By Cliff Rold

Photo © Chris Farina/Top Rank

Watching newly crowned World jr. flyweight champion Ivan Calderon celebrate after his earned, grueling victory Saturday night over Hugo Cazares, a question popped into my mind:

Where does Calderon rate pound-for-pound? 

I’ve already pondered where he could land when I do my annual end of year offering.  In my post-fight wrap, I even went so far as to declare that Calderon “forced his way into any credible debate about the best fighters in the game, pound for pound.”  And it’s true; Calderon did do just that.  However, I find myself in the hours and days after the fight wondering this:

Why does it matter?  More to the point, why is there such an obsession with the pound-for-pound ratings?

Maybe it’s just me and others aren’t thinking in such terms but it seems that way.  I know why most writers throw up their lists: they trigger discussion; they kill time in slow weeks (as does deconstructionist prattle); they assert that an observer is ‘serious’ about his coverage of the sport; and they can be fun, especially in the online ‘barbershop.’  Unfortunately, they’ve also become a big part of the business of boxing, making them increasingly less fun and perhaps even bad for business.

Ask anyone who has been in the thick of the pound-for-pound debate in recent years if it was bad for their personal business and to a man fighters like Roy Jones, Shane Mosley and Floyd Mayweather will likely answer no.  Why wouldn’t they?  Each received an exclusive contract guaranteeing mandatory minimum purses with the biggest television network in U.S. boxing, HBO.  Each was allowed to occasionally cash those multi-million dollar mandatory minimums with fights against the likes of Ricky Frazier, Adrian Stone and Henry Bruseles. 

Not a bad deal if one can get it.

Most though can’t get it, or even get close to it.  Put in college football terms, it creates a theoretical gulf between the major schools (top ten pound-for-pound fighters) and makes nearly everyone else in boxing, except the heavyweights, into a mid-major. 

The heavyweights are and always will be the exception.  Somewhere there’s someone, likely someone older who think the whippersnappers don’t know better, reiterating that the term pound-for-pound was coined for Sugar Ray Robinson to note the skill superiority of the best smaller man versus the best box office men.  That recognized and recognizes that the heavyweights will always be an island unto themselves, even in this age when so many have names that sound nothing like Johnson, Louis or Tyson. 

To a detriment, modern over-emphasis on the pound-for-pound list makes boxing in essence a two-division sport.

It used to be that fighters aimed to be seen as the best in their weight class. A generation ago, maybe two, Calderon would be celebrated because he’s a true World champion.  Today, that’s not good enough, at least not for his wallet.  Split title confusion confronts the reluctance of some to pull the sport back towards stricter views of lineage in titles, meaning that fans can’t easily look and say “that’s the champ.’ 

It’s easier to just seek out the small number of serious ‘pound-for-pound’ guys who become a de facto division unto themselves, excluding almost the entire sport from the full attention it could receive.  Heck, there’s even an actual awarded title for the pound-for-pound champ at Ring Magazine, indicating to casual viewers that such a title can actually be won or lost in competition (because Floyd Mayweather beating Arturo Gatti and Bernard Hopkins losing to Jermain Taylor meant Floyd was clearly the new pound-for-pound king right?  Umm…)

So why is this a problem?  Clearly there are some fighters that are a cut above the rest right?  Of course there are but the framing of the modern debate and the emphasis on pound-for-pound ratings may be, I would argue already has, created a perception gap that unduly affects boxing’s economy.  Let me list the key reasons:

POUND FOR POUND ISN’T REAL.

Okay, that’s just one reason, but it’s good enough.

No matter how fiercely stated, no one knows for sure who the best fighter in the world is at any given time.  That’s because boxing can’t deliver even a BCS-mess of a final.  Today, most ‘serious’ boxing people would say that the two best fighters in the world are Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao, a point I’d agree with.  However, they aren’t signing to fight anytime soon because they fight seventeen pounds apart. 

So the present and real danger is that a debate with no payoff trumps fights with real meaning.  Even if one is 99% sure that Mayweather might be the sports best fighter, he actually is, no matter the opinion, the welterweight champion of the world.  The only real World welterweight champ too no matter what else is written or uttered or paid for through sanctioning fees.  He’s the living line of Robinson and Ray Leonard and Mickey Walker. 

That position is beyond conjecture, and if it were treated with the same reverence as a position garnered through opinion then there might be more impetus for the mainstream to pay attention when his top contenders face off in fights like Paul Williams-Antonio Margarito.  Instead, those fights remain largely the pleasure of the hardcore alone, threatening the real continuity of the welterweight division.

Adding to the unreality is the fact that most lists are based entirely on what has been seen.  In other words, speaking from a U.S. perspective, that often excludes a Calderon (or a Masamori Tokuyama or Lorenzo Parra at their peak) because most of the ‘serious’ authorities don’t much of or any of those fighters. 

When this is brought up, there’s always the trusty and ethnocentric ‘they should fight here,’ ignoring that the lack of global coverage makes such a move prohibitive more often than not.  In Calderon’s case, the sport has an English-speaking Puerto Rican fighter whose size leaves his hopes to consistently make money commensurate with his talent largely the whim of notable writers who can force him into the debate.    

We can all shrug and say so what; after all, rational minds already know that such debates are purely conjecture.  Problem is, the suits don’t treat it that way because being the most sellable option for ‘best fighter in the world’ has its perk$.

Thomas Hauser, one of boxing’s finest writers pound for pound, wrote last year in a piece for SecondsOut titled “HBO Boxing: The Challenge” that: During Seth Abraham's tenure as president of Time Warner Sports, the network was guided by what were known internally as "the five pillars of HBO Boxing." More specifically, Abraham felt that HBO should strive to have under contract (1) the consensus pound-for-pound champion; (2) the heavyweight champion; (3) the most exciting fighter in the world; and (4) the best young fighter in the world. He also wanted (5) the fight of the year to have been televised on HBO.

See pillar one.  There are no indications that HBO’s philosophy has changed since the end of Abraham’s tenure.  That means there is an automatic corporate incentive, as a programmer seeking profit, and God Bless America for that, for the ‘consensus’ best fighter to be both heavily touted and protected as an investment, even if that means allowing sometime, and sometimes more than that, soft touches where competitive fights belong.  Whether that inherently occurs, or is just an unintended byproduct, is an ongoing debate.

 

Regardless, the ever increasing focus on pound-for-pound ratings has shrunk the bulk of the boxing world, making elite identification easy and depth of knowledge difficult for new fans.  They are presented with a short list of options for fighters that are ‘good,’ making the entirety of the rest of the sport less.  The UFC business model works largely because it centralizes the overall sport and touts the strength of its individual divisions.  Boxing is deep in almost every weight class right now and yet that is undercut, effectively also undercutting the anticipation of what could be great fights because of lesser “Q” ratings for perceived ‘non-elite’ guys.

More needs to be done to point out that boxing is more than its pound-for-pound list, because there’s a lot more to boxing than just five or ten fighters who can’t ever fight each other.

Cliff’s Notes…

I’m Just as Bad: Pointing out the hypocrisy that comes with any deconstructionist argument, I didn’t spend the bulk of this week focusing on the excellent 140 lb. fight this Saturday in Colombia between Kendall Holt (22-1, 12 KO, Ring Magazine #10) of Paterson, New Jersey and Ricardo Torres (31-1, 27 KO, unrated, WBO titlist) of Colombia.  This fight, off U.S. TV, could have a huge impact on the 140 lb. class over the next year or two so if you have a chance to track it down after the fact, do so.  Holt should be able to beat Torres, but his chin is still a question mark and Torres can crack.  If World jr. welterweight king Ricky Hatton loses to Floyd Mayweather in December of this year, the winner of this bout could loom as a Hatton title defense in 2008…

Last note on Calderon: If you didn’t read it Tuesday, check out Jake Donovan’s column ( https://www.boxingscene.com/index.php?m=show&id=10076 ) this week on the irresponsible refusal by most of the fight press to cover Calderon-Cazares; notable exceptions were Maxboxing and FightNews who ran in-depth post fight pieces.  I couldn’t agree more with Jake on his take even if all these shot-outs lately between the two of us are getting a bit funny…

Best Fight in Boxing: Checking the Julian Calendar for the week, we are now 65 days away from the best fight in boxing, the World super middleweight title fight between champion Joe Calzaghe (43-0, 32 KO) and #1 contender Mikkel Kessler (39-0, 29 KO).  I mention this today because if I don’t get my hotel worked out soon, I’m going to have to sleep in a pub. 

That might actually be fun if not for the whole honeymoon thing I’ll be on.

Back in seven.

Cliff Rold is a member of the Ring Magazine Ratings Advisory Panel and the Boxing Writers Association of America.  He can be reached at roldboxing@hotmail.com