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Self-congratulatory California State Athletic Commission thinks they can win Canelo vs. GGG fight

By Zach Arnold | October 21, 2016

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Tuesday’s California State Athletic Commission meeting in Los Angeles had an excruciatingly arrogant tone that rivaled the kind of palaver Nevada’s commission has been dishing out to the public for the last decade.

Over the past several months, California’s commission has been on a “branding mission” to declare themselves not only the best regulators in the United States but specifically the world’s best boxing regulators. They are openly patting themselves on the back Barry Horowitz-style.

“We are, of course, the boxing capital of the world,” according to Big John McCarthy ally and transactional attorney Martha Shen-Urquidez.

Video from Tuesday’s meeting was a painful example of what’s in store for 2017: an Athletic Commission-sanctioned boxing title and the mother of all ass-kissing campaigns to find money marks to pony up the site fee to host Canelo Alvarez vs. Gennady Golovkin in Los Angeles.

Smooching so bad, the Commission knew what Tom Loeffler ate for breakfast

The July 12th, 2016 California State Athletic Commission meeting was a precursor of things to come for Tuesday’s CSAC celebration of high-level boxing promoter Tom Loeffler. Loeffler was invited to come to Tuesday’s meeting to be serenaded with an award and picture mugging ceremony in front of the Athletic Commission board.

Martha Shen-Urquidez said she went to New York on her own dime to convince Mr. Loeffler to promote fights in California. He lives in Santa Monica.

In a vacuum, the over-the-top deification of Mr. Loeffler was jarring in its shamelessness. Officials including referee Tom Taylor, athletic inspector & private investigator Louis Perry, and referee Jack Reiss with judge Max De Luca extolled the virtues of working Tom Loeffler-promoted events as the classiest and most-professional. Taylor mugged for the video camera before telling the world how great Mr. Loeffler is. Taylor is a Andy Foster favorite because of “his look.” Mr. Loeffler ended up taking a picture with Jack Reiss in front of the commission board.

On the surface, it was an all-time embarrassing 20 minute ass-kissing session. (Embedded video: 10 minute mark to 30 minute mark.)

It might have worked if the Athletic Commission, three months earlier, hadn’t telegraphed what they were trying to accomplish.

Last July, California’s athletic commission declared that they wanted the Canelo Alvarez vs. Gennady Golovkin fight. Martha Shen-Urquidez said that Los Angeles has “5 1/2 million hispanics” and big arenas, so why can’t we get the fight?

Amusingly, the Athletic Commission board publicly recognized that fighters don’t want big money bouts in California because of the state income tax. It’s election season and Proposition 55 is on the ballot to keep taxing those who generate $250,000 or more a year in California:

The Athletic Commission’s response to the state’s income tax? Spend months creating a pamphlet to tell fighters why they should fight in California.

(Start at the 2 hour, 47 minute time mark in the embedded video to watch the mind-numbing malarkey.)

Let’s get fighters to California by sanctioning & promoting our own title belt

But wait, there’s more!

An Athletic Commission that’s paying out tens of thousand of dollars in administrative costs in order to give out a hundred grand a year in boxing pension fund benefits has an idea to promote more big fights in California: use the old New York state athletic commission gimmick of creating their own title belt.

Here’s what transactional attorney Martha Shen-Urquidez had to say three months ago:

“We have established a California belt. It’s up and running. If you go to Boxrec they have put up, they’ve done the algorithm and everything, there is now a last column that has the number of true rounds that the fighters have [in California]. The maximum rounds the fighters have fought.

For anyone who wants to match them up, they can and we are actually working on designing an actual belt with the California seal on it and that will be approved very soon.

To which Governor Jerry Brown point-man and Liberty Dental kingpin John Carvelli asked, “Approved by whom?”

“Approved by Andy (Foster), presumably. Well, whoever you want.”

This idea came from someone who passed the California bar exam and has an active law license. This idea is being implemented in the era of the Ali Act. You know, the law that is supposed to help with transparency among sanctioning bodies, promoters, managers, and athletic commissions.

The barnyard audacity of an athletic commission promoting their own title belt in 2017 is legally sketchy. However, the Ali Act cemented sovereign immunity by preventing anyone from being able to sue a public agency for not enforcing the law.

The idea itself is loaded with conflicts of interest.

The conflicts of interest among the major American athletic commission boards has never been worse. California remains a shining gem of political stupidity.

Addendum: In the California Code of Regulations, the rules & regs state that the Athletic Commission can once a year name state champions and that each champion has to defend the belt within six months or get stripped of the state title. The citation states “Register 87, No. 5” which would seemingly indicate this reg was established in 1987. Outdated, given the status of the Ali Act having precedence over state law. You can’t sue a state agency for not enforcing the Ali Act but you could sue them for being an active participant violating it.

Topics: Boxing, CSAC, Media, Zach Arnold | 1 Comment » | Permalink | Trackback |

One Response to “Self-congratulatory California State Athletic Commission thinks they can win Canelo vs. GGG fight”

  1. Choco says:

    Hey, apparently Pat’s NSAC reign of terror is (almost) over. Input, anyone?

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