The politics of clinching in professional boxing
Clinching or holding is a technique used in boxing. It can be used to slow down a fight, to change its pace, to throw aside an opponent or to avoid an assault. Used at the right moment, it can be just as effective as throwing a knockout punch. But it can also be painful to watch fighters engage in it mercilessly.
While clinching occurs in the ring doesn’t always have to.
A dispute announced today between WBO junior welterweight titlist Timothy Bradley and his promoter Gary Shaw highlights as much.
Bradley and Shaw are on the cusp of finalizing a deal to fight WBC/IBF titlist Devin Alexander in a bout that would determine the best of the division. But because of the dispute, the fight may not happen.
Shaw told Bradley he’d finalize the fight for him, which would translate into an unprecedented payday, if he re-signs with him and his Gary Shaw Productions. Bradley’s contract runs out in May 2011. But Bradley isn’t set on re-signing so quickly. As a star of his division, other promotional companies will be interested in him, and he wants to see if he can earn more in the long run elsewhere. Why not entertain all the options at the ball?
While Shaw isn’t being outrageously unfair, and promoters often lure fighters with his terms, i.e., “I’ll get you big money if you re-sign...,” what Shaw is doing could be called, loosely, clinching. He’s trying to hold onto his fighter, to keep him in his stable. And who can blame him? Bradley is a powerful, moneymaking asset.
Unified WBA middleweight Felix Sturm just had his first fight against Giovanni Lorenzo in over the year. It doesn’t exactly seem normal that a world champion would be fighting just once annually. But because of a dispute with his former promotional company, Universum, Sturm was left unable to compete until he was what in other sports would be called a ‘free agent’. On the part of Universum, this is rigorous and shameless clinching.
Of course, it’s always a two-way street. Sturm claimed that his contract with Universum expired in August 2009. The German-based promotional company, on the other hand, said that Sturm signed a contract with a signing bonus in 2006 that ran until 2012. The case has since been settled, with Sturm being allowed to buy his way out of a contract (details of original contract are unknown), but he still was forced to sit out for a year to deal with the issue in the courts.
Then there’s the Gennady Golovkin-Universum discord. Like Sturm, Golovkin was just recently released into ‘free agent’ territory, but it didn’t come without a fight. Golovkin, who is widely considered one of the best fighters in the world (he’s the only guy to knock out Lucian Bute in the amateurs), feels he was sidelined by the group and disallowed shots against their top prospects Felix Strum and Sebastian Zbik. Golovkin contends they wished to prevent him from winning a title as long as they had other titlists. This is another example of clinching.
One of the issues that need be addressed as boxing continues to develop is how the various forms of political ‘clinching’ are going to be settled out of the ring. After all, there are many, and they don’t just involve fighters and promoters. As is often said by promoter Lou Dibella and others, promoters themselves are at the complete whim of the broadcasting companies, without which promoters would have little means of showcasing fighters’ talents to the world.
The way the situation works is like this: today HBO, or Showtime, or whomever, offers fighters and promoters dates based on broadcasting schedules, and from there the two discuss figures. But things are complicated by the fact that certain huge boxing promotional companies, like Golden Boy for instance, have exclusive contracts with companies (HBO), in which their fighters are entitled to a certain amount of airtime. That means all other promoters and fighters suffer, being confined as they are.
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