Posted on 05/23/2005 1:54:06 PM PDT by Dan from Michigan
More rules may not mean safer USA Boxing regulates contest but some entrants have little experience
By PATRICK SULLIVAN
Record-Eagle staff writer
TRAVERSE CITY - Fight promoter Art Dore says Toughman fans are in for a treat when he brings Tough Gloves bouts to Traverse City this week.
Even as Bay City-based Dore touts safety restrictions that are supposed to make the fights safer than the controversial Toughman bouts, Dore promises a series of knock-down, drag-out brawls.
"Boxing is boxing, you know, put two people in the ring, and the bell rings, and the object is to beat each other up," Dore said.
Toughman fighters used 14-ounce gloves, he said, while USA Boxing rules that govern Tough Gloves call for 12-ounce gloves, which offer less padding and more punch.
"They'll probably be more knockouts," Dore said. Dore's new venture doesn't please everyone.
William Bustance, who runs Traverse City At Risk Boxing and Trigger Boxing with his wife, Robbin, said he was approached to recruit boxers and help organize the Tough Gloves bout in exchange for a donation to his gym. Bustance refused.
"We didn't want to cheapen ourselves," he said. "I didn't want to be involved with that freak show. It's mismatched, they're not all athletes in that competition."
Bustance, who filed a complaint with USA Boxing over the event, is worried that letting inexperienced boxers fight without coaches will cause injury or death.
Bustance also said letting Dore promote fights that allegedly bend USA Boxing rules could lead to higher insurance rates and more problems for the sport of boxing.
"We regulate our sport really well through USA Boxing," he said.
State officials, who shut down Toughman competitions in Michigan two years ago by requiring promoters to carry unlimited insurance for participants, say Tough Gloves fights should be safer, because they are sanctioned by USA Boxing.
Toughman competitions claimed at least 12 lives since 1981, according to a tally by the Detroit News compiled in 2003. A month after that figure was reported, a woman died after taking part in a Toughman competition in Florida.
By Thursday, more than 30 people had signed up for the competition, Dore said. Most of them are from the Traverse City area, although some will come from Grand Rapids and other southern Michigan cities. Dore said three or four women signed up.
Drew Scacciaferro, 22, has never fought in a boxing ring before, but he's signed up to brawl this week.
"It's a curiosity, I guess you could say," Scacciaferro said. "I've been interested in boxing for a few years now, and I think I may be able to do it."
Scacciaferro, who lives in Buckley, weighs 190 pounds and stands six-feet-one-inch tall. Scacciaferro only had a week to train, but said he is in good shape and is not worried about injuries.
Brad Wright, chairman of the Michigan Boxing Commission, is worried about how Tough Gloves attracts inexperienced boxers. Without training and conditioning, a fighter risks serious injury, he said.
Dore is "on the up-and-up in one way, but in another, he's just disguising Toughman," Wright said. "It looks like, tastes like, smells like Toughman boxing, but they have lived up to all the rules of USA Boxing, which is legitimate."
Nonetheless, Wright said adherence to USA Boxing rules alleviates some of his concern. Fighters are checked out by a doctor before and after bouts, and officials in the ring answer to USA Boxing, not Dore, which means they will put the safety of the boxers over the bloodthirstiness of the crowd.
Wright said Dore should be OK as long as he adheres to USA Boxing rules and maintains his amateur boxing club status.
Wright also worries that the promotion of the fights, which is similar to the promotion of Toughman, could sully the reputation of amateur boxing. Photos on a Tough Gloves Web site feature officials posing with bikini-clad ring girls and the poster promoting the fights advertises "grudge match."
"Unfortunately, advertising it like that makes it very similar to the Toughman; they're appealing to the same crowd, saying that anyone can enter," Wright said. "It doesn't do anything for our image as a legitimate industry."
Amateur boxing events are traditionally held a UAW hall, a VFW hall or a recreation center, he said, not at a nightclub.
Archie Milben, enforcement director Michigan Department of Labor and Economic Growth, bureau of commercial services, said the state regulates professional boxing and elimination boxing tournaments, and Tough Gloves fights apparently don't fall into either category.
Because Tough Gloves competitions are amateur bouts and sanctioned by USA Boxing, the national governing body for Olympic-style boxing, the state doesn't regulate them, Milben said.
Never for very long, though ;o)
I'm not necessarily disagreeing with you, but there are a lot of knockouts in mixed martial arts fights and they have only a thin layer of padding over their hand wraps. Basically just enough to keep from breaking their hands.
Oh, I know.(I use 14 oz gloves myself) The glove are made more to protect the hands, not the head.
That's primarily because of additional tactics allowed and the generally poor level of defense in the contests.
I fought a guy in the Army in a ring of soldiers with gloves. He was about 50 pounds and a few inches bigger than me. I knew it was gonna be a long day when his first jab landed on my nose. He obviously had training, I was a street brawler. But like Jake LaMotta said, "You couldn't knock me out Ray, you couldn't knock me out". LOL
I agree. There may be more knockouts, but that depends on the competitors. However, there will probably be more cuts that'll stop fights.
Why?
My opponent didn't knock me out either, but he sure was bloody, then again it was my blood. I think in the end they just ended it because I was starting to gross everyone out.
TT ;^)
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