State athletic commissions are notoriously inept. From a fighter's perspective their incompetence is usually benign and amounts to little more than an annoyance. But if you fight often enough, though, you can generally expect some commission blockhead to negatively affect your career about once a year.

Hopefully Yohon Banks can make it through the remainder of 2010 without another commission infringing on his ability to compete and earn living as a fighter. The Florida State Athletic Commission's ruling that Banks was not a competitive opponent for Bobby Lashley was utterly arbitrary and unfounded. Banks is 2-1, Lashley is 4-0. Banks also has eight professional boxing bouts to his credit.

I'd been training Yohon for five weeks to fight Lashley before the Commission pulled the plug on the bout. Let me tell you something, the Florida Commission did the fans a disservice by not allowing that bout to proceed. I would never have trained Yohon for this bout if I thought he was merely an "opponent" to feed to the Lashley hype machine. I've been involved in this sport for a long time and have a realist's sensibility in judging a fighter's ability. Yohon Banks is nowhere near a long-shot against Bobby Lashley. I'm not talking about having a "puncher's chance". I mean Lashley was going to have to deal with Yohon Banks.

So now the proposed replacement for Banks is Wes Sims (last seven wins against opponents with a combined record of 5-19) on eight days notice. Ridiculous.