(Boxing: Making MMA fans since 1996)
The World Boxing Council yesterday handed down a stiff punishment to heavyweight Derek Chisora for what they have termed “one of the worst behaviors ever by a professional boxer” in the months and days leading up to and the hours after his February 18 championship bout with Vitali Klitschko in Munich.
Besides the usual smack talk, Chisora not only slapped the champ’s face at the weigh-ins the day before the fight, he left the dais at the post-fight press conference and bum-rushed David Haye. When Haye got the better of him in the ensuing exchange, the infuriated Zimbabwe-born, UK-raised fighter declared that he was going to get a gun and kill the brash British fighter for “glassing him” with the Corona bottle he was holding when he dropped Chisora.
In actuality, the bottle never made contact with Chisora’s face, but the neck would have reinforced Haye’s fist like a roll of quarters.
(Video courtesy of YouTube/britishboxersUK)
Here’s part of the statement released last night by the WBC:
The WBC is absolutely condemning behaviors that are not to be accepted in boxing under any circumstances and will act as soon as it can proceed to impose the fines and sanctions as we consider necessary.
The WBC is imposing a serious fine to be finally determined after the hearing to be held under the supervision of our counsel representative attorney Stephen Beverly , the WBC will also take off from the WBC rankings, the name of Derek Chisora and declare an indefinite suspension against fighting again for a WBC title, while demanding Chisora to take an anger management medical treatment after which his suspension will be reconsidered.
Klitschko addressed Chisora’s seemingly escalating antics back in 2010:
“It’s not about getting me angry. It’s about the behavior of this man. The way he was raised was probably questionable. The way he behaves himself — that he bites in the fights the ear a couple of times that I saw,” Klitschko explained. “He beats up his girlfriend who cannot punch back. Chisora as a fighter, I think he’s talented and I think he’s better than David Haye. Chisora as a person, I think he is garbage.”
Can’t say we disagree.