Ex-Middleweight Fights for Boxing Reform

 

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David Tiberi still has the moves that made him a ferocious middleweight contender, and shares them with the kids at the gym and recreation center he founded.

But 10 years ago, he was a middleweight contender who felt robbed of a title by a questionable decision, and now he's on a mission to clean up boxing.

He was known as "T-N-T" Tiberi, a professional boxer making his way up the middleweight rankings and looking for a title shot. It came in 1992, when Tiberi got an offer to fight the champ, James Toney.

He was not expected to do well. But he had a good strategy:

"I have a strong chin," Tiberi said. "I continually punched every single round, and backed him up until he was actually carried out of the ring after the fight."

But somehow, two of the judges scored the fight for Toney, who retained the championship on a split decision.

"I was devastated," Tiberi said. "This was one of those fights I knew I dominated, where I could feel my punches going through James Toney."

At the time, Alex Wallau, an ABC boxing commentator, called it, "one of the most disgusting decisions I've ever seen."

New Fight

Tiberi was so disgusted that, at the peak of his career, he decided to step out of the ring and take on the boxing establishment.

"That's where the fight started," he said. "I would not go back into the ring. I said until the decision is overturned and I go in as the champion I won't sign a contract again."

The story moved from the headlines to an investigation by a Senate subcommittee led by William Roth, a Republican from Tiberi's home state of Delaware.

"We were shocked when the award went not to Dave Tiberi but to Toney," former Sen. Roth said. "There was something wrong, and it was at that moment I decided that we ought to investigate boxing."

After days of hearings and testimony from boxers, managers and many others in the industry, Roth's panel concluded boxing is riddled with conflicts of interest, unfair contracts, questionable judging and 50 state boxing commissions enforcing 50 different sets of rules.

It took a few years, but since 1996, Congress has passed two boxing reform bills. But Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., their author, said that in some ways the sport has gotten worse.

"What I see is a deterioration of the sport, an exploitation of the fighters, serous injury and harm being done to fighters," McCain said.

McCain said there's no way Mike Tyson should have been allowed to lace up the gloves for the fight against Lennox Lewis. But he said the boxing industry couldn't turn down the possibility of a payday in the $100-million range. When the state of Nevada refused to license the fight, Tennessee was all too happy to step in.

Federal Commission?

McCain has introduced a bill that would create a federal commission to oversee all professional fights, and to license promoters, boxers and managers. Anyone who breaks the rules could lose their license and, with it, the ability to profit from the sport.

But promoters worry they could also lose control.

"I don't believe that we should have the government involved in controlling boxing," said Cedric Kushner, a promoter. "It's just not necessary. The government doesn't control basketball. They don't control any other sports."

Kushner argues promoters and the other people who run boxing can regulate themselves, in the same way that other professional sports handle their business.