The United States Congress, which has in recent years has failed to invigorate a moribund economy, reverse a steadily declining educational system or even get a single conviction against former baseball player Roger Clemens on multiple charges despite two trials against him, has now turned its ineffectual attention to boxing.
Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., announced on Monday that the next failure for Congress will be cleaning up the beleaguered sport, which is currently reeling from the inexplicable decision rendered in the welterweight megafight between Manny Pacquiao and Timothy Bradley earlier this month.
Reid and McCain introduced legislation in the Senate to create a federal boxing commission, the United States Boxing Commission (USBC), which would theoretically oversee and regulate the sport, were the bill to somehow overcome a bitterly divided and impotent Congress to miraculously pass both the House of Representatives and Senate.
In a speech on the Senate floor, McCain said: “Simply put, this bill would better protect professional boxing from the fraud, corruption, and ineffective regulation that has plagued the sport for too many years, and that has devastated physically and financially many of our nation’s professional boxers.”
Although Congress is intimately familiar with fraud, corruption, and ineffective regulation, not to mention financial devastation, its ability to effectively mitigate any of these malfeasances is highly questionable at best.
With a name that sounds more like a regional sanctioning body title than a legitimate, respectable sports organization, the USBC would ultimately be even more insignificant than one of those aforementioned trinkets, as McCain stressed that the USBC would not “interfere with the daily operations of state and tribal boxing commissions.”
In other words, it wouldn’t really do anything.
“Let there be no doubt… of the very basic and pressing need in professional boxing for a Federal boxing commission,” McCain said. “The establishment of the USBC would address that need.”
Unfortunately, nobody has yet addressed the very basic and pressing need for a commission to oversee Congress.
(The Rabbit Punch is a satirical column. Any persons, events, descriptions, opinions, or insults contained herein are not intended to be taken seriously. You didn’t take this seriously, did you? Seriously? Then send your complaints on Twitter to @SDKraus and await my indifference.)
