Alex McCrory, a boxing aficionado, feels the sport would be much better off without Daniel Kinahan. 

I watched Panorama the other night as much out of boredom as for any other reason. The programme revealed nothing that we did not already know about the Kinahan crime family, and the relationship of one of it's members with the world Boxing.

Daniel Kinahan has built a big reputation for himself in professional boxing via his MGM/MTK franchise. Once ensconced in the sport, with money being no obstacle, he will not be easily ejected. I am not a big fan of Darragh MacIntyre, and this offering does little to change my mind. As an aside, it was impossible not to note his ever expanding girth; something we both share in common. Less said about it the better.

MacIntyre synthesized all the known information about the Kinahans, threw in a few well known faces from boxing, journalism and law enforcement to produce what was mediocre expose. As always, I felt he got more mileage out of his subject matter than deserved.

There is nothing new or surprising about the involvement of criminal interests in the sport of boxing, especially at professional level. In the middle of the 20th Century, the American Mafioso infiltrated the sport at every level. A fight would be won or lost on the dictate of a Mafia boss: the crooked practice of 'taking a dive' is well documented in annals. Boxers were pressured to go down in a nominated round and not get back up again. Criminal fixers corrupted the sport, and promising careers were blighted by even a suggestion of association with Cosa Nostra. The late, great Sonny Liston was just one example.

However, other dark forces have manipulated Boxing for ulterior motives. Politics and ideology have mired the noble sport at critical historical junctures. Muhammad Ali's refusal to go to Vietnam caused him to go to jail and to forfeit his World Title. I always admire the great man for his principled stand against the white Establishment.

A few decades earlier, there was another example of Boxing being used for the wrong reasons. Two of the most controversial fights in boxing history, the pre-World War clashes between Joe Louis and Max Schemling, became a battle of ideologies. Germany was flexing it's military muscle on the World stage, and Hitler sought to demonstrate racial superiority in the Boxing ring. It must be said Schemling did not share Hitler's ideological motivations. The two pugilists became good friends as many boxers often do outside the crucible of pain.

None of this is intended to excuse the corruption that is there. On the contrary, boxing would be far better off absent the compromising influence of Daniel Kinahan. His involvement is wrong on so many levels. The truth is that without proper regulation it is almost impossible to eject him from the sport.

Unsavoury characters with plenty of money to spend will always be attracted to the industry. Gangsters come in different sizes, shapes and colours. Some of boxing's most intriguing and eccentric figures have checkered histories. Don King, Frank Warren, and Barry McGuigan all found themselves in the courts accused of mismanagement, and financial irregularities. Of course, the Kinahans are on different scale.

The cleanest hands in the business wear boxing gloves.

Alec McCrory 
is a life long boxing fan.

Fight Night

Alex McCrory, a boxing aficionado, feels the sport would be much better off without Daniel Kinahan. 

I watched Panorama the other night as much out of boredom as for any other reason. The programme revealed nothing that we did not already know about the Kinahan crime family, and the relationship of one of it's members with the world Boxing.

Daniel Kinahan has built a big reputation for himself in professional boxing via his MGM/MTK franchise. Once ensconced in the sport, with money being no obstacle, he will not be easily ejected. I am not a big fan of Darragh MacIntyre, and this offering does little to change my mind. As an aside, it was impossible not to note his ever expanding girth; something we both share in common. Less said about it the better.

MacIntyre synthesized all the known information about the Kinahans, threw in a few well known faces from boxing, journalism and law enforcement to produce what was mediocre expose. As always, I felt he got more mileage out of his subject matter than deserved.

There is nothing new or surprising about the involvement of criminal interests in the sport of boxing, especially at professional level. In the middle of the 20th Century, the American Mafioso infiltrated the sport at every level. A fight would be won or lost on the dictate of a Mafia boss: the crooked practice of 'taking a dive' is well documented in annals. Boxers were pressured to go down in a nominated round and not get back up again. Criminal fixers corrupted the sport, and promising careers were blighted by even a suggestion of association with Cosa Nostra. The late, great Sonny Liston was just one example.

However, other dark forces have manipulated Boxing for ulterior motives. Politics and ideology have mired the noble sport at critical historical junctures. Muhammad Ali's refusal to go to Vietnam caused him to go to jail and to forfeit his World Title. I always admire the great man for his principled stand against the white Establishment.

A few decades earlier, there was another example of Boxing being used for the wrong reasons. Two of the most controversial fights in boxing history, the pre-World War clashes between Joe Louis and Max Schemling, became a battle of ideologies. Germany was flexing it's military muscle on the World stage, and Hitler sought to demonstrate racial superiority in the Boxing ring. It must be said Schemling did not share Hitler's ideological motivations. The two pugilists became good friends as many boxers often do outside the crucible of pain.

None of this is intended to excuse the corruption that is there. On the contrary, boxing would be far better off absent the compromising influence of Daniel Kinahan. His involvement is wrong on so many levels. The truth is that without proper regulation it is almost impossible to eject him from the sport.

Unsavoury characters with plenty of money to spend will always be attracted to the industry. Gangsters come in different sizes, shapes and colours. Some of boxing's most intriguing and eccentric figures have checkered histories. Don King, Frank Warren, and Barry McGuigan all found themselves in the courts accused of mismanagement, and financial irregularities. Of course, the Kinahans are on different scale.

The cleanest hands in the business wear boxing gloves.

Alec McCrory 
is a life long boxing fan.

7 comments:

  1. Haven’t seen the programme but as a former boxer I’d be on the same page as Alex here — the only clean hands belong to those with the gloves on. Even the amateur sport is corrupt, though in a much different way to what is going on here with the sport’s penetration by the drug dealing Kinahan family. As an anecdote, I recall giving a lad in the Holy Trinity club a complete licking and still losing the fight. It was far from the only time such happened me but that one stands out in particular as he was lucky he wasn’t stopped in the final round, he took that much of a shelling. Much worse than the good old home town decision, however, goes on in the sport — as the robbery of Conlon at the Olympics shows clearly. On Conlon himself, I stopped following his career once he got mixed up with that MTK outfit and have zero regard for anyone involved with those poisoners. McGuigan, though yes in court himself over a contact dispute, at least spoke out about these predators. There can be no room whatsoever in the sport of kings for their ilk.

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  2. I enjoyed this review. Have a completely different take on Darragh but that is secondary. Thought it a well crafted piece that conveyed a lot of information in few words. Great turn of phrase in the final line. That is what would be called a knock out punch.

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  3. If Panorama is correct and boxers are getting cut price deals with MTK due to MTK being fueled by drug money, are these boxers aware of this? If they are aware, then they are profiting, albeit indirectly, from the drugs trade.

    Drug traffickers are ruthless, killing more Irish people than the British forces have, since the Great Hunger. James Connolly's perspective about uniting Ireland but keeping a ruthless capitalist society can be equally applied to the drug trade. These enemies from within may not take our sovereignty but they certainly have built up a hefty death toll, through their poisonous and poisoned heroin and cocaine. They and their ilk should never be tolerated.

    We should legalise all drugs, make them available on prescription and ensure people are educated on the dangers. We can learn from global best practise and cut out the poison and the gangsterism, along with reducing usage. There are solutions here.

    The other thing that strikes me about the Panorama programme is the normalisation of the illegal drugs trade and the modern "role-models" in our society.  Bye-bye Muhammad Ali, hello Daniel Kinahan. 

    Cocaine has been normalised im society. You see it on every night out. Normalisation doesn't make it right. It is a scourge, from the murder of indigenous peoples in South America right through to the users at the other end.

    Crime may always have been within the sport of Boxing but so too has criminal murder in society. We should accept neither. These folk need locked up.

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    Replies
    1. I agree - legalise it and seek to discourage its use via education. The current criminalisation policy is not working.
      Even if the boxers are aware, they still need an income and have invested so much of their lives in trying to make it, and I no more judge them than I do people who work in cigarette factories or the women we see on shows like ZeroZeroZero who work in the drug labs. There is no avoidance of contamination in the world which we inhabit.
      Drug use, like alcohol use, is normalised.

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    2. I would see a difference in someone working in a cigarette factory due to lack of choice, to make ends meet; to feed and clothe their families than someone who has made their millions and can both have no trouble supporting themselves and also have a choice to fight for someone cleaner.

      However, you make a very valid point in not being able to avoid contamination these days. It is something I struggle with. A small number of parent corporations control much of the market and they are both ruthless and omnipresent. With Nestlé baby milk or water ownership to Coca Cola human rights abuse the major firms wouldn't give a rats ass for the worker or those unable to work.

      The drug lords don't care a jot either.

      It is impossible to live a modern life and boycott all Israeli products or BDS goods either, for example. We all make choices and we can only do our best.

      If you use Microsoft you go against BDS. If you use Apple you acquiesce in the horrific mininig practices for super precious metals.

      Criminalisation and super prisons USA style are discriminatory and counter-productive. We need something that works not something that aggravates the problem.

      Legalise, educate and prescribe.

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    3. The vast majority of professional boxers don't make a lot of money from the sport; they make a living and it is a tough old station. The big money earners could do as you suggest but all big money has at its root some crime or other and I would no more single out the fighters.

      It can even be argued that anybody involved in the fight game is endorsing a brutal sport and as such are all guilty. I am not sure that such an approach amounts to much more than moral posturing.

      We inhabit a very grey world where the black and white of youth has almost vanished. I guess as Mohammed Ali said if a man believes at 50 what he believed at 20 he has wasted 30 years of life. Not totally accurate but holds good in so many instances.

      Most of us if we don't work for ourselves will end up working for cunts and even working for ourselves is no guarantee that we are not working for a cunt!!

      Oh, for the certitudes of youth again!!!

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  4. Totally endorse what Simon says on drug legalisation.

    Boxing, like all sports with a global reach, should have one global regulatory body. A supranational body like UNESCO should have the power to enforce proper governance and accountability against notoriously errant bodies like FIFA, IOC and World Cycling Federation (or whatever its proper title is.)

    On national levels, bodies like the DCMS in Britain should have the power to appoint Commissioners to run dysfunctionally managed football (or other sports) clubs to ensure financial compliance and to avoid the arbitrary automatic points deduction penalty which so enrages fans who are the real victims in such situations.

    Well spoken, Alex.

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