We hold no brief for Robert Lee, the embattled president of the International Boxing Federation who this week took a "leave of absence" from that job - one step ahead of the posse.
It would seem clear enough that Lee, already under federal indictment on bribery and corruption charges, decided to step aside only as a last-ditch attempt to forestall the appointment of a court-ordered monitor to oversee the IBF. By going this route Lee, who stands accused of soliciting some $338,000 in bribes in return for rigging the organisation's ratings, hoped to name his own successor (former Michigan boxing commissioner Hiawatha Knight) rather than letting a federal judge do it for him.
At the same time, Lee's argument that the IBF "should not be singled out for this unprecedented action" might not be lightly dismissed. The suspicion here is that Lee might not even be the most corrupt of the petty despots who rule the boxing world, but merely the clumsiest. (The FBI reportedly have him red-handed, having secretly taped several of the transactions in question).
The fact that his organisation has its headquarters in New Jersey also makes the IBF an easy target for American authorities, who do not enjoy such handy jurisdiction over the offices of the World Boxing Association or the World Boxing Council, based, respectively, in Venezuela and Mexico City. Had they occurred within the borders of the United States, several of the WBC's more bewildering recent actions would surely have invited scrutiny.
A couple of weeks back, for instance, WBC president Jose Sulaiman exercised a dazzling bit of sleight-of-hand with ratings when the organisation's light middleweight champion Javier Castillejo of Spain asked to fight Mikael Rask, a German-based Dane, tomorrow night. According to the WBC's own regulations, the opponent would have to have had at least 15 pro fights and be rated in the organisation's top 10 to qualify as a title challenger. Rask's record was 13-0 (no defeats and 13 wins) and he was rated number 21, but rather than lose out on a lucrative sanctioning fee, los bandidos obligingly waived the 15-fight rule and jumped Rask up to number 10 in the ratings.
A few days ago came word that Sulaiman had decided to strip Britain's Prince Naseem of its version of the featherweight championship he won by outpointing Cesar Soto in October. Naseem's crime was not the perfectly awful fight he put on, but his refusal to relinquish the World Boxing Organisation title he already held. Having reasoned that the WBC already faces enough competition from the WBA and the IBF, Sulaiman seems determined to squash the WBO like a troublesome bug.
Officially, Hamed cannot be stripped without a vote of the WBC's championship committee. Even as he confirmed the decision to vacate the championship, Sulaiman said that a formal vote on stripping Hamed will be delayed and not made public until after Ramadan, the Muslim holy month which ends next month.
Had this been Lee and the IBF and not Sulaiman and his band of scoundrels, the FBI would already be nipping at his heels. Even more flagrant, it would seem, is the developing matter of heavyweight John Ruiz.
For nearly a year now Ruiz, who knocked out Thomas (Top Dog) Williams in Mississippi last month to run his record to 36-3, has been the WBC's number one-rated heavyweight. Whether he is deserving of that honour has been a source of some debate among boxing experts, particularly since his ascension to the top spot more or less coincided with his signing a long-term promotional contract with Don King.
Although he stands positioned for an eventual mandatory challenge to world champion Lennox Lewis, Ruiz took a bold step to head off criticism a few weeks ago. Rather than sit on his lucrative position, he offered to fight Michael Grant, the unbeaten 6ft 7in giant currently ranked number two by the WBC, in order to prove his worth.
This sort of bravery - a top-rated contender risking his position without being ordered to by one of the sanctioning bodies - is almost unprecedented in the current climate of boxing politics, but curiously, the proposed fight on March 18th has been imperilled from a couple of unlikely sources - the WBC and King, the fighter's promoter.
Sulaiman has thus far refused to provide confirmation that the winner of a Ruiz-Grant fight would retain the mandatory position against Lewis, and television company HBO see little attraction in the fight if this is not on offer.
King's position is even stranger, unless you recall that The World's Greatest Promoter is being sued in a breach-of-contract action filed by his former client Mike Tyson, who is scheduled to fight the immortal Julius Francis in Manchester next month. King has one thing that Tyson covets even more than money: John Ruiz.
For several weeks now a rumour has swirled through the boxing world that King would attempt, with the connivance of his friend Sulaiman, to make Tyson's multimillion-dollar suit disappear by manoeuvring Tyson into a WBC-mandated fight against Ruiz.
The way this would all play out would, in theory, result in a win/win situation for everyone concerned save, of course, Ruiz. King would save millions and not have to defend himself in a lawsuit he probably could not win. Sulaiman would have a pretext for elevating Tyson to the mandatory challenger's spot were he to beat Ruiz, who is considered vulnerable. And Tyson, presently scouring the globe in search of beatable opponents, would get one who might put him back on the world stage.
Do the actions of King and Sulaiman confirm the scenario? No - but it certainly smells that way. Put it this way: If Bob Lee had tried to pull off something like this, the FBI would be digging up his back yard all over again.
"No other sports group which has gone through similarly difficult times has come under this kind of attack by the federal government - not the US or International Olympic Committees, not the NCAA, not any other professional or amateur sports organisation where one or more individual members have had similar allegations made against them," said the official IBF communique accompanying Lee's decision to step down.
And you know what? He's right.
