Call for Independent Rankings

[Ben Bolt]

In the early 1980s, editor Bert Sugar revised The Ring Magazine’s world ratings. An international panel of 50 (or was it 100?) journalists/experts cast their votes every month, on which the ratings were compiled.

It had its flaws, but because of its worldwide representation, it was the most reliable at the time.

Would it be possible to relaunch a ranking system based on this idea today?
I definitely say yes. With internet, there’s no excuse for not trying to gather the elite of boxing writers/experts/voices to take part in developing an independent ranking, based merely on the results boxers have accomplished in the rings.

Would it be welcomed?
Well, not by the ‘big four’. And probably not by MMA, which is enlarging its fan base because of the state of mess boxing has turned into.

In later years, I’ve seen this call for an unbiased boxing ranking system a lot in other forums.
It’s a shame it hasn’t been realized yet.

[Ben Bolt]

And while on the subject, I could hand out a little criticism on boxingscene, fight news and other big internet sites, as well as the magazine heavyweights Boxing News, The Ring and Boxing Monthly.

You all want to compile your own ratings. If you clever guys can’t cooperate, we can’t demand the alphabet orgs. to do it. And so they will continue being in charge.

[bklynboy]

And while on the subject, I could hand out a little criticism on boxingscene, fight news and other big internet sites, as well as the magazine heavyweights Boxing News, The Ring and Boxing Monthly.

You all want to compile your own ratings. If you clever guys can’t cooperate, we can’t demand the alphabet orgs. to do it. And so they will continue being in charge.

It's really simple to find out who the best in each weight class is: they have to fight each other. It doesn't matter then if there are 4 belts or 400.

While it's simple to state it's complicated to put into practice. What's needed is for fighters to have the incentive to fight each other. How do we do that? Can we have crowdsourcing for fights? Where fans become the promoters by putting up cash for the fight? That might work out.

Right now we have the best in the divisions not fighting each other. Who's the best middleweight in the world? GGG? Martinez? Quillen? Sturm? If they don't fight each other we will never know.

[Scott9945]

I find this groups ratings to be more credible than Ring Magazine:

http://www.tbrb.org/

[BattlingNelson]

I find this groups ratings to be more credible than Ring Magazine:

http://www.tbrb.org/

Yep. That's probably the best available, and if I'm not mistaken, boxingscene's own Cliff Rold is a member of the comitee.

For computerized rankings, a shout should go out to the IBO. Those are IMO better than boxrec's.

http://www.iboboxing.com/top_100_com..._rankings.html

[Sugar Adam Ali]

Rankings dont mean anything if you cant enforce guys to fight...

UFC has its own rankings and belts, and they can force guys to fight, whereas in boxing, you can come up with the most perfect ranking system, but still wont matter if there is no mechanism to make #1 and #2 fight...

Right now, if boxing was like UFC, we would probably have these fights scheduled

Wlad-Fury
pulev-adamek eliminator
kovolev-stevenson
ward-froch 2 or groves-froch 2
GGG-serg
lara-canelo
floyd-bradley
maidana-manny
garcia-gamboa


but without an authority to enforce those fights, sadly no matter how good your rankings are, it wont matter if the guys dont fight each other

[Bodyshot3]

Sadly I am not sure whether a 'global' and universally accepted independent rankings system with the 'teeth' to make fights is possible, which is a shame.

When Bert ran this successful programme for The Ring the magazine was the sport's foremost voice and there were very few print or on-line rivals.

Furthermore; The Ring was truly independent itself and right now I believe GBP are important backers if not outright owners? Please correct me if I am wrong on this.

Personally, I still buy my copy of Boxing Monthly here in the UK which has been around forever and which is run by the fiercely independent Glyn Leach with guys like Steve Farhood, Ron Borges and Graham Houston reporting.

Their rankings are always credible, make perfect sense and don't pander to promoters, padded recors or newspaper headlines. Sadly, Boxing Monthly ain't a global player and their good sense does not go much beyond the UK.

[Anthony342]

Rankings dont mean anything if you cant enforce guys to fight...

UFC has its own rankings and belts, and they can force guys to fight, whereas in boxing, you can come up with the most perfect ranking system, but still wont matter if there is no mechanism to make #1 and #2 fight...

Right now, if boxing was like UFC, we would probably have these fights scheduled

Wlad-Fury
pulev-adamek eliminator
kovolev-stevenson
ward-froch 2 or groves-froch 2
GGG-serg
lara-canelo
floyd-bradley
maidana-manny
garcia-gamboa


but without an authority to enforce those fights, sadly no matter how good your rankings are, it wont matter if the guys dont fight each other

Not to mention if a champion doesn't fight a #1 contender in the UFC, he's stripped of his title belt, which is what happened to Tito Ortiz when he wouldn't defend the light heavyweight title against Chuck Liddell. When they finally fought, Chuck had the belt after winning it from Randy Couture, who had previously not only beaten Chuck, but also Ortiz. UFC belts are the closest thing MMA currently has to old school Ring title belts. M-1 had some traction when Fedor was still fighting and now he helps run the promotion for them so maybe that could be another credible title to win in a few years.

As long as boxing continues to let this crap go, they'll keep losing fans to the UFC or UFC will gain a lot more new fans than boxing or just MMA in general will. Not only are they able to make the superfights happen a lot more often, but they got onto major network Fox and on basic cable with Fox Sports 1, which boxing used to do in the old days but hardly ever does anymore. Now they just have the old school fans mostly that grew up watching it on major networks. Maybe once they die off or stop watching, boxing might take notice and fix things, but I'm not holding my breath. I'll stick with the occasional HBO fight until the sport gets its act together.

[Anthony342]

I find this groups ratings to be more credible than Ring Magazine:

http://www.tbrb.org/

That is awesome, thanks.

[jackson8]

Want to save boxing? Find a way to get rid of the WBA-WBC-IBF-WBO and their buyable ratings.