez 0-34 stopped 18 times and Miguel Tavarez 0-32 stopped 25 times.

Latvia has Dmitrijs Avsijenkovs with a “perfect” record of 0-29 and stopped 29 times and still active. The US “retired” Eric Crumble 0-31 and Ed Strickland 0-31 who were stopped in all of their bouts.

They allowed Jesse Clark to go 0-30 stopped 27 times. Two active US boxers who have never won a fight are Willie Miller 0-18-1 and Daniel Sanchez 0-18.
Names with poor records that stand out still active are Jose Amaral 1-69 of Brazil, Lajos Orsos 1-54-2 of Hungary, Milan Ruso 1-47 stopped 42 times of CZ, Ambriorix Ciriaco 1-44 of DR, Francisco Herrera 1-44-2 stopped 39 times of COL and Dionel Reynoso 1-41 of DR.

Heading the list with 2 wins was retired Cristian Nicolae 2-76 of ROM and right behind him is Anwar Alfadi of KU out of the UK at 2-68-5. Still active are Qasim Hussain 4-79-2 of UK and believe it or not has only been stopped once! Lam Griffiths is 5-74-1 of UK and Titusz Szabo 5-65-1 of Hungary.

Boxers still active with too many stoppages are a US boxer Terrance Roy 11-53 stopped 43 times but then there is a Turk Suleyman Dag 10-86 of Germany whose been stopped 60 times. Simmie Black of the US retired at 35-165-4 was “only” stopped 97 times. Marcus Rhode of the US 35-51-2 retired not long ago having been stopped 44 times. Still active is Roberto Valenzuela of MEX 69-75-2 stopped 40 times. Marvin Hart 14-40-1 of the US is still active having been stopped 37 times.

What are some of these commissions thinking? In Pennsylvania usually if a boxer has lost 7 in a row he is prevented from boxing there until he gets a win elsewhere. Jerry Strickland of the US was 13-122 and stopped 78 times before retiring.

I could go on and on and I know I have been told there are boxers in the US who get paid quite well to get a fighter a win on their record. They usually are on the defense and throw little in return to assure their opponent of a win. Maybe that is why many with horrible records have few stoppages being on the defense the entire fight.

Posted on 08/11/2017

By Ken Hissner

This writer has been writing for approximately 10 years. I sometimes say “the only thing more crooked than boxing is politics”. For example we see commissions that are not the most honest favoring certain people over others. By messing with managerial contracts favoring the managers and one sided hearings are a pair of examples what happens. One for instance in PA was holding a hearing for a boxer who was not allowed to have anyone but an attorney which he had. The manager came in with a non-attorney and was allowed an unlicensed backer to be allowed to listen in on an intercom. Obviously the boxer lost. The Boxing Director ruled in this case.

Pertaining to a referee I always remember Mills Lane when he did the rematch between Holyfield and Tyson. Lane knew Tyson had fouled Holyfield biting his ear and when over to the then Nevada commission head who more or less said “how would you stop a fight of this magnitude for this MINOR infraction?”

I believe that same commission head went to a much more violent sport like MMA after that. Mills returns and tells the fighters to continue and Tyson proceeds knowing he didn’t get penalized for what he did takes it one step or should I say 10 times further and bites off a piece of Holyfield’s ear knowing he is losing and will not be able to overcome Holyfield for victory. Mills had actually gone to the Tyson corner after the first infraction and they seemed to threaten him if he stopped the fight. Mills wasn’t a referee much longer after that fight.
Another example being Nevada who seem to have the most prestigious fights yet when referee Robert Byrd allowed Andre Ward to initiate 46 clinches against Sergey Kovalev and was never deducted “one point” just several warnings. That was in their first fight. All three judges had Ward ahead by a point so if just one point was deducted by Byrd for holding it would have been a draw and Kovalev would have retained his title. I had Kovalev ahead by 5 points based on 8-4 in rounds plus the knockdown. Go to www.youtube.com and see what I mean.

Byrd is without question the slowest referee to react of the Nevada referees. Was he being racist in his actions favoring the black fighter over the white fighter? Why Kovalev’s management or promoter allowed a black referee since Kovalev had the 3 titles and Ward none is beyond me. I suggested once to a manager who had the black fighter against a Spanish fighter to get a neutral person such as a white referee. The fight was great and close and the referee made no difference and their fighter won a decision.

It’s been my experience when I was a matchmaker for a short period of time a ring physician came over prior to the fight and told the referee who by the way now serves as a commissioner to stop the fight if the one fighter in particular “looks” like he is hurt. I told the ring physician “you can’t tell a referee that in advance”. The fight was stopped in the first round without that fighter being cut or knocked down. The promoter had to have a hearing based on too many stoppages on this promoter’s card. The top promoter who had just as many stoppages as this one was also suspended for 30 days.

The commissioner Jimmy Binns, Sr. held that meeting. I was told by the promoter Bob Connelly not to attend. I attended and sat at the table directly across from Binns. When I spoke up and informed Binns that the referee at the table Rudy Battles (now PA Boxing Commissioner) was told by Dr. Davidson to stop the fight if the boxer even looks hurt Binns said “what do you know about boxing?” I replied “maybe you would know something about boxing if you were to come to the weigh-in.” I had my matchmaker’s license revoked for that remark.

When Binns was replaced by Harold McCall he came to me during a boxing event and said “come into my office for I want to reinstate your matchmaker’s license”. I never did go in and never did matchmaking again. It is the hardest position of fights for the match-up may look good on paper but you never know how the fight is going to be.

Pennsylvania had a good secretary on the commission in Frank Walker. He worked behind the desk not running the shows. Now during Binns time he and Walker’s assistant were sent to work out of Harrisburg some 100 miles away instead of Philadelphia where the commission office was. Both Walker and his assistant suffered health problems and were replaced by Binns. Binns put Greg Sirb in charge as Boxing Secretary and he changed his title to Boxing Director. He runs all the events unless two are on the same night while the three commissioner’s sit there never correcting anything he does. When I let it be known in my report the entire press were told by a promoter you’ll never to sit at ringside again the promoter should have the right to where the press sits and not the Boxing Director.

This writer has found infractions on commission members and brought it to the attention of the state without any action being taken or even considered. It’s not what you know but who you know in this business too many times. I will continue to write what I see and not what the promoter or commissioner wants to see.

This writer has been banned from press row by two promoters because they “don‘t like what I write”. Guess what? That hasn’t stopped me from writing up their shows as I see them!” When Philadelphia had back to back shows with 14 bouts and 13 ended it knockouts in a bunch of mismatches this writer questioned it causing one of the promoters say “you should write what you see” while the other pulled my press credentials.

Recently in VA a rarity happened when Lamont White, 0-7, scored a knockout win over Roger Belch 8-0 at Norfolk on May 13th. Why the commission approved of the fight in the first place is strange but the way it turned out was even stranger.
Just thought I would “air out” some of the things writers can be faced with when they are “honest to a fault!”