The fastidious World Boxing rankings as of February 18, 2013
With boxers having inflated records from fighting let’s say weak opponents, it’s virtually impossible to get people to agree on the world rankings. This is especially difficult when you have managers, promoters and commissions in bed with each other. We’re planning to start our own ranking system as soon as we get a call back from Don King on how to proceed.
In order to be a competent, unbiased judge, you have to be able to separate yourself from the money, friendships and ingrained prejudices to be totally objective. It should be the same for these Alphabet Boxing organizations, but it’s not. They’re often “Subjective,” a word in direct contrast to “Objective.” As you will see in the latest convoluted rankings, the various organizations finagle their rankings based on the bottom line – that way they get their fair share of the kickbacks from the various championship fights.
If a boxer is not signed by a promoter within their circle of friends, there’s a strong possibility they won’t be ranked at all. It’s not like the boxer is in a different sporting league. “Oh, John Molina? Yeah, he’s not in the AFC, he’s over in the NFC; he’s not in the American League, he’s in the National League.”
Since fighting for a championship belt guarantees the public’s interest, promoters will call their crony at a boxing commission and lobby for their help to insure this scenario. That might mean ignoring the integrity of their ranking system to move one boxer up in the rankings ahead of the more competent boxer.
The multitude of titles, organizations and excuses used for the best not meeting the best have muddied the waters. If you take into consideration the four “World Bodies,” the online and print rankings of Ring Magazine, owned by Golden Boy, ESPN and Fightnews, as well as the computer ranking systems of the IBO and Boxrec, you end up with nine different rankings with different fighters in each. In other words, boxing lacks uniformity.
It’s rare when you see the top competitors in a weight class in the same tournament. That’s why Showtime’s idea of the Super 6 was so popular. They signed the majority of the top Super Middleweights for their competition, all except Lucian Bute. They then went after the top Bantamweights. Once again, they had the majority of the top people except for Fernando Montiel and Anselmo Moreno.
It appears, the people of network TV have a better grasp of what’s best for Boxing which in turn helps the boxer.
