This is interesting. According to PBC, Saturday’s fight between WBA interim super middleweight champion David O. Morrell and WBA #11 rated Mike Gavronski was agreed to for 170 pounds at some point beforehand, so the world title is not on the line and is still Morrell’s. This conflicts with all the pre-fight publicity that clearly stated Saturday’s clash was a 12-round world title fight, but in any event it looks like Morrell is keeping the interim belt.
David Morrell Jr. 170 vs. Mike Gavronski 167.4
(Bout switched to a ten round non-title affair)
James Kirkland 162 vs. Juan Macias Montiel 161.4
Jesus Alejandro Ramos 144.4 vs. Naim Nelson 143.2
Marcos “Madman” Hernandez 166.6 vs. Alantez Fox167.2
Chavez Barrientes 123.8 vs. Paul Carroll 122.4
Angel Barrientes 123.4 vs. Travon Lawson 122
Radzhab Butaev 149.6 vs. Terry Chatwood 148.6
Venue: Shrine Auditorium, downtown Los Angeles
Promoter: TGB Promotions
TV: FOX, FS1
Mr Morrell ,you say you want to show the world you are the best yet you showed the world how unprofessional you are by not making weight!
Award 30 % of Morrell’s purse to Gravonski. Next fight hold back 30% until he makes weight.
Gavronski agreed to this B.S.??? Didn’t he have a contract for a world title fight? Normally if a guy misses weight he gets stripped.
Got to give it to David Morrell Jr. for changing the contract and getting away with this. Maybe the WBA can invent a new belt.
Honestly if the Gervante Davis fight was for different weight classes that it doesn’t matter. This shows boxing is crumbling.
This has been happening for decades. Take your melodramatic ass in the kitchen with the rest of the females.
And now THE WBA show the world just how unprofessional they are as an organization!
Morrell should be stripped of this ludicrous “interim” status. Because Morrell didn’t make weight, which was his condition precedent in his contract to fight, the fight itself should be canceled and Morrell fined and/or sanctioned for breach.
By allowing this fight to continue, Morrell is allowed to proceed with an unfair advantage…all to make a buck. So pathetic.
Ehh Morrell gets a pass from me if he can give us all a lesson on how to best beat Billy Joe Saunders during Covid..
The typical route would be to allow the fight to continue, provided he didn’t miss the weight by an extreme amount and the other fighter agreed to proceed. They would strip Morrell of his title, give a certain percentage of his purse to his opponent and to allow Gavronski to fight for an, essentially, vacant title should he win.
But this is the WBA, so what do they care? They’ve essentially rewarded Morrell for not making weight, because they’d already stripped him before the fight. They just gave him his old belt back and made this one a non-title fight. Absolutely sucks for Gavronski: Should he somehow manage to win this fight, his reward will likely be having to do it again in a few months if he wants a title.
These fattys taking advantage of smaller guys!!!Nery,Canelo now this one.
The solution is crystal clear. This bout should be held to contest the WBA Silver Gold Platinum Black Lives Matter Intercontinental In-Recess Interim 170 lb title. As long as the WBA whores can suck up a sanctioning fee and the network buys this crap, all is well in the World.
Gravonski for sure was well rewarded (under the table) because the point is to keep the kid as a world champion. Super Middleweight division is a hot plce with Canelo presence, and any boxer with a title (bogus in this case) has the chance to win the lotto ticket. Pure business, no reason to be alarmed or surprised.
Agree with Mikemiguel, here we are shockingly resolute while Gravonski probably doesn’t care one way or the other.
He needs this fight to earn money, feed his family and remain relevant.
He, for sure, was rewarded $$$ well and accepted without complaints.
Oh good!- there’s no way I’d watch this fight if the Interim Belt wasn’t on the line!…This shit is what’s wrong with boxing now. First off-how and why is he even the Interim Champion and what does that even mean. Secondly, ok he is the Interim Champion-so why are the weight limits not being enforced? Fighters get stripped of their titles for coming in overweight. The WBA sees this kid as a future star so they award him with a fictitious title and bend the rules for him. This is some 3rd World politics in effect! Personally, I don’t give a shit about the bullshit title he holds, I want to see this kid fight. I kinda want to see him get ko’d now because he seems like he’s being pampered.
Fans seem to know these titles are meaningless-why do fighters continue to pay sanctioning fees to these criminals for these worthless belts?
Do the organisations really make that much money in sanctioning fees? I guess they do. As for the fighters, I know they love the prestige of holding a belt, any belt! Sometimes even on low level undercards, you see a fighter entering the ring with a 5-3 record, yet displaying some kind of championship belt.
Completely agree. He’s 3-0, 22 years old and he’s headlining a card on FOX the day after Xmas. If he turns out to be the goods, in a few years when he’s making huge money – they’ll be on his good side. They gave him his first trinket and when he blew it they essentially said… “oh well kid, stuff happens, don’t worry about it”.
So if they agreed to a weight above, did the wba never sanction the bout? So why mention that the belt was on the line from the beginning? Do they still have to pay sanctioning fees?
Yes, a good amount under a luxurious table, to allow Morrell keep his luxurious interim title, even though he missed the weight by a mile
Morrell was very impressive last night. A lot less impressive now that I see he did not make weight . I
This fake paper Titleist is the one who couldn’t make the weight as proven by the weigh-in results. Gavronski had no issue making super middleweight, but this NABE fighter seems to be able to make his own rules in boxing. If you can’t make weight in a ‘title’ fight, then that already useless trinket should be stripped from its holder. Right?!
wait this kid is 1 of 4 world champions in the same division yet he couldnt even make the divisions weight?