After the dubious decision was announced (more on that later) and the boxing entities mingled about in the ring as the fighters and the event were being lavished with fawning praise, it kind of hit me just how fucked up this whole situation was.
There was Artur Beterbiev’s pal, Chechen strongman and prolific human rights abuser, Ramzan Kadyrov smiling and celebrating and, on the other side of the ring, there was accused domestic abuser Dmitry Bivol, brooding with a stoic “I will be back” pride. And they were all present for this battle between supposedly banned Russians in the blood-stained kingdom of Saudi Arabia where there’ve probably been more beheaded dissidents over the last few years than free-wheelin’ Twitter accounts. In terms of amassing evil, this was like the boxing equivalent of Hannibal Lecter partying with Michael Myers inside the Legion of Doom Darth Vader helmet headquarters emerging from the swamp.
This is what we’ve come down to, boxing fans. And not one single member of the media commented on any of the evil elephants in Kingdom Arena that night.
Yeah, yeah...But “Boxing’s always been the red light district of sports...What about the mob...What about all the nasty, vile, abusive, generally shitty human beings historically involved in the sport?”
True and true. But, just as there are levels to boxing, there are also levels to evil. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t recall any stories of any promoters, fighters, or managers ever beheading someone (Saudi Arabia) or starting a gay death camp (Kadyrov) or torturing and butchering journalists (Saudi Arabia and Kadyrov).
This post-big fight Notes from the Underground, as you can tell, is a bit different from others-- in part because of the compelling pull of the dark side in the ring, but mostly because I didn’t find all that much noteworthy in what went down in the ring, even after being among the crowd that touted this fight as “long-awaited” and a “potential classic.” In short, Beterbiev walked away with a majority decision by scores of 114-114, 115-113, and 116-112. But he really didn’t deserve that win.
I’m so disinterested in most of what happened in that fight that I don’t even want to write about it again here. So, I’ll just quote myself from my fight recap over at boxingnews.co:
“Honestly, not a whole lot happened in this fight (at least not relative to what many expected), but Bivol did significantly more of that “nothing” than Beterbiev did. There was lots of jockeying for position. Bivol popped out the jab once in awhile and occasionally dropped a right hand. He did enough of that to deserve a pretty decisive points advantage going into the championship rounds. On this writer’s unofficial scorecard, Bivol went into the eleventh with a firm 8-2 edge in rounds, which could’ve been 7-3 if generous to Beterbiev.
But generosity only extends so far as Beterbiev was, pretty much literally, not really landing all that many actual punches in many of the rounds he was given by the judges.
He did, however, come on strong in the final two rounds at the encouragement of his corner which, obviously, was seeing the same fight most of the rest of us were seeing.”
A big “WTF,” by the way, to the easily influenced among us who let the broadcast crew talk them into actually believing that this was a “fantastic” fight that actually lived up to the expectations. And a double “WTF” to those who took that spin and regurgitated it all over social media. It’s pretty “cuck-y” behavior to be a corporate shill for a corporation you don’t even work for.
Oh yeah, and a triple “WTF” to Turki Alalshikh who declared Beterbiev-Bivol “one of the great fights of the last 20 years” before declaring his intention to book a rematch (Sorry David Benavidez and/or David Morrell).
But I digress.
The whole Beterbiev-Bivol scene was shitty built on a foundation of evil enabled by American sloth in letting the sport drift into dark international waters through disorganization and general stupidity.
Losing our footing in the sport has allowed for situations like Saturday’s where a lot of world stage badness feels free to roam through the sport and bring murky mojo to everything.
“Ramzan Kadyrov being in the building shocked a lot of viewers tonight. Let alone entering the ring itself,” Tweeted ‘Raf,’ an international YouTube personality and sports analyst.
“For a man that’s wanted by the FBI to enter a ring, that’s being broadcasted [sic] on a major network in America - was perhaps the most shocking takeaway from the evening.”
There are more than a few people, spread out in comment sections and social media, who are even theorizing that Kadyrov may have had something to do with his “brother” Beterbiev, a celebrated member of the dictator’s state-sponsored Akhmat fight club, getting the decision on Saturday.
These accusations, of course, are unsubstantiated and will forever remain mere accusations. But that’s the kind of stuff you get when you have elite-level scoundrels running the sport outside of any reasonably sane jurisdiction.
What we’re going to be seeing (if we haven’t unknowingly seen it already) is a level of corruption and subsequent internal corrosion far beyond the “Bob Arum paid the judges off” kind of silliness that angered fans in what will be remembered as the quaint, good ol’ days. The only thing keeping the foul sludge from completely overrunning the game board right now is that these legitimately evil world stage players don’t fully have their hooks into the fighters and the sport’s infrastructure...yet.
Kadyrov, specifically, has a penchant for fixing fights at home and having athlete buddies “disappear” when they fall out of favor with him, like when one-time UFC fighter Abdul-Kerim Edilov was killed after being pushed out of the dictator’s inner circle.
Saudi Arabia, meanwhile, has a history of being, well, Saudi Arabia. Any reasonably savvy observer would know not to trust Turki and the Royal Family to any degree whatsoever.
But this is where we find ourselves in this boxing world of 2024, as Frank Warren and Eddie Hearn chastise critics of the evil alliances as “disgraceful” and American promoters rush to sign leverage-damaging “partnerships” with the Saudis to match the already-established sanctioning body “partnerships.”.
And, all of this, as the boxing media continues to put on a happy-stupid face, play-acting that this is all still just business as usual, still afraid to say anything that might lose them a Saudi payday down the road or cost them their beloved “access.”
It’s all so frustratingly disgusting.
But, hey, we do have a unified light heavyweight champ now! So, that’s something…
Got something for Magno? Send it here: paulmagno@theboxingtribune.com