On this edition of No Holds Barred, host Eddie Goldman once again spoke with our colleagues Chris Baldwin of the WAAR Room (https://waarsports.com) and Malissa Smith of Girlboxing (https://girlboxing.org) on the WAAR Room. A video of this discussion has also been posted on the WAAR Sports YouTube page (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMW16qQlnyWR-xyd2jZF1IA).
We spoke with them by Zoom Thursday, July 21.
The countless and growing number of scandals in boxing and other combat sports once more prove, to all those who haven't already realized it, that these sports cannot properly govern themselves, and that whatever outside regulation exists is at best inadequate and at worst just as corrupt as these sports themselves.
This problem, however, is not unique to the combat sports. Lack of good governance plagues sport worldwide. Boxing and the combat sports are international sports, so any solution must be both international and part of an anti-corruption effort in sport in general. Narrow, localized solutions will fail, and myopic thinking must be replaced by approaching these issues from a global perspective.
The theme of the Play the Game 2022 conference of sports reformers, held in Odense, Denmark, June 27-30, 2022, was "is there a cure for sport?" Many of the participants advocated the formation of a world sports anti-corruption agency. This idea has been around for many years, but now many people at this conference were coalescing around it, and proposing that Play the Game may be the correct forum to develop this sports anti-corruption agency.
We discussed this in light of the latest, unending series of scandals involving boxing's sanctioning bodies, the role of organized crime, and much more.
Please also subscribe to the No Holds Barred page on Patreon for much more exclusive premium No Holds Barred content, at https://www.patreon.com/join/eddiegoldman/checkout.
The No Holds Barred theme song is called "The Heist", which is also available on iTunes by composer Ian Snow (http://liveone.tv).
Thanks, Eddie Goldman http://eddiegoldman.com
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