Can Andy Lee Get a Fair Shake In Texas?

By Boxing News - 06/13/2012 - Comments

Image: Can Andy Lee Get a Fair Shake In Texas?By Warren Cloud: Saturday June 16, Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. will take on Andy Lee for the WBC Middleweight Championship in El Paso Texas. Some weeks ago, the fight was in limbo when the University of Texas Board of Regents deemed the city of El Paso unsafe to stage the event.

El Paso’s sister city, Cuidad Juarez has the highest murder rate in the world due a long standing power struggle between rival drug cartels. Despite the dire situation that Juarez has been victim to for well over a decade, El Paso is consistently rated one of the safest cities in the United States.

In truth the only threat will be the reputation of our great sport. Top Rank’s Bob Arum was livid that the fight would not go on in El Paso, urging that the Board of Regents were racially biased against Mexicans coming across the border. Arum was very quick to say that the fight would be moved to Huston or San Antonio. While it is unclear what the motivation of the Board of Regents was, one thing is certain; the state boxing may be subject to another devastating blow just a week after what we have just witnessed in Las Vegas.

In a boxing match being billed as “Viva Chavez”, one can only imagine how the judges will be swayed should the very Talented Andy Lee of Limerick Ireland deserve to win by decision. Lee has fought many powerful boxers in his amateur career including Ismayl Sillakh, Alfredo Angulo, and Gennady Golovkin. Lee has been victorious in all his fights minus a 2008 fight against Brian Vera, which he avenged three years later in very convincing fashion. Texas continues to hand gift decisions to undeserving fighters. In Huston they gave Light Heavyweight champion Tavoris Cloud a decision which he very clearly lost. In San Antonio, Carlos Molina was disqualified when a trainer briefly stepped on the ring due to an error in time keeping, giving the win to Austin’s James Kirkland, and Just months ago, officials said nothing when Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. skipped out on a post fight drug test even after Chavez has tested positive for diuretics. Boxing is in peril and another blow of this magnitude could damage the sport in a fashion which it may be unable to recover from for decades.



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