what would you do to fix boxing?

1. Get rid of PPV (As stated by many others 2. Get rid of the pimps of boxing, The rpomoters and the networks. Hbo fighters not fighting showtime fighters etc is some nonsense. (Or at least have an oversight board where if promoters and networks cannot agree then the board would get it done. 3. More oversight on wiegh ins. If you cannot make weight you cannot. the fight just wont be made. No more Castillo fights where he is fighting at 135 but weighs 270. 3. Better judging. So many controversial decisions and too many discrepancies between judges. (113-115 opponent 1, 109- 118 oopponent 2, 109 -118 opponent 1??) see the problem. 4. uniformity across the board with officiating. Some refs will stop the fight if someone takes a good punch and others will stop the fight only after the fighter is almost dead. 5. Elimination of most of the belts. Having a euro wbc champ, an american WBC champ a latin Wbc champ a real WBC champ a budweiser champ etc. IF you are the WBC champ then you should be it for the world. all fighters ranked together. etc.

to have one champion for every division by having an "undisputed championship tournament" for all division every 2 years ...

Seriously, I would not change that much. I would do more to make sure fighters didn't get hurt and killed. You know, there's gotta be more of an effort to get guys like Holyfield into retirement. Their competitive nature is such that they will never willingly quit, so they have to be forced out. I might tweak the judging system. Or at least get better judges. I'd put the weigh-ins back onto the day of the fight. Even the doctor that pushed for them to be held the day before wants them returned to the day of. Other than that, the wild west atmosphere around boxing actually makes things quite interesting. It's a nice change for the over-corporate, over-sanitized major sports leagues.

One champion per division.

That's a good idea about a single boxing association - or maybe just two reputable ones -- and you're right to point out that micro issues like weight classes have nothing to do with lack of interest in the sport. The league system is how the NFL works, how the NBA works, how the various soccer leagues work, etc. The trouble, though, is how to convince the guys who are running the game to change. What would it take to convince King, Arum, Goosen et al to form a league like with voting "owners" like the other sports franchises? And yeah, Katz is a fat old windbag, but Kenny and Kellerman are young slim windbags, aren't they? My question for them is why Ring? Why not Ring, Maxboxing, Boxingscene, Boxing Monthly etc, etc. plus the big-time trainers, newspaper writers and so forth. A real poll has to generate fairer rankings than relying on one source. king arum and the gang cant be involved or itd never even be taken seriously. you gotta get these old folks who have ruined the sport for so long out of there. i think one league would be better than two cause one would unite things more and cause less confusion. it could still be structured to have national and worldwide levels like some sports do. imagine having a national boxing champ actually mean something again. like take japan there being the jbc champ actually means something to them. not like here where we could care less who the naba or nabf champ is cause those are just fringe sucker titles here. one organization is the way to go and setting up pay where the winner gets the bigger share of purse money is also the way to go cause then nobody within the sport has anything to gain from letting boxer a beat boxer b if its a close fight. like now take dlh vs anybody. if its very close most likely dlh will get the nod cause hes the biggest active name in boxing meaning hes going to bring more money to the sport and more importantly the sanctioning bodies. i got a real good grasp on how this could work cause ive thought a lot about it. a lot. with boxing getting cleaned up and organized into one definitive group, boxing would find its way back into college in a big way. this would lead to scholarships and education for prospective boxers so the ones that dont make it wouldnt be left broke they could put that degree to use. and a single organization could give boxers benefits and pension plans and all so even the journeymen would get taken care of. also video games is a huge market and whats one very noticable problem with games. they aint got enough fighters on them. look at the nba game or the nfl video game. they got every single player even bench players on it. some even have minor leagues and stuff. well boxing games cant do this cause they gotta go pay every individual boxer and get individual releases for each boxer. if it were one organization, all boxers in the company would be in the game. this would give them all more exposure and would make boxing games better thus making boxing bigger. and the real good boxers could get really good endorsement deals like remember in the 80s leonard did diet pepsi or diet coke. a lot of fighters could get that. think of all the practical stuff boxers could endorse. running shoes for road work that they do, dasani water or aqua fina or whatever, exercise equipment, etc. probably the most important thing is that huge fights would get made all the time. rankings would mean something and fighters wouldnt have to pay to be ranked or to be champ cause you know they gotta pay 3 percent per belt or sanctioning body. which this would only have one world belt per weight anyhow. but the number 1 contender would actually be at least real close to who the actual number 1 contender should be. of course theyd get it slightly wrong from time to time and people would disagree but itd be like oh pacman is the champ and barrera is ranked #1 and raheem is ranked #2. some might think that raheem should be ranked #1 instead but oh well its not that big a deal since at least its a good fighter at #1 and not some guy out of left field like carlos maussa's cousin eddie is ranked #1 like itd probably be now. maybe there'd be something where the ranked guys can take a tune up once a year or something but if so they got to pick that fight from say the top 15 or so that way it isnt a total no name bum then they got to defend their mandatory. and there'd be no purse bids or crap with fighters turning down fights cause the organization would simply schedule the fights. take basketball, they don't ask the lakers if theyre willing to play the pistons in feb. they just schedule it. this is the model i really feel strongly about it too. this is the exact model basically with some minor tweaks probably but this is what needs to happen for boxing to rise to the top. im absolutely confident that this would work excellently.

That's a good idea about a single boxing association - or maybe just two reputable ones -- and you're right to point out that micro issues like weight classes have nothing to do with lack of interest in the sport. The league system is how the NFL works, how the NBA works, how the various soccer leagues work, etc. The trouble, though, is how to convince the guys who are running the game to change. What would it take to convince King, Arum, Goosen et al to form a league like with voting "owners" like the other sports franchises? And yeah, Katz is a fat old windbag, but Kenny and Kellerman are young slim windbags, aren't they? My question for them is why Ring? Why not Ring, Maxboxing, Boxingscene, Boxing Monthly etc, etc. plus the big-time trainers, newspaper writers and so forth. A real poll has to generate fairer rankings than relying on one source.

michael katz is a fat old wind bag that eats cheetos and should be ignored. he hates brian kenny and kellerman because he is jealous of them. hes a fat old idiot without the personality to be on tv so he hates them dudes. the fix to boxing is easy. first dont even worry about the weight classes cause their fine. that aint even a bit of the problems in boxing. the real problems in boxing are this 1. limited access. the top matches are on premium channels or ppv 2. promoters and managers protect fighters and keep fights from getting made 3. sanctioning bodies charge fighters to rank them and rank unfairly like making horrible number 1 contenders so we get wack mandatories. 4. theres so many sanctioning bodies that dummys that dont watch boxing closely cant keep up with who the champs are 5. theres no uniform medical regulations so you get all these problems with that. solution = pro boxing association well it'll need another name but you get what i mean. one uniform boxing company. this gets rid of promoters and sanctioning bodies. there's one belt in every division. they sign all boxers to contracts and have a winners share and losers share of the purse money. once boxing is uniform it can be marketed a lot better than goofy promoters. the world will be more accepting of it. the sport can climb onto espn then onto network tv where we can get big fights on free tv again. people will know and care who a lot of the champions are. there wont be any need for ppv because there will be actual advertisers. nike, mcdonalds, etc will actually put up real money to advertise with boxing. this is why a lot of fights are put on ppv, cause no decent advertisers will buy spots on boxing. its all alcohol commercials and gambling casinos. and some action movies. you dont see the top coke commercial that played at the super bowl playing during FNF though. cause coke spends their money elsewhere. if boxing werent in such a shady way they would advertise and we'd all see it.

only like 3 ppv's per year, unify the belts so tehre only like 2 in each division, and compress some of the divisions

Withought going in depth into detail on any of these subjects: 1) Fix the way fights are judged 2) Fewer PPV's and more prime time access through various channels 3) Eliminate nearly half of the weight classes 4) Eliminate belts down to 1-2 per division 5) Eliminate all clauses in contracts based on promotional rights and other bull shit that takes away from obtaining more fights 6) Kill Don King

yea fuck ppv's man, i dont got the money these days to be able to see a lot of them...yea and i would like to see one world champ for each division.

many fights per year. More activity basically. No, PPVs. Shyyyt, basketball football etc, ISNT. Boxing is PPV many times like Wresting. Weak!!!!!!!!!!!!!

i would adjust the weight limits for divsions maybe take some out, but u gotta have guys who are to small for a bigger weight class be able to make weight for lower classes to avoid them getting hurt and for comfort non of this killing yourself to make weight and gaining 10 pounds the next day for a fight, also one champ per divsion, also have a top 4 contender status and the champ has to fight the number 1 every so often and if the 1 cant fight the champ at a certain time weather its injury or cant get the deal done, he gets demoted to number 2 and the 2 (if they want) can be auto number 1 and get the fight and so on, also get rid of PPV but keep hbo and showtime so people do have to pay money for the service (of hbo and showtime) but not 50 bucks to watch shit, also try to get 3 nights of boxing, like saturday, wedsnday, and friday, other then that, its more of the peoples intrest if they want to watch or not, hopfully boxing doesnt end up like hockey as an obsolete sport

Everybody bitches and moans, but do we have any ideas about how to fix boxing? This week old-timer Michael Katz castigates Max Kellerman & Brian Kenney for hyping The Ring magazine's picks as "the true champs," citing the magazine's past record of complicity with crooked promoters. But can boxing adopt a ranking system like the one used for NCAA basketball or football, where they use a poll of the sportswriters and coaches to determine rankings? one champion per division and maybe uniting some divisions. no super or juniors. just middleweight feather welther