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Mississippi:
Impossible
By William Trillo Logo: Bret "The Threat" Newton
Good morning, Mr. Phelps. Earlier this
week trouble started to surface in Biloxi, Mississippi and
it had to do with the events surrounding this Saturday
nights Showtime televised card featuring Nate Campbell vs.
Joan Guzman who were supposed to be fighting for numerous
alphabet soup Lightweight titles.
Also set on the card is Timothy Bradley
who is ready to defend his new WBC 140 belt against Edner
Cherry.
Early this week The World Boxing Council
headed up by El Presidente Jose Sulaiman
and Mississippi Athletic Commission
Chairman Jon Lewis (no photo on file) began to
disagree about the judges who would be officiating the WBC
title fight.
In an open letter to the media Sulaiman
stated, “The WBC Board of Governors and I cannot
be responsible for any verdict resulting from local
officials whose names we don’t even know as of today, and
are not registered in the WBC by any boxing commission.
Consequently, the WBC has decided to buy three ringside
tickets for three judges of the highest certification who
are registered in the WBC by specific boxing commissions and
appointed by the WBC, and these judges will provide the
final and official result for the world of boxing for the
WBC world championship fight and elimination fight."
Lewis was quick to retort by
announcing, "Mississippi law states that it is a
felony if anyone acts or attempts to act as a judge in a
boxing event without being licensed by the State Athletic
commission. I strongly advise the WBC not to interfere with
the State of Mississippi in regards to the judging of our
boxing events. If the WBC interferes, we will take that
action very seriously and we will take the appropriate
action."
By "appropriate action" we assume Lewis
meant he would have the law intervene and arrest the WBC
Judges.
Sulaiman responded to the threats by
adding, "... we will strongly consider exercising
our rights to purchase our tickets and sit in the audience
to judge the fights. We will respect the local boxing judges
for local decisions, but we will have to exercise our
responsibility for the world recognition, given to us by a
fight that has our trade mark and championship accolade, and
upon which Mississippi has no legal authority."
This is a real circle jerk Jim and we
ask you to proceed with caution in this matter, not that any
of this is going to amount to a hill of beans Jim, but if
you get caught up in that mess you may find yourself knee
deep in B.S.
To add to the confusion Joan Guzman
came in 3 pound over the 135 pound limit and
after dismissing taking a chance to lose the 3 extra pounds
his fight with Campbell is no longer a title fight but
instead is a meaningless battle of two soon to be over the
hill pugilists.
Your mission, Jim, should you decide to
accept it, is to figure out if anyone is still interested in
tuning into Showtime on Saturday night, and if so why? With
2 title fights on the rival HBO network it seems that
any true boxing fan will choose to watch real
sanctioned Title affairs (albeit they are PPV) and will stay
away from the useless politics and lack of professionalism
that will be displayed in Biloxi .
As always, should you or any of your IM
Force be caught or killed, the secretary will disavow any
knowledge of your actions. This tape will self-destruct in
five seconds. Good luck, Jim.
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