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Add FightsATW on GoogleSanctioning bodies, they are not beloved, are they? The abuse hyped upon the WBC, and more so the WBA, is oft warranted, but sometimes it feels as though they are laboring as designated whipping posts, easy targets who lack leverage in counterarguments. Media big shots find it easy to take the flurry to the beleaguered sanctioning bodies, because return fire is often minimal. So, doing a story on a sanctioning body that isn’t actually a hit column is a bit rare.
Sanctioning Bodies Are Easy To Skewer
The sanctioners, during best of times, do more good than harm. In a sphere with a low barrier to entry, such as the fight game, structure is called for and demanded, because otherwise everyone is freelancing to their own sheet of music. Ed Levine, from NYC and partly a Florida man, has run the International Boxing Organization (IBO) since 1999. We rapped about his company on Monday, as Levine unwound on Beech Mountain, North Carolina.
I asked about IBO philosophy, if their adherence to computer rankings is holding solid in this age of transitional usage of AI, and the presence of Turki Alalshikh /the Saudi influence, as well as the incursion of Zuffa Boxing and Dana White.
Grew Up Sharp, Watched Friday Night Fights
Ed Levine wasn’t an athlete type, but he did enjoy watching fights with his pop on Friday nights, as presented by Gillette. The current head of the International Boxing Organization grew up in Rego Park, Queens, attended Queens College and earned a law degree at Syracuse.
A boxing bug had been implanted.
He attended fights a lot, hitting the Miami Auditorium shows, where he befriended the Dundee brothers, Chris and Angelo. In the law sphere, he did work with banks and builders, while building up his judging ringside. Through the mid to later 80s, Levine, who splits time between Coral Gables (Miami) and the mountains of North Carolina, desired to get in deeper. He hit on the idea of attending a convention.
The Bobfather Connection
The WBA in 1988 held their annual gathering on Margarita Island, off the coast of Venezuela. Ed told me he convinced the missus, and they made a valiant attempt at making a connector flight in Caracas, only to be rebuffed by timing.
Also rebuffed, the promoter Bob Arum. “I’d been there on business, closing, for Citibank, so I said to Bob, come with me, to a hotel. We had dinner that night,” Levine shared. “And he was very kind. When I was back in Miami, a week or two later, I got called to judge a WBA fight.”
IBO Seems To Be A Net Positive
Levine’s IBO has a good rep, as far as sanctioning bodies, for in general not contributing to some of the more laughable, pretzel logic machinations. Some of that has to do with his modesty.
Levine touches on where he sees the IBO is now, in this Turki-defined era. “You have the big four, we are number five, we have a niche and a place.” He uses OG words like “transparency” and “integrity.”
I did ask him if there were goings on, news in the works, for any of the organizations’ top titlists. Anything in the works for super-middleweight Osleys Iglesias or Dmitri Bivol? “I can’t answer that,” Levine responded, proving to me some of what he was speaking on, integrity.
Will Zuffa Do A Roll Up?
I pressed, mildly. This is the Turki era, and in the US, more so Dana White. The ex-Boston bad boy has grown an empire, as he unapologetically spreads the gospel of cage fighting, face slapping for a fee, and now pugilism. What are Levine’s thoughts on the combustible Mr. White?
“Dana,” the attorney paused slightly… “I don’t think any of sanctioning body heads are a fan of White and Zuffa’s. The Ali Act amendment attempt in Congress. It was formed to protect boxers, it has regulations for managers, promoters, but the key is the boxer. This Ali amendment will not favor the boxer.”
Levine isn’t defensive or sounding worried.
Talking Turki
“You still need promoters, managers, etc who are independent. We haven’t felt any change, but for the possibility of the sanctioning getting better and better. There are a lot of countries involved, places where maybe they don’t have the big sports, or a big soccer presence.” Levine says he sees the market for there being intercontinental title fights, in places like Kazakhstan.
That expansion mindset comes partially from the Saudi Arabian chess master with the largest vault, Turki Alalshikh. “Turki is currently the most important entity, there’s been a lot of money going to certain deserving fighters of high caliber. I don’t think he’s been as busy as he was,” Levine noted. He has no idea whether the Saudi funding commitment holds, like all of us.
You Can Mock The Oceania-Orient Title If You Must…
Regarding the wellness of the IBO, headquartered in Coral Gables, Miami, Florida. “We’ve had more title fights in the first half year of any year since inception,” Levine shared. That span of activity includes boldface names who have held the IBO belt. “Old adage, build it, they will come, the ones who came some of biggest names, Lennox Lewis, Roy Jones, Hall of Famer Antonio Tarver, Oleksander Usyk. Some saw it as an insurance policy.”
Levine isn’t sounding worried about getting steamrolled. We touched on changes in the business, and world as a whole. Is AI going to be a disruptor, on par with White’s Zuffa?
“AI is not one hundred percent accurate,” Levine answered.
Business Is Very Strong
As for current business, Levine sums it up crisply, after a half-hour phone session: “Boxing is growing around the world, but in America, we’re in a rut. I ask friends, they can name one or two current champions, maybe.”
Jake Paul they know, I suggest. Yes, his name they do know.
And Usyk is a name in other places, in this expanded playing field which features America less than we Americans have become accustomed too. He renounced his big four and IBO crowns, and yes, there will be prize fights to determine the person who will fill the voice.
Damn his integrity, Ed Levine gave me no hint as to how the title vacation might play out to the IBO and company.
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