Boxrec Editor Draws Ire Of Fans With Defence Of Goof In Igelle’s Record

IKPO IGBINOBA

A man who claimed to be the editor of BoxRec in charge of Africa has incurred the wrath of boxing fans with his arrogant defence of the organisation’s gaffe in the records of former Nigerian light middle weight champion, Godwin Igelle.

BoxRec  ascribed a log of three fights to the former champion in which he won one and lost two. PM EXPRESS exposed the BoxRec record for Igelle as fake in an exclusive report.

Igelle, whose pro boxing career spanned eighteen years from 1985 to 2003 had 26 fights with 17 wins(11 knockouts) eight losses and a draw.

While reacting to the PM EXPRESS report, Mr. Jeremy Lantz who is based in Florida, in the United States of America blamed other organisations and Igelle for what was clearly BoxRec’s  incompetence for which it has global notoriety.

Mr. Lantz blamed the boxer, the national association and the continental commission for not furnishing BoxRec with the records.

His argument sounds infantile since Boxrec saddled itself with the responsibility of keeping boxers’ records without the mandate of any association or commission.
BoxRec in 2005 only applied to be recognised as official record keepers for the Association of Boxing Commissions(ABC) only to be rejected. Fight Fax was given the recognition instead. It was only in 2016 after years of intense lobbying that BoxRec was recognised by the ABC.

Fans and boxers denounced Mr. Lantz’s position on Facebook blaming him and his organisation for gross incompetence.

Some of the Facebook exchanges between the BoxRec representative and the fans went thus:
Jeremy Lantz: Igelle last fought fifteen years ago when BoxRec  and the Internet were in infancy. Boxing promoters did not keep professional documents for its boxers. Most of the record documents from this time were hand written and absolutely could be faked. Igelle to my knowledge never contacted Boxrec to address his boxing result through the Nigeria Boxing Commission.

Serex Regn: How sure were you that European records were handwritten at that era? Since 2000, there were computers in Africa, though Internet was not that common back then just like in Europe at the time.

Jeremy Lantz: The article was about Africa. I am with BoxRec  Africa. Regarding Europe, I am sure each country was different on how they handled their record keeping.

Lee Williams Mcallister:I have had five fights in the last 14 months and not one of them is on BoxRec,  two of those fights were against Africans and you haven’t updated their records also. Can you shed some light on that Jeremy Lantz?

Jeremy Lantz: BoxRec does not recognise BIBA or AIBA, but I am very curious as to what African countries you fought in and when. Or were these European bouts?

Gianluca Di Caro: Jeremy Lantz, please be honest in your reply. Boxrec are acting in a protectionist manner on behalf of the BBB of C in the UK.

Jeremy Lantz: I am not involved with Europe for BoxRec and am unfamiliar with the situation. It is not the region that I am assigned. My region is Africa.

Gianluca Di Caro: In that case, do you want me to ask questions about Boxrec’s failures in Africa? I have letters and emails from most commissions there as they are too involved in the two cases against Boxrec, UK CMA and FTC USA due to the level of fake fights listed by Boxrec editors. Gianluca Di Caro: Also Jeremy, can you explain why someone from Florida is dealing with Africa? If you are not based in Africa, how can you possibly know what is going on there? The last certainly has not been heard of the Boxrec fake records scam.