Take the history of the International Boxing Federation's welterweight championship. Starting in 1984 when Donald Curry won the inaugural version of the title with a 15-round unanimous decision over Marlin Starling right up through last Saturday's title-winning effort by Antonio Margarito over champion Kermit Cintron, and there's only been 12 IBF welterweight champions.
And consider that among those 12, three never made a single title defense, and it appears that when Margarito steps into the ring in July to fight for Miguel Cotto's WBA welterweight title, he will become the fourth to hold that distinction.
That's some history. Let's not forget that a few years ago the IBF chose to recognize Zab Judah as its champion in a defense against Floyd Mayweather, despite the fact that Judah, who had been considered the division's undisputed champ, lost his last fight and another organization's belt to Carlos Baldomir a few months earlier. Then when Mayweather chose to fight Baldomir after beating Judah, it stripped Mayweather and deamed an untelevised fight between Cintron and marginal contender Mark Suarez as a title fight for its vacant title.
Joshua Clottey (34-2, 20 KOs) became the IBF mandatory challenger for then-champion Cintron when he scored a 12-round decision over Shamone Alvarez in Las Vegas in December 2007. That meant that he was guaranteed a shot at the title, and the IBF would mandate when that title bout had to take place.
Despite the fact that Cintron had already made one optional - non-mandatory - defense of the title since his previous mandatory defense in July 2007, the IBF was within its power to demand that Cintron's next defense be against Clottey. But when Cintron signed to fight Margarito, formerly a title-holder in the division for the WBO, they did no such thing, except guarantee that Clottey get the next shot, regardless of the champion.
Bear in mind, however, that both Clottey and Margarito, who ironically fought each other for the WBO title in December 2006, a Margarito win, are promoted by Top Rank, Inc., ie Bob Arum.
In the meantime, Arum agreed that the Cintron-Margarito winner would next fight Cotto in July, whether the IBF was involved in that fight or not. So, essentially Arum knew that he was covered one way or another. Clottey would fight for the title.
But because Margarito is fighting Cotto, he will be forced to relinquish the IBF title, meaning that Clottey will likely get a shot at a vacant title sometime later this year.
Whether Joshua Clottey deserves a shot at Margarito or not, is another debate. It's a fact that the IBF said he was the No. 1 contender before Cintron ever fought Margarito. The organization had to know that Margarito had no intention of defending against Clottey should he have defeated Cintron.
The question then remains, why did the IBF sanction Cintron-Margarito then?
Probably because it was a high-profile fight on an HBO card highlighted by Cotto's WBA defense against Alfonso Gomez. Meaning both Cintron and Margarito made significant purses, and both would be forced to pay a percentage of their purses to the IBF for sanctioning the title fight. It paid for the IBF to sanction it.
The other option would be for the IBF to demand that Cintron defend against Clottey before fighting Margarito, or strip Cintron if he went forward with the Margarito fight. If that had happened, I don't believe Cintron-Margarito would have happened. I also don't think HBO would have paid the same for Cintron-Clottey, and there was probably a good chance that Cintron-Clottey would have ended up on Versus or a smaller card. Hence, it didn't really make sense for the IBF to do that, did it?
Which brings us to the mandated Margarito-Clottey fight that's not going to happen. Margarito is going to fight Cotto, regardless of whether it's for the WBA, IBF, or no title at all. Most fans of the division recognize those two fighters as two of the top three welterweights in the world - Floyd Mayweather still has to be considered No. 1 - HBO is going to pay top dollar and an arena somewhere is going to be treated to a packed house of rabid Puerto Rican and Mexican boxing fans.
It would be logical to assume that the IBF sanctioning that fight would make a whole lot of sense for the organization, because its name would be in the middle of a huge event and the sanctioning fees would be astronomical as compared to what they will be when Clottey fights for the vacant title.
Why couldn't a deal be made with Clottey to step aside once again to allow Cotto-Margarito to go ahead as a unification WBA/IBF fight? After all, isn't Bob Arum his promoter too?
Expect Clottey to fight for the vacant title later this year. I'm hearing September, on either HBO Boxing After Dark or Showtime. As for an opponent, the two most likely would be No. 2 contender Andre Berto, an unbeaten 2004 Olympian in whom HBO has a vested interest in, or former champion Cintron.
Don't get me wrong, Clottey against either opponent would be a significant Top 10 fight, but marketing it as a world title fight is absurd, but the IBF and the promoters will, trust me. What the IBF has done to itself is make itself nothing more than a glorified NABF regional belt. Very few will be fooled and it has marginalized the significance of holding its belt.
How exactly has this sanctioning body helped the sport or the fighters with the way this has been handled?
- Todd Thorpe
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