One Cinderella Man Looking For His Fairy

Janne Romppainen

16.04 - Who ever said that life was fair? Boxing most certainly is not. One guy who has learned this most bitterly is Jyri Kjall, a Finnish welterweight who defends his NBA title belt this month.

As an amateur Kjall was an Olympic bronze medallist and he beat there for example the future professional European champion Thomas Damgaard. He boasts an impressive professional record of 22-1, 18 quick victories, which includes a stoppage win over the reigning European champion Christian Bladt. Kjall has also been trained by Angelo Dundee and sparred with the reigning welterweight champion Vernon Forrest. Everything should be ok but still he was about to retire earlier this year. Why is that?

The answer is quite simple: he couldn’t get fights and thusly he couldn’t make a living. After defeating Bladt the road to the big fights should have been open for him but it wasn’t. For ten months he couldn’t get a fight at all while Bladt went on to win the European title. Now Kjall is thirty years old and his time is running out. If he soon doesn’t get the chance he has rightfully earned he is in danger of losing it forever.

Unfortunately Kjall is not one of a kind. In fact there are plenty of talented and mismanaged fighters out there who are either thrown against too hard opponents too early or who never get a chance to meet a known fighter. Some fighters, such as Johnny Nelson and Jameel McCline, have been able to get over with being treated badly in the beginning of their careers but there are still far too many fighters who never get as far as their skills could take them.

In countries such as The United States, Great Britain or Denmark there there are not that many problems because they have their own big promoters who can put on fights for their own fighters. But for example in Finland there is no such promoter and so Kjall doesn’t have a chance to build his career. The promoters are not willing to take the risk to invest on outlandish fighters even if they were talented. This is even bigger problem in African countries where boxing is very popular sport but there is no jeweller who would refine the diamonds.

This treatment is not wrong only for the respective fighters but it is also unfair for the spectators. We are watching on TV how some overprotected golden boys with their limited skills are gathering winning records against some shabby opponents while far better fighters never make it to the highlights. If some promoter would be willing to take the risk and import fighters also from unknown countries, then maybe we could get to see better fights and get rid of these ‘great white hopes’ with padded records and primitive skills. Anyone listening?