Despite The Sport Conspiring Against Him, Does Joseph Agbeko Merit A P4P Place?

I'm not one who puts an awful lot of credence in Pound for Pound rankings, as I feel for the most part it's just a popularity contest. Still though, this question is one that interests me and that I believe the answer to is yes.

I firmly believe that boxing as a sport has heinously screwed over Joseph 'King Kong' Agbeko, as I believe that, out of his three defeats, only one of them is legitimate, and of the four knockdowns he has suffered, none of them are legitimate.

Take for instance in 2004, travelling to Germany to take on the 'home' fighter in Voldymyr Sydorenko(originates from Ukraine, but based in Germany) for the wonderfully pointless EBA title. The Ukrainian had garnered a large backing in Germany, 14-0 with a win over Giovani Andrade, Joseph Agbeko was brought over as a fighter with a pretty record who wasn't meant to give Sydorenko much difficulty. A horrible, horrible decision ensued, Agbeko outclassed and out-hustled Volodymyr, beating to the punch first and last, throwing in combination to offset the effect of Sydorenko's solitary punches. The home fighter won no more than 3 or 4 rounds, yet the closest official scorecard was 114-114, and Sydorenko was awarded a scandolous MD win.

After a couple of nothing victories and a two and a half year layoff, Agbeko's fight against the hyped Luis Alberto Perez initiated the six fight run he has undertaken to soar towards the pinnacle of the bantamweight division. Regarded as a truely exciting fighter who had a great career ahead of him, Perez was extremely favoured to dispose of the Ghanain with ease. Coming in with, the Sydorenko debacle aside, an unappealing record with no recognisable victories, he was considered underdog against an adversary coming off of five world title fights. A very enjoyable brawl was the result, in which Agbeko dished out vastly more punishment, battering Perez with his trademark right hand over seven rounds - all of which he swept - forcing Perez to retire on his stool, and also making people take notice of King Kong.

After anothing frustrating period of inactivity, he undertook the first defence of his IBF Bantamweight title against another Nicaraguan in William Gonzalez. The ring rust was evident, as WillGon was able to outwork Agbeko on the inside in a few rounds, but overall Agbeko was able to assert his superiority over the course of the bout, which was oddly scored even by one judge, who did what nobody else seemingly could and scored Gonzalez six rounds.

It was his next fight where Agbeko really announced his arrival as a truely high class operator as he nullified the always brutal Vic 'The Raging Bull' Darchinyan. Entering the contest where he was on a run of squashing every opponent crazy enough to have stepped into the squared circle with him. Many who were unaware of the talents of Joseph Agbeko annoited it as a soon to be another destructive blowout for the venomous Armenian, Joseph was once again the unfavoured fighter, once again looked past by those who had never really seen him. In yet another performance that shocked many supposed ''experts'' in the boxing world, Agbeko completely nullified the destructive offensive arsenal of Crabchinyan, with his awkward brand of head movement consistently making him miss and his right hand finding the target more than anyone had ever connected with the CrabMan before, one of what was to be a few badly wrong 'knockdown' calls aside(it was a push, Joseph Agbeko was officially a force to be reckoned with in the bantamweight division.

Three months later another great challenge was undertaken, this time against the undefeated, extraordinarily exciting Yohnny Perez, who was coming off a spectacular showing against Silence Mabuza. A FOTY contender followed, with Perez showing the staple of his game, his offensive buzzsaw-like presence and Agbeko refusing to step back from it. As a prime Perez tended to do against his opposition, he didn't allow Agbeko to find his rhythm. With two cast-iron chins on show(and skull, in Yonnhy's case, as a headbutt from the Colombian was ruled as a 'knockdown' against King Kong:roll, their back and forth war of attrition was one that favoured Perez, who emerged as a deserved winner in a close fight.

Luckily for the perrenially unlucky Accra resident, Showtime threw together their Bantamweight Tournament, which enabled him to secure his shot at redemption.

Agbeko, having not fought since his only real loss, went back in with Perez in the first round of the tornament, who himself was coming off of a draw against Abner Mares. An encounter similar to their first was anticipated, as Agbeko was yet again unanimously written off. What was not anticipated, was the adaptability the former king who was about to regain his throne brought to the table. Agbeko showed he wasn't merely a not very refined, balls to the wall brawler, he put on a clinic, displaying superb footwork to out-manuver Perez, while utilising what was now recognised as one of the best and most versatile right hands in the sport. Side-stepping and throwing in rights to the body, lunging in with perfectly timed right hands, and contering with consumate ease, Agbeko ran out a clear winner on the scorecards, after giving one of the premier performances of 2010.

Which then brings us to the events of this past weekend over Abner Mares, where he was not screwed in one particular moment, not screwed over merely on the scorecards, but screwed over every minute of every single round by Abner Mares, Russel Mora, and in all likelihood Golden Boy Promotions. After a quick start from the Mexican, where he recieved a bogus knockdown call, and was allowed to get away with continuous, consistent, low-blows, Agbeko, as is his trademark, adjusted to his opponent, and proceeded to out-smart, out-move, out-hustle and out-fight Mares for the majority of the rest of the bout, where he was still, time and time again, hit low, but for whatever reason warned for putting his ***** in the way of Mares' fists, culminatng in a heinous knockdown call from the slime that is Russel Mora when Agbeko was hit in the general area of the right testicle.

Let's be realistic, if you go merely by rounds won, which it should have been, and even ignore what should've been multiple points deductions from Mares, Joseph Agbeko once again has a defining victory after a great performance, and Abner Mares has his first loss but nothing to be ashamed of(being a dirty ******* aside) after giving a more than decent account of himself against one of the sports best.

Although he has three 'official' defeats, I'll say that two of them are irrelevant in this instance. Many rate Lucas Mathysse and Andriy Kotelnik above Devon Alexander, and rightfully so, and many other similar cases. I'm not going to let corrupt officials dictate my views on how good a fighter is, so for my money Joseph Agbeko is without doubt one of the top 10 fighters in the entire sport, and should be given credit for it.

I realise this was more of a thread to vent rage, but what say you all anyways?

 

Oh, and for the sake of it, where would you all have Mares too?

 

The Yori Boy one was kind of inspired by yours IB, I'll give you that.

This one is hardly plagiarism, look over loads of my threads about other fighters, I generally go fight by fight, such as in the Mijares one, the Acosta one, the Poonsawat one and the WV2 one. Thinking I "stole" the Mijares idea from you is a bit stupid, seeing as I generally do it for my favourite fighters, hence my Acosta, Narvaez and Cordoba ones.

Giving an account of a fighter on a fight by fight basis is hardly a great basis to make such claims, seeing as it's a rather common practice. That, and I don't even frequent the general anymore.

EDIT: And upon clicking on the link to your Agbeko thread, all you've mentioned in your OP is something I've been saying for far longer.

EDIT2: And upon entering your Mijares thread, the posts are not similar in the slightest. And, seeing as the last post was made on my birthday in December, it does strike of some arrogance that you would assume I've used your work, unless you think I was working on my thread for about 6/7 months?

EDIT3: Oh, I see, apparently I went into the third page of your thread, looked at a post you made yesterday where you didn't really mention the Sydorenko nor Mares bouts, and rather than post in it, took it over here and morphed it into my own work.