Janibek Alimkhanuly never got the chance to defend his WBO and IBF middleweight titles this past weekend against Andrei Mikhailovich. It was announced on Friday morning, several hours before the weigh-in that Alimkhanuly suffered from dehydration and was hospitalized on Thursday evening.
With that, the lightweight contest between Raymond Muratalla and Tevin Farmer became the main event from the Palms Casino Resort in Las Vegas.
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It's a costly ''loss'' for 'Qazak Style', who came into the week as a unified champion, and was hoping to further consolidate the division with the likes of WBC titlist, Carlos Adames later this year. Now, he is probably belt-less, and lost a lucrative six-figure payday.
What took place with Alimkhanuly was certainly disappointing, but not all that surprising. Not because of a work ethic that is lacking, but the current system that is in place in today's game. Boxers in this generation are counted on to have the discipline of Bernard Hopkins in-between fights. The 31-year old southpaw has fought his whole career as a middleweight, and had been laid off since mid-October.
The reality is that boxers coming off layoffs, who are big for that weight class, for years have been playing the game of trying to squeeze themselves into weight classes where they have physical advantages. Given they now have up to 36 hours to re-hydrate, this is now the era of 'the weight bully’.
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In the past, I really didn't like this term. The bottom line is that if both boxers have to abide by the same set of rules, what is the big deal, right? Well, the reality is that the naturally bigger boxers seem to have the advantage when they are given so much time to re-hydrate. What was once a measure to ensure that boxers had replenished their systems has become a form of gamesmanship in professional boxing.
This is no longer really about safety.
It's more about the ability to promote big fights (hey, still plenty of time to buy the pay-per-view!!) and unfortunately, being able to physically manhandle your opponents on fight night. My old pal -- and Hall-of-Famer -- Ray 'Boom Boom' Mancini, who in his day had to weigh-in on fight mornings, where he'd then box in the afternoon on CBS once said to me, "They might as well just weigh them in on Tuesdays (for Saturday fights), at this point. What's the difference?''
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Now, you see that even the weigh-in times are weaponized by the A-sides. If the marquee boxer needs more time to recover, they are scheduled early in the morning (Devin Haney-Vasiliy Lomachenko had an A.M. weigh-in). Then others are strategically placed in the afternoon to starve out someone who is having a tough weight cut (Gervonta Davis-Ryan Garcia).
Call me a traditionalist, but I remember when the weigh-in was about creating a fair playing field, and winning a fight was about having superior skills.
It's my opinion -- and yes I realize that I'm in the minority -- but boxing should go back to the having participants hit the scales on the morning of fight day. (And have a uniform time for when the weigh-in's to take place.) Hear me out, if you instituted this, my view is that you'd have a whole swath of boxers who would then move up in weight.
Yeah, I understand that you will still have those who will play this dangerous game that they play now with their bodies. But the reality is that there is no perfect system in what is a dangerous sport. Hate to tell you this, but the solution that they came up with years ago, has only caused a different set of problems.
FINAL FLURRIES
Muratalla was able to trudge past Farmer on Saturday night, and win a 10 round decision... Sulaiman Segawa upset Ruben Villa, who was was seemingly on the verge of a featherweight title shot...The homecoming of IBF weltwerweight champion, Jaron 'Boots' Ennis was a major success. Not only did he KO David Avanesyan in five rounds, but the card at the Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia drew over 14,000....Top Rank plans to stage a show on September 27 at the MSG Theater that will feature Teofimo Lopez, Bruce Carrington and Xander Zayas.... I can be reached at k9kim@yahoo.com....
