Schedule Current Champs News WAIL! Encyclopedia Links Store Home
The Cyber Boxing Zone Newswire
I.B.F. = International Boxing Fraud?
Jef Van driessche, Member of the Ringside Belgium Team
____________________________________________

December 28, 2000
Belgium

A fter the problems IBF had in the USA with fraudulous practices which at this moment have been cleared, it seems that owing to a certain Mr. Montella from Italy, the IBF is looking for trouble in Europe. We witnessed at a Belgian ringside how corrupt the IBF can be.

The onset of the story begins when a seemingly professional looser Bea Diallo, at that time 7-13-1, is "selected" or "invited"» to fight for the intercontinental crown IBF in the middleweights against an even worse french guy, Mercier. Diallo won because everybody, the elderly newspapermen at ringside included, would have clobbered the french bum.

The joke was to be continued by defenses against the Nebraska-boys Bleakly and Corn. Fighters whose records are composed of village fair fights. Those fights were approved by the European IBF-leader Benedetto Montella whose declarations shocked the Belgian press when he declared seconds before the Diallo-Corn fight that according to his principles the promoter was entitled to select the referee and the judges. This time he not only confirmed his point of view, he went even further by allowing Diallo's manager to pick a substitute for a Russian judge who didn't show up for the Diallo-Tatevossian fight. After a few calls everything became crystal-clear when we were informed by the president from the Russian Boxing Federation, Igor Mazurow, that at no time there had been contacts with a Russian judge.

So from the beginning Montella and the Diallo camp knew that the jury for the fight was composed of a Belgian referee, an Italian judge, a Belgian neutral judge and a friend of Diallo himself who had no previous international experience. Montella refused to designate one of the three world-rated referees which Belgium possesses. That such a mess resulted in another "shame and scandal"-affair for boxing can't surprise anybody. Tatevosyan was the winner of the fight by miles for everyone at the venue, only the Italian judge and his Belgian colleague saw it the other way. But their verdict was sufficient to let Diallo keep his crown.

This is the way in which Montella thanks promoters who allow him to travel with family and friends (6) for many days on their expenses. In Belgium there have been talks of other allowances in respect with Signore Montella, but as far as I know they haven't yet been established. That could be a matter for a law judge.

Anyway, an intercontinental IBF title fight is nothing more than trash, the belts that go with it belong nowhere else than in the dustbin.

Ringside Belgium:
http://www.sportchiefs.com/ringside/

Schedule Current Champs WAIL! Encyclopedia Links Store Home
© 2000 The Cyber Boxing Zone
[Return to Top]