It's ridiculous. Take look at the whole story... There is a guy who turned pro in 2016 out of nowhere. Nobody knows him. He had no amateur fights and no experience at all. He's getting fight after fight on some shady cards from shady promoters somewhere in Tijuana, Mexico. His record isn't suspect. It's blatant corruption and a fraud. Total scam. If you take a deeper look into his record it's even more obvious. He fought in spurts. Three fights within three weeks. Two fights within five days. Two fights within seven days. Three fights within fourteen days. Two fights within seven days. I never saw something like this on a pro boxers record. There was the intention to hype up his record to cash out. I'm pretty sure it was the plan. Don King - if he was the person in charge - probably thought he give this guy like 15-20 pro fights with a great KO% and all peope will fall into the trap buying the hype of a new HW contender with 100% KO ratio. While it's common to hype up records with feeding bum after bum it's different this time. They just picked a random guy with no boxing skills to do that. Usually you have fighters with some ammy experience or other experience to do tht kind of stuff. This time it was just a big random guy without any boxing skills. I mean i have better skills than this guy. He can't even throw a proper jab. The ref had to teach him how to throw a proper jab LMFAO. Apparently Lovejoy made 200k with the Charr fight. At least he said something like this on Social Media. Not sure if it's true. He lied from the first day he appeared so this might be bull**** too but still...he made some good money and will likely get some more fights in the future. He can't box to save his life. He quit after two or three easy punches. He's no boxer. He's a fraud. Not blaming him. He wants money. He probably took a dive last night in Germany. It was all about the money and i wouldn't be shocked if they paid him to take a dive. Nevertheless i think boxing in general took a beating here. It's absolutely insane that a guy like him was able to get a fight on that level. It's even more of a joke if you consider the fact that the guy was sparring a world champion in Tyson Fury not so long ago....lmfao. He probably didn't throw a punch in that sparring session and was just a walking heavy bag for Furys jab. I'm not sure if this would work in other weight classes than HW. Maybe. Maybe not. But HW is more susceptible to these kind of frauds because the general level of skills is different to other weight classes. Give a guy a decent frame and some big power and he can win a world title even if he couldn't box to save his life. Boxing is basically a madhouse at this point. The HW division especially. It's worse than a freak show. Wouldn't be shocked if this makes a circuit in the future.
I think it just further exposes the WBA. We have Manuel Charr (WBA Heavyweight Champion), Trevor Bryan (WBA Heavyweight Champion), Daniel Dubois fighting Bogdan Dinu next to become another WBA Heavyweight Champion, Michael Hunter fighting Mike Wilson to become WBA Heavyweight Mandatory (for who, I have no idea). None of this includes Joshua, another WBA Heavyweight Champion. A couple years ago, the WBA announced it was going to stage a big Heavyweight Unification tournament to crown ONE WBA Heavyweight Champion ... because it had so many WBA heavyweight champions. Not a tournament of all the heavyweight champs to crown one champ, a tournament of WBA Heavyweight Champs to crown one WBA Heavyweight Champ. (LOL) At this point, the other orgs should just decide not to recognize the WBA anymore. Don't allow unifications with WBA champs. Encourage WBA champs with multiple belts to vacate. Same with the boxing media and fan sites. IGNORE the WBA altogether. Go back to three major orgs (WBC, IBF, WBO). That was already too many. (I remember when there were just two.) The WBO has one champ, but their ratings are usually the worst. The IBF has one champ, but they usually don't even rate 10 people in their top tens (maybe they are the worst LOL). Vacant spots everywhere. The WBC tends to have the best ratings, but their leader is getting really "belt happy" too. And Bridgerweight needs to go before it ever begins. Cut it to three orgs ... with the option of going down to two if the WBC keeps heading the way they are going. The WBA has three or four champs in nearly every division by itself. We need to quit identifying FOR THE WBA who is the "super" champ and who is the "regular" champ and who is the "recess" champ and who is the "interim" champ and on and on and on. No more ridiculousness like Josh Taylor, WBA Super Lightweight "Super" Champ. (I just want to stick a pencil in my eye. SUPER SUPER.) They (the WBA) are a problem of their own making and they add nothing to the sport. They are dragging it down with them. Cast them out.
I don't think you should judge the whole division based on Lovejoy... it goes to show how wide of a margin there is between whats considered a title fight.. for example, you have this silly fight, where the fighters are probably being paid $30,000.... and then you have a title unification fight, where the fighters are getting $50 million each.. just shows how broad it is... But that undefeated record was ridiculous, you can make anyone undefeated if you want these days!!
Lovejoy apparently made 200k. There is obviously still a big pay gap between him and the elite like Joshua or Fury. But still...we're talking about a random dude with no boxing history/background. It's like a local promoter goes to the local fitness gym and looking at the big guy smashing the heavy bag looking like a fool and signing him. 5, 6 years later he fights Bermane Stiverne (as a comparison to Charr) after hyping up his record to 20-0 and 20 KOs against cab drivers - sometimes twice a week. This is a new quality of scam in boxing. We all know boxing is corrupt, dirty and disgusting. But this has something new... You hire a cheap guy to hype up his recordand then looking for a Cash out. Imagine Lovejoy would be still a Don King fighter. King would have made like 150k with this guy in the Charr fight alone.
Years ago they declared that they would have all Super vs Regular champions fight to do away with all the champions but if course they lied. Instead they started crowning interim champions and even recess in some divisions. The financial gains of collecting at least 3 sanctioning fees from each division was too much to pass up. Now the WBC is slowly doing the same..
Actually, it's a very old quality of scam. Like, 110 years old. The Great White Hopes of the Jack Johnson era were made up primarily of guys who were just big and white.
I was going to post the same thing. Some of the "barnstormer" white hopes weren't boxers at all. Someone would find a big corn fed white boy and take him on tour as the next hope, charging people to see him in person. But the dude had never even been in a ring. Frauds are a historical part of boxing, for better or worse.
Ask Frank why Daniel Dubois is fighting Bogdan Dinu for the WBA belt when Tyson Fury is fighting for the WBA belt? How about neither of them fight for the WBA belt? How about neither give their money to the WBA to pay sanctioning fees? If Fury fights Joshua, fight for Joshua's WBO and IBF belts. Don't pay the WBA sanction fee. Let it fall aside. Or, better yet, Joshua should vacate the WBA belt. Cast it aside. Take a **** on it. Ask Eddie Hearn, Frank Warren, Tyson Fury and Anthony Joshua why they want the WBA belt? Don't fight for it. Don't have major promoters and major fighters compete for the "interim, regular, recess or super" WBA belts. Take a pass. They are the ones who have to put a stop to it. They are the ones who are feeding it.
Peter “The Hurricane” McNeeley says hello. The legend himself was 36-1-0 when he “earned” a shot at Tyson. Welcome to boxing, where the drama is fake, the fighters are fake, the hype is fake and getting people like you pissed about it keeps it ALL going.
1. No, McNeeley had like 20 amateur fights and trained a lot before turning pro at 22 years of age. Lovejoy had ZERO amateur fights and was basically turning pro a few months after picking up the sports of boxing. Totally different case. 2. I'm not pissed. I'm amused. Maybe a bit disgusted. 3. I definitely do not keep anything going. Not sure what you trying to point out here. The people paying money for this garbage are keeping it alive.
Once upon a time the WBA had a Haye/Chagaev/Valuev/(elderly) Holyfield clique who held the belt hostage fighting each other and passing it between them. That's how I remember it. Never thought It'd get even worse.
The guy was ranked 313 in the world at 19-0, your right it was pretty obvious he was rubbish. At least he made 200G minus what got sucked off him by promtions etc, he probably ended up with enough for a night of hookers & coke.
The thought of that being the worst possible thing they could do is really funny all these years later.
This a low level scam - what is more worrying I'd the high level Canelo scam... His team are fooling millions
