IBO: When the sky sends a signal

CORAL GABLES, Florida | Sometimes the ways of Being are unfathomable. And so are the stories we hear.

In fact, I was at the offices of the International Boxing Organization (IBO) in Coral Gables, just south of the Miami airport. A very humble office with notable exceptions. Like autographed photos and accompanied by a heartfelt tribute from the brothers Vitali and Wladimir Klitschko on the wall of assistant Erica Petrone. And this other by Gennady Golovkin. And this belt probably worn by Anthony Joshua.

And if I had searched longer, I would undoubtedly have found a souvenir of Jean Pascal, because Ed Levine is very fond of his former champion.

But the real treasures are the documents piled up in the two rooms of the IBO headquarters. Letters, contracts, filings that Ed Levine, the lawyer who founded the IBO in 1993, keeps carefully.

Moreover, if the head office of the IBO is rather modest, the former offices of Me Levine, specialized in commercial law, located in a large building just nearby, are much more impressive.

But what makes him happy is boxing. And even happier, the countless and so tasty boxing stories.

A TITLE FOR MARY SPENCER

I was in Coral Gables to meet Ed Levine. The slender, energetic man announces 60 years.

“Yes, but I am now 80 years old. Except that in my head, I have 40,” he says.

It was announced emphatically that Mary Spencer was going to fight for the IBO World Championship. I wanted to know what it was all about. To know if the title was credible, even if the IBO disturbs and that professional boxing would arrange very well with the four federations with combinations already installed.

I quickly got part of the answer. In any case, the rankings and the sanctions of the IBO are honest. It’s not complicated, the company has a contract and pays for the services of BoxRec, the organization that compiles almost all the results of the fights that are organized on the planet. Even the hundreds of galas held on Friday evenings in small towns in Mexico or Kazakhstan.

“There are some modalities of BoxRec’s algorithms that we have changed, but in general they are doing a very good job for us. And it gives a more transparent ranking and less obtained by negotiations and by pressure from the promoters,” said Mr. Levine.

He is the chairman and majority shareholder of the IBO. It is not a federation like the WBC based in Mexico or the WBA based in Panama. It’s a business this mad boxing enthusiast built because he was tired of the under-the-table schemes and deals that are the norm in Mauricio Sulaiman’s WBC or the other three big boxing federations.

“I dreamed of a ranking like that of the ATP, the Association of Tennis Players, which has a single, credible and transparent ranking. I bought the IBO from a group in Chicago and hoped to achieve this by imposing a ranking based on data fed to a computer. But I have unfortunately realized that the great powers of international boxing manage very well with the old system that they can manipulate and that, to stay at the top, you have to accept to play the game says Levine.

A SIGN FROM HEAVEN

And then, after all these years of work, something new happens again. Unheard of. Never heard of.

We talked about rankings of boxers, known and less known tricks, work, relations with promoters and television networks.

In front of me, a passionate and tough lawyer to resist the tricks of all-powerful promoters like Bob Arum, Yan Pellerin or Eddie Hearn…

Talking about the unspeakable crap the British promoters tried to impose on Terri Harper in Britain. Off the recordand between us, we had Harper signed a contract with a clause requiring her to give up her newly won IBO title in the hope that a boxer from the same promoter would get her hands on the belt.

“So it was October 19. I remember it very well and I will never be able to forget it because I have a son who died on October 19, a year ago. I was just in the rankings and Mary Spencer had just been ranked number one in the contenders based on her results. Camille Estephan called me when I had my nose buried in the document. He wanted to know if Mary Spencer was still far from a title fight. It was before my eyes and it was October 19th. As if it had been a sign from heaven. The answer was obvious. It was Mary Spencer who deserved this fight, no one else,” Levine replies.

I looked down at my notebook. A bit out of modesty. His eyes were wet…

DURAN-LEONARD AT THE OLYMPIC STADIUM

Ed Levine was 38 and a successful lawyer in May 1980. But he loved boxing and often served as a judge for fights in various Florida cities. He was salivating reading the reports in American newspapers about the fight between Sugar Ray Leonard and Roberto Duran.

“And I let myself be carried away by passion. I bought a plane ticket and flew to Montreal. I bought tickets with my friends, mine was much better, and I was able to watch the fight. In person. Even for the only time in my life, I allowed myself to bet $100 with two guys from Panama, the country of Roberto Duran, on the result. Of course, I lost my bet. After the fight, I asked them how they could be so certain of his victory. They told me they saw Duran training in Panama. »

“A few months later, I saw the same two guys again in New Orleans. I offered them the same wager. They refused. Precisely because they had seen Duran on the brush in Panama. It was an incredible story,” he says.

And who was one of the three promoters of this great fight with Yves Perron of the Régie Olympique? Bob Arum, who had just turned 50.

AGAIN BOB ARUM

Ed Levine was more and more passionate about boxing and less and less about the contracts for the sale of buildings in Miami. More and more involved at all levels. It was a few years later that he decided to take the plunge.

“In 1985, I decided to go to the WBA convention on Margarita Island in Venezuela. I had a transfer to Caracas. I missed my flight to Margarita by five minutes. By pure chance, a couple of Americans had suffered the same misfortune. Bob Arum and his wife. We went back to town, we had dinner in a big restaurant and we talked all evening. »

“The next day at the WBA convention, Bob Arum introduced me to everyone and I was quickly named chairman of the important world championship committee. I stayed there until 1992-1993. But I was no longer convinced by the work of Gilberto Mendoza, the president of the WBA, and in the elections, I remained neutral. In this environment, it does not happen. There was a split and a group left to found the WBO. I joined them,” Levine said.

By the way, 40 years later, Gilberto Mendoza Jr. is the president of the WBA. You have an idea…

But Levine was running into the same issues with the WBO. The tricks, the deals and, too often, the boxers being treated unfairly.

“I said to myself that it would be difficult, that it could be long, but that I would work for myself alone, that I would have principles to defend and that it was worth it,” he says.

He founded the IBO. It was Barry Hearn, the father of Eddie Hearn, the most powerful promoter on the planet with Arum, who gave him his first chance. And when the Klitschko brothers became IBO World Champions, Levine had already won a good half of the game.

TROUBLE-PARTY

Since then, the IBO has established itself as the fifth professional boxing association. Levine knows that in the minds of fans and most of the media, it’s a killjoy association that we could do without.

“But I know that for many gifted boxers who want to have a good career, who are often blocked by the dealings of promoters and other federations, the IBO is a wonderful insurance policy,” he said.

And so, there will be one of the 14 IBO commissioners in Shawinigan, Friday, to hand over the golden belt to a new champion.