Lennox Lewis vs World Boxing Association

[Marchegiano]

...

Reading on, this thread being my primary influence, I think I'm still leaning more toward the WBA. I wanted to throw some philosophy at you that is only actually loosely related, but while reading the Boxrec account of things I began to wonder.

This post carried the most weight with me, it stuck in my mind as I concerned events:

I am not one to oversimplify things. Sometimes a man with a hammer is bound to see all problems as a nail, and sometimes a good nail just needs a man with a hammer.

Here is my understanding of the situation: One simply MUST have a perspective on history at that time, and forget what we now know about Grant... It makes no sense otherwise to try to understand what actual thoughts abounded, and thoughts acted upon by the different parties involved.

These "organizations" often put a fighter in there for the mandatory that is garbage. Depending on the fighter, this can be a good, or a bad thing...the Klits feasted on the carcass' of these mediocre fighters, they were good boys! Some fighters were more high minded than that. They wanted to fight the best, not who some burocratic group decided they should fight.

Perfect example... Why would Joshua fight Pulov? Why not challenge a fighter who might beat him? Simple right?

lewis was high minded...at the time of this incident, Ruiz was known to be...well, like Pulov, although Pulov is a lot better. There was no sport in Lewis fighting Ruiz, who was perhaps the first fighter who had a manager that threw more punches during a bout than the fighter did.

By comparison Grant was viewed as a legitimate threat to Lewis. the media and fans were at his throat claiming Grant had the size and power to KO him. Grant was the fight people wanted Lewis to take to prove he was the best heavyweight on the planet. Grant had just had a tough outing with Golota, but was undefeated at the time, and was viewed as a legitimate challenge to Lewis.

Now, one can certainly claim Lewis saw that he could take Grant...much like Calzaghe saw Left Hook Lacy as a mark... But the fans should be the ones who determine what they want to see under ideal conditions. The fans will after all, incline towards the best, or "better" in this case.

Lets look at Ruiz record by comparison: Lets quote Wikipedia on this because they say it better than I could,

"After Lennox Lewis defeated Evander Holyfield for the undisputed (WBA, WBC, and IBF) heavyweight title in late 1999, the WBA ordered Lewis to defend the title against mandatory challenger Ruiz, but Lewis refused. Though he had been undefeated since a loss against David Tua in 1996, the level of competition Ruiz had been facing was suspect and the only name he had beaten (to date) was a nearly 40-year-old Tony Tucker."
(Wiki article on JOhn Ruiz).


And there you have it M: Lewis was being high minded and did not want to fight an easy fight. And if one thinks I am making Lewis a heroic figure, he did much the same when he fought Vitalie after his easy mandatory could not fight. Lewis always tried to fight the guys who were a legitimate threat, coming up... Ruiz was neither. Ruiz was a somewhat shopworn, medoicre fighter who got into ugly fights holding his opponents often. Lewis was acting in the interests of the fans, not the buroc****.

Keeping in mind, Queenie has done well by my account for his part. I am a Byrd fan after all, perhaps, serendipitous bias, perhaps he's on to something.

Anyway, while balancing what would effectively boil down to my philosophical hate for bureaucracy(Your voice) against my newly recognized love for bureaucracy (Queen's voice). I came to wonder if the WBA and WBC are not modern boxing what is?

To be more direct, if one were to ask me, Marche what do you think of hierarchy of any type, I would tell you my heart is with the low man and I hate hierarchy of any type because it presumes too much of multidimensional beings creating classes of people who can be divided many ways and defining them by one division, of course.

Philosophically opposed to hierarchy and by transitive any form of bureaucracy is just ungodly distasteful in my eyes.

However, what is undisputed? What are ranks? What are champions? What is boxing really? Very, very simple things to anyone let alone a fan. A champion is simply the best is he not?

Well, no...no he's not is he? A champion is a man who has an award given to him by a bureaucratic entity.

Ranks list the best men in the weight division from best to worst except for when they don't and men get ranked automatically based on things like regional awards from bureaucratic en****** tied to global bureaucracies.

Boxing is a sport pointed on hitting and not being hit back with the caveat of damage causing a winning end at any moment. It's also a sport carefully maintained and controlled by bureaucracy.

Boxing itself is hierarchical, and just like the debate about sport vs martial art, boxing as a sport is debatable.


The WBA, along with the WBC, IBF, and WBO are boxing....or, are the fans boxing?



As far as fighting Grant, I don't hold that against Lewis really, but the idea that Grant was ever worth giving up undisputed is hard for me to accept. I do like Grant, and in 2000 he definitely would seem like a great opponent, but, undisputed.

There is the crux of it all. Why does Undisputed matter if it is controlled by en****** that do cause avenues for weak title fights to not just happen but even be the main staple.

I criticize Wlad for hiding behind mandos and never making a vol and here I am saying Lennox should have fought his mando. The only real difference is a bit of semantics and bull****, and while I am well aware of that there is a voice that just simply says " That's just boxing though" and continues on believing Lennox should have fought his damn mando because Undisputed means more than Grant ever could.

Why does undisputed mean more than Grant? It is just sanctioning from en****** that continuously gave me clowns like Mormeck.

Sill, undisputed is undisputed, and I think the problem is with this:

If I have a big workload ahead of me it's tough ******* if I'd rather like to go boating instead.

Lennox fought 3 times in 2000 and really, for HW champions, that's not bad, 3 a year is good, and, that's my beef.

It's hard for me to unilaterally dislike the bodies. I really don't see the point of the IBF or WBO to be honest, but, the WBC and WBA did do a lot for boxing to make boxing what it is today. Things like the 10 point must, the 3 KD rule, rounds, weight classes, you know...boxing. One can say the IBU or NSC was first but the NYSAC and NBA are who standardized boxing and by now the bodies have pretty little variance in format and rules. Boxing is coherent because they made it so. They are our organization as much as the organizations.

So, while Mormeck does really, really, really piss me off, I have to ask myself can I make system, a hierarchy, that is not susceptible to unfair positioning by any means?

When you really get into how boxing works, I'm glad I have no part of it. It's like asking can I code a game that can not ever be exploited....Of course no one can.

So is it the WBA's fault Ruiz was in position or was it Ruiz's fault? Do you fault a man for working a system? Wouldn't you work the system as well? Can you fault a man for having an imperfect system? Can you create a perfect system? Not an idealistic system, one that actually works. One that humans can carry out from the local level to the world level.

Given this, given fighters can not mix words or work our natural bias against us on this one thing, does the fact that Lennox fought two, second round KO fights and one real fight albeit lopsided, not point the finger at fighters in general giving pretty low ****s about their fans or the organizations?

Lennox, and John, and hell Michael too, they all seem in it for the money. Why can't Lennox Lewis fight Ruiz, Grant, Botha, and Tua in a year?

I mean, he wants to please his fans right? High minded as he is.

He wants to be a legend right?

One more fight a year means everyone's happy. More fights a year mean Lennox Lewis doesn't get put in this position in the first place actually.


Let me ask you, If Joshua fought Pulev, Usyk, Fury, and Wilder all this year, wouldn't that be his legend? I a world without a pandemic Everything else is just icing the cake from there. He could even lose to the next batch of talent and we'd call him past prime.

6, 8, 10 fights a year....that's for talented starters isn't it? Champions, twice, maybe three times a year.....no matter how soft the competition in front of them is. When they have mandos, oh well, they have mandos, not their fault......isn't it though?

When I get a big workload it's tough *******, knuckle up.

If the mandos are weak, the champion, who gives a **** about his fans, eats them up and asks for more quickly.

I can only blame the WBA so much. Their corruption is inevitable, the courts often force their hand regardless of how agreeable they try to be for any given party.

I can only blame ranking so much, men should bend make play things of hierarchies. We are multidimensional beings after all.

Who is it that failed the title of undisputed? The champions of course. The fans then as now pushed for undisputed and unification. The fans always do.

Champions are who give titles value beyond sport. The bodies can only do so much. They can say this man is the champion of this sport. The man though, he is who decides if the champion is the world's baddest man or some such similar nonsense. The greatest, lick any son of a ***** in the room, etc.

Champions, I like, are not what we make them.

Evander is the name the comes out looking best. Evander always gave a **** about what fans wanted, gave a **** about what he needed to do for the awards, Evander Holyfield was the last proper undisputed champion.

Lennox got paid, good for him.

Holyfield should have fought more too, but, at least he has enough names, win or lose, to forgive the lack of repetition given he had to make fights with these characters and make agreeable terms with a lot of different high level or at least money making acts.



If the WBA was less corruptible sound similar to me to if religion was less corruptible. Good luck to ya with that, sounds fantical to me.

Undisputed doesn't matter as much as the best fighting the best could be true if the best didn't treat lesser-thans as if they were equal-tos and take as much time to deal with an automatic fight with a lesser competitor as they do the best.


We act like the good holy boxer is powerless against the evil money hungry suit, but, the easiest answer really is to treat a scrub like he's a scrub and move on to the real fight in just a few months after the half ass mando.

Dudes who work the system continue to do so, The bodies continues to make plenty of money, the fans get to see the fights they want, the only people it asks anything of are the champions who don't have long careers anyway and spend most of their lives at home sitting on ass as is.

two or three six-week training camps a year, two or three shows to appear at, sit on ass the rest of the year, make a few 100 Mil.....uh....I think we're getting screwed and I think fighters been whining so long about pay and Don King and **** like that we've let them become as greedy and snakish as the promoters and managers and bodies they represent.

The only thing pure in boxing is the fans.

[billeau2]

- -Hyde was crushing Big Dummy early doors.

Byrd an elusive southpaw much more highly regarded. Lewis fainting goat actions regarding Ruiz and Byrd etched in stone.

My Dad, a lifelong Louis and Ali fan, was telling me one day about Marciano. As he put it Archie Moore was a fine fighter indeed and was having all the success in the world...

Robert Smith, such a great story teller, and author, who it was reputed: people were lining up to read his grocery list tells it better:

The fight was something to behold, and the boxing man went to work on the poor hapless slugger... boxing man could not miss! it was making a mess, the poor guy's face, the hubub of the crown was like a symphany growing into a creshendo and then... silence. Looks of awe. Everything changed when that one punch connected as there were two sounds: the shot and the boxing man hitting what was to be his perch for a while, the ground.

Herbie Hide indeed!

Queenie do you honestly believe that Byrd could, on his best day, have been a challenge to Lewis? Seriously?

[QueensburyRules]

My Dad, a lifelong Louis and Ali fan, was telling me one day about Marciano. As he put it Archie Moore was a fine fighter indeed and was having all the success in the world...

Robert Smith, such a great story teller, and author, who it was reputed: people were lining up to read his grocery list tells it better:

The fight was something to behold, and the boxing man went to work on the poor hapless slugger... boxing man could not miss! it was making a mess, the poor guy's face, the hubub of the crown was like a symphany growing into a creshendo and then... silence. Looks of awe. Everything changed when that one punch connected as there were two sounds: the shot and the boxing man hitting what was to be his perch for a while, the ground.

Herbie Hide indeed!

Queenie do you honestly believe that Byrd could, on his best day, have been a challenge to Lewis? Seriously?

- -Lewis struggled with smallish, quick fighters and moreover only fought 1 southpaw near as I recall whereas his K successors fought a plethora of them.

He was greedy, DKing was greedy, boxing greedy, so, VOILA, the perfect ménage a trois concocted in Dante's Inferno.

[billeau2]

Reading on, this thread being my primary influence, I think I'm still leaning more toward the WBA. I wanted to throw some philosophy at you that is only actually loosely related, but while reading the Boxrec account of things I began to wonder.

This post carried the most weight with me, it stuck in my mind as I concerned events:


Keeping in mind, Queenie has done well by my account for his part. I am a Byrd fan after all, perhaps, serendipitous bias, perhaps he's on to something.

Anyway, while balancing what would effectively boil down to my philosophical hate for bureaucracy(Your voice) against my newly recognized love for bureaucracy (Queen's voice). I came to wonder if the WBA and WBC are not modern boxing what is?

To be more direct, if one were to ask me, Marche what do you think of hierarchy of any type, I would tell you my heart is with the low man and I hate hierarchy of any type because it presumes too much of multidimensional beings creating classes of people who can be divided many ways and defining them by one division, of course.

Philosophically opposed to hierarchy and by transitive any form of bureaucracy is just ungodly distasteful in my eyes.

However, what is undisputed? What are ranks? What are champions? What is boxing really? Very, very simple things to anyone let alone a fan. A champion is simply the best is he not?

Well, no...no he's not is he? A champion is a man who has an award given to him by a bureaucratic entity.

Ranks list the best men in the weight division from best to worst except for when they don't and men get ranked automatically based on things like regional awards from bureaucratic en****** tied to global bureaucracies.

Boxing is a sport pointed on hitting and not being hit back with the caveat of damage causing a winning end at any moment. It's also a sport carefully maintained and controlled by bureaucracy.

Boxing itself is hierarchical, and just like the debate about sport vs martial art, boxing as a sport is debatable.


The WBA, along with the WBC, IBF, and WBO are boxing....or, are the fans boxing?



As far as fighting Grant, I don't hold that against Lewis really, but the idea that Grant was ever worth giving up undisputed is hard for me to accept. I do like Grant, and in 2000 he definitely would seem like a great opponent, but, undisputed.

There is the crux of it all. Why does Undisputed matter if it is controlled by en****** that do cause avenues for weak title fights to not just happen but even be the main staple.

I criticize Wlad for hiding behind mandos and never making a vol and here I am saying Lennox should have fought his mando. The only real difference is a bit of semantics and bull****, and while I am well aware of that there is a voice that just simply says " That's just boxing though" and continues on believing Lennox should have fought his damn mando because Undisputed means more than Grant ever could.

Why does undisputed mean more than Grant? It is just sanctioning from en****** that continuously gave me clowns like Mormeck.

Sill, undisputed is undisputed, and I think the problem is with this:

If I have a big workload ahead of me it's tough ******* if I'd rather like to go boating instead.

Lennox fought 3 times in 2000 and really, for HW champions, that's not bad, 3 a year is good, and, that's my beef.

It's hard for me to unilaterally dislike the bodies. I really don't see the point of the IBF or WBO to be honest, but, the WBC and WBA did do a lot for boxing to make boxing what it is today. Things like the 10 point must, the 3 KD rule, rounds, weight classes, you know...boxing. One can say the IBU or NSC was first but the NYSAC and NBA are who standardized boxing and by now the bodies have pretty little variance in format and rules. Boxing is coherent because they made it so. They are our organization as much as the organizations.

So, while Mormeck does really, really, really piss me off, I have to ask myself can I make system, a hierarchy, that is not susceptible to unfair positioning by any means?

When you really get into how boxing works, I'm glad I have no part of it. It's like asking can I code a game that can not ever be exploited....Of course no one can.

So is it the WBA's fault Ruiz was in position or was it Ruiz's fault? Do you fault a man for working a system? Wouldn't you work the system as well? Can you fault a man for having an imperfect system? Can you create a perfect system? Not an idealistic system, one that actually works. One that humans can carry out from the local level to the world level.

Given this, given fighters can not mix words or work our natural bias against us on this one thing, does the fact that Lennox fought two, second round KO fights and one real fight albeit lopsided, not point the finger at fighters in general giving pretty low ****s about their fans or the organizations?

Lennox, and John, and hell Michael too, they all seem in it for the money. Why can't Lennox Lewis fight Ruiz, Grant, Botha, and Tua in a year?

I mean, he wants to please his fans right? High minded as he is.

He wants to be a legend right?

One more fight a year means everyone's happy. More fights a year mean Lennox Lewis doesn't get put in this position in the first place actually.


Let me ask you, If Joshua fought Pulev, Usyk, Fury, and Wilder all this year, wouldn't that be his legend? I a world without a pandemic Everything else is just icing the cake from there. He could even lose to the next batch of talent and we'd call him past prime.

6, 8, 10 fights a year....that's for talented starters isn't it? Champions, twice, maybe three times a year.....no matter how soft the competition in front of them is. When they have mandos, oh well, they have mandos, not their fault......isn't it though?

When I get a big workload it's tough *******, knuckle up.

If the mandos are weak, the champion, who gives a **** about his fans, eats them up and asks for more quickly.

I can only blame the WBA so much. Their corruption is inevitable, the courts often force their hand regardless of how agreeable they try to be for any given party.

I can only blame ranking so much, men should bend make play things of hierarchies. We are multidimensional beings after all.

Who is it that failed the title of undisputed? The champions of course. The fans then as now pushed for undisputed and unification. The fans always do.

Champions are who give titles value beyond sport. The bodies can only do so much. They can say this man is the champion of this sport. The man though, he is who decides if the champion is the world's baddest man or some such similar nonsense. The greatest, lick any son of a ***** in the room, etc.

Champions, I like, are not what we make them.

Evander is the name the comes out looking best. Evander always gave a **** about what fans wanted, gave a **** about what he needed to do for the awards, Evander Holyfield was the last proper undisputed champion.

Lennox got paid, good for him.

Holyfield should have fought more too, but, at least he has enough names, win or lose, to forgive the lack of repetition given he had to make fights with these characters and make agreeable terms with a lot of different high level or at least money making acts.



If the WBA was less corruptible sound similar to me to if religion was less corruptible. Good luck to ya with that, sounds fantical to me.

Undisputed doesn't matter as much as the best fighting the best could be true if the best didn't treat lesser-thans as if they were equal-tos and take as much time to deal with an automatic fight with a lesser competitor as they do the best.


We act like the good holy boxer is powerless against the evil money hungry suit, but, the easiest answer really is to treat a scrub like he's a scrub and move on to the real fight in just a few months after the half ass mando.

Dudes who work the system continue to do so, The bodies continues to make plenty of money, the fans get to see the fights they want, the only people it asks anything of are the champions who don't have long careers anyway and spend most of their lives at home sitting on ass as is.

two or three six-week training camps a year, two or three shows to appear at, sit on ass the rest of the year, make a few 100 Mil.....uh....I think we're getting screwed and I think fighters been whining so long about pay and Don King and **** like that we've let them become as greedy and snakish as the promoters and managers and bodies they represent.

The only thing pure in boxing is the fans.

A lot to unpack here:

As an aside lets talk Byrd. I actually like Chris Byrd. I just happen to think that given his level of talent and assets, he is not that good in the scheme of things. He never beat a world class fighter at, or near prime, with the caveat of Vitalie quitting. Tua was perhaps his best win? But I have no problem with Byrd.

It was Max Weber who showed that burocracy and to some extend hierarchy is part of our social instinct. We will, whether we like it, or not, develop these structures accordingly. We must therefore work through them, and not try to deny them their part in the process.

Fighters have always been between a rock and a hard place here. You have the promoters, and you have the sanctioning bodies, which include, the provisions of these bodies. And these bodies have gotten stronger and stronger. So where as before, when Dempsey was king, for example, a fighter could basically put what he wanted in and to a large extent, on his body, now? James Toney takes something to heal a knee injury and steroid abuse! Meanwhile the fighter has a responsibility to a promotional contract, not simply his own people.

This is inevitable... going back to Weber. So the sanctioning bodies are there and they do create an organized system for a fighter. Ultimately these organizations are a good thing, no doubt. They create safety, probability, and probity where in the past, none of these could be counted upon.

I agree with you on these points. My problem is that there are too many and when one gives power to these groups they become too self important. witness the British Boxing Council that tried to stop Chisora fighting Haye... That is the very definition of self important to me. Its like these groups compete among themselves at times, with their sanctioning... and the fighter must decide who he will validate in the quest to simply be the best.

So to me it is imperfect and necessary. Necessary for all the reasons you state. Can fighters fight more? can they treat mandos as something to look past? Can they decide they will fight those that the fans want at the expense of these bodies? I think all of the above, even when they contradict one another, are realistic for a fighter to choose. I just like a fighter who chooses! I also like a fighter who does not hide behind a mando...something I feel the Klits did with impunity. It hurt Vitalie. To this day many consider him potentially a great fighter who fought crap.

So I like the struggle between the sanctioning bodies and the individual fighter. Your point about fighters starting to get more self possessed as they get more power (I forgot how you put it) is also a great point. Agreed.

[Marchegiano]

A lot to unpack here:

As an aside lets talk Byrd. I actually like Chris Byrd. I just happen to think that given his level of talent and assets, he is not that good in the scheme of things. He never beat a world class fighter at, or near prime, with the caveat of Vitalie quitting. Tua was perhaps his best win? But I have no problem with Byrd.

It was Max Weber who showed that burocracy and to some extend hierarchy is part of our social instinct. We will, whether we like it, or not, develop these structures accordingly. We must therefore work through them, and not try to deny them their part in the process.

Fighters have always been between a rock and a hard place here. You have the promoters, and you have the sanctioning bodies, which include, the provisions of these bodies. And these bodies have gotten stronger and stronger. So where as before, when Dempsey was king, for example, a fighter could basically put what he wanted in and to a large extent, on his body, now? James Toney takes something to heal a knee injury and steroid abuse! Meanwhile the fighter has a responsibility to a promotional contract, not simply his own people.

This is inevitable... going back to Weber. So the sanctioning bodies are there and they do create an organized system for a fighter. Ultimately these organizations are a good thing, no doubt. They create safety, probability, and probity where in the past, none of these could be counted upon.

I agree with you on these points. My problem is that there are too many and when one gives power to these groups they become too self important. witness the British Boxing Council that tried to stop Chisora fighting Haye... That is the very definition of self important to me. Its like these groups compete among themselves at times, with their sanctioning... and the fighter must decide who he will validate in the quest to simply be the best.

So to me it is imperfect and necessary. Necessary for all the reasons you state. Can fighters fight more? can they treat mandos as something to look past? Can they decide they will fight those that the fans want at the expense of these bodies? I think all of the above, even when they contradict one another, are realistic for a fighter to choose. I just like a fighter who chooses! I also like a fighter who does not hide behind a mando...something I feel the Klits did with impunity. It hurt Vitalie. To this day many consider him potentially a great fighter who fought crap.

So I like the struggle between the sanctioning bodies and the individual fighter. Your point about fighters starting to get more self possessed as they get more power (I forgot how you put it) is also a great point. Agreed.

yeah, I should have organized my thoughts

I wonder, why is it promoters even exist. Why shouldn't promotion of a title fight fall under the owners of a title? Or, at least, why do promoters work with boxers not bodies?


Doesn't it seem wrong? Not morally, just, if you were making that machine would you go that route? I don't think I would.


As it stands, the WBA owns the WBA titles. They pick who fights for WBA titles and they decide when, the rules that will be fought under, and what is expected of their champions after victory.

A champion can't even take a vol without the OK of the body they rep.

The WBA then tells the fighters " We don't promote the fight, we don't hire any entity to promote the fight, the WBA world title fight you have secured will be promoted by whoever you secure to do the promotion"


What?

WTF is that?


It'll be awhile before I have my own personal verdict, I'm flip flopping all the time, but, right now, I'm feeling like if the WBA wanted Lennox to fight Ruiz the WBA should have made that fight attractive. Promoted it into something Lennox wants, something the fans want, and, most importantly, preserve the honor of their title


Lennox never owned a WBA title, those are rented at best. The WBA owned that title and while I can forgive corruption I can not forgive the total lack of effort in keeping the WBA prestigious.


There is something wrong, beyond working ranking rules, that allows a champion to be stripped by a body for not fighting a lesser man. That lessens their title.


The fans should be clambering for the mandatories not upset by their quality and really what was Grant? I like Grant a lot, I reckon he's underrated often, but, the real is Grant was a hype job which is only possible if the bodies allow promoters to promote non-champions as if they are somehow equal to champion and guys who are not ranked worth half a piss on official board to skyrocket on unofficial boards.


When the WBA allows a former WBA champion to be promoted by a **** show just because that former has fallen from grace the WBA co-signs their own lack of respect for champions.

When the WBA sits idle while Don King and Eddie Hearn promote men who have done nothing into title shots the WBA hands over the worth of those titles to those promoters.



In the boxing I know, the bodies have totally given in to the promoters and allow promoters to tell us, the fans, who is good, who is worth watching, and who isn't.


That's the bodies fault. In my mind atm the core issues go back to the bodies. Not the fighters, not the fans, the entity that is supposed to oversee boxing but turns away from promoting the sport.



Hell, only the WBC ever promoted themselves as anything special and they went at it half assed at best.

[billeau2]

yeah, I should have organized my thoughts

I wonder, why is it promoters even exist. Why shouldn't promotion of a title fight fall under the owners of a title? Or, at least, why do promoters work with boxers not bodies?


Doesn't it seem wrong? Not morally, just, if you were making that machine would you go that route? I don't think I would.


As it stands, the WBA owns the WBA titles. They pick who fights for WBA titles and they decide when, the rules that will be fought under, and what is expected of their champions after victory.

A champion can't even take a vol without the OK of the body they rep.

The WBA then tells the fighters " We don't promote the fight, we don't hire any entity to promote the fight, the WBA world title fight you have secured will be promoted by whoever you secure to do the promotion"


What?

WTF is that?


It'll be awhile before I have my own personal verdict, I'm flip flopping all the time, but, right now, I'm feeling like if the WBA wanted Lennox to fight Ruiz the WBA should have made that fight attractive. Promoted it into something Lennox wants, something the fans want, and, most importantly, preserve the honor of their title


Lennox never owned a WBA title, those are rented at best. The WBA owned that title and while I can forgive corruption I can not forgive the total lack of effort in keeping the WBA prestigious.


There is something wrong, beyond working ranking rules, that allows a champion to be stripped by a body for not fighting a lesser man. That lessens their title.


The fans should be clambering for the mandatories not upset by their quality and really what was Grant? I like Grant a lot, I reckon he's underrated often, but, the real is Grant was a hype job which is only possible if the bodies allow promoters to promote non-champions as if they are somehow equal to champion and guys who are not ranked worth half a piss on official board to skyrocket on unofficial boards.


When the WBA allows a former WBA champion to be promoted by a **** show just because that former has fallen from grace the WBA co-signs their own lack of respect for champions.

When the WBA sits idle while Don King and Eddie Hearn promote men who have done nothing into title shots the WBA hands over the worth of those titles to those promoters.



In the boxing I know, the bodies have totally given in to the promoters and allow promoters to tell us, the fans, who is good, who is worth watching, and who isn't.


That's the bodies fault. In my mind atm the core issues go back to the bodies. Not the fighters, not the fans, the entity that is supposed to oversee boxing but turns away from promoting the sport.



Hell, only the WBC ever promoted themselves as anything special and they went at it half assed at best.

Yup... It is indeed a problem with "scope of authority." Promoters have powers of one sort or another and they often run into grey areas when considering the sanctioning bodies. Does not exist in any other major sport...In wrasslin the promoters have the power But they all work for the Governing body!

[Monzon99]

King essentially bought the belts off Lewis and tried to freeze out the Klitschkos.

[QueensburyRules]

A lot to unpack here:

As an aside lets talk Byrd. I actually like Chris Byrd. I just happen to think that given his level of talent and assets, he is not that good in the scheme of things. He never beat a world class fighter at, or near prime, with the caveat of Vitalie quitting. Tua was perhaps his best win? But I have no problem with Byrd.

It was Max Weber who showed that burocracy and to some extend hierarchy is part of our social instinct. We will, whether we like it, or not, develop these structures accordingly. We must therefore work through them, and not try to deny them their part in the process.

Fighters have always been between a rock and a hard place here. You have the promoters, and you have the sanctioning bodies, which include, the provisions of these bodies. And these bodies have gotten stronger and stronger. So where as before, when Dempsey was king, for example, a fighter could basically put what he wanted in and to a large extent, on his body, now? James Toney takes something to heal a knee injury and steroid abuse! Meanwhile the fighter has a responsibility to a promotional contract, not simply his own people.

This is inevitable... going back to Weber. So the sanctioning bodies are there and they do create an organized system for a fighter. Ultimately these organizations are a good thing, no doubt. They create safety, probability, and probity where in the past, none of these could be counted upon.

I agree with you on these points. My problem is that there are too many and when one gives power to these groups they become too self important. witness the British Boxing Council that tried to stop Chisora fighting Haye... That is the very definition of self important to me. Its like these groups compete among themselves at times, with their sanctioning... and the fighter must decide who he will validate in the quest to simply be the best.

So to me it is imperfect and necessary. Necessary for all the reasons you state. Can fighters fight more? can they treat mandos as something to look past? Can they decide they will fight those that the fans want at the expense of these bodies? I think all of the above, even when they contradict one another, are realistic for a fighter to choose. I just like a fighter who chooses! I also like a fighter who does not hide behind a mando...something I feel the Klits did with impunity. It hurt Vitalie. To this day many consider him potentially a great fighter who fought crap.

So I like the struggle between the sanctioning bodies and the individual fighter. Your point about fighters starting to get more self possessed as they get more power (I forgot how you put it) is also a great point. Agreed.

- -Ks didn't make it a cr*p era, American fans, media, and and fighters did because the Ks humiliated them playing by American designed rules.

If You look at a Ring top 10 in their era or better a boxrec top 25, you have a better sense of how dominant they were against the strongest competition in heavywt history. Most all would handily outsize and beat down most title contenders and champs in history.

Moreover, between them the Ks were fighting 4x a year, and as You scan the top 25 , just about every name had previously been dominated by one or the other and the few left were DKing fighters waiting on easier road kill.

[Marchegiano]

- -Ks didn't make it a cr*p era, American fans, media, and and fighters did because the Ks humiliated them playing by American designed rules.

If You look at a Ring top 10 in their era or better a boxrec top 25, you have a better sense of how dominant they were against the strongest competition in heavywt history. Most all would handily outsize and beat down most title contenders and champs in history.

Moreover, between them the Ks were fighting 4x a year, and as You scan the top 25 , just about every name had previously been dominated by one or the other and the few left were DKing fighters waiting on easier road kill.

Outright bull****


If either brother wanted to make a splash they wouldn't have built their careers off minor belts in minor rankings


Vitali's a champion by 99 except the WBO was **** and no one gave a **** about it

Not, no one gave a **** about these two Euros because they were sad over these two euros winning, the ****ing most recognized name for a WBO champ by 99 was GD Morrison; no one gave a **** about the WBO.

People knew Tommy like they know Dre....the boxing fans knew, not the American fan base who bought Tyson's PPVs.

Moorer?

Bowe sure, but Bowe was a real champion first

Mercer?

They were the weak champion my entire childhood. Pick a name, the WBO champ before the K2 era was treated exactly like the K2s.....lesser than. Pick any name and tell me it ain't true.

K2 decided to fight for WBO titles and WBO ranks during a time when they actually could have gotten American interest. The WBO just wasn't how you do it. Morrison was barely known and his ass was in a Rocky.


By way of fighting WBO fights at a time when the WBO was a sideact they both builty resumes that amount to little during a time when they could have toppled some of the biggest, to this day, names in boxing.


Then, after all the talent is retired or should be, then, Wlad and Vitali make a play for belts that are not WBO while they themselves, their fans, and even the media tries to convince me it's not their faults they waited in the WBO while the big boys played in the big boy bodies until there were no big boys and the WBO was considered equal.


It is both the brother's fault their collective best fight is a losing effort to the real champion.

It is Wlad's fault most of his career he was uninterested in building in a real ranking and opted for a minor.


If some IBO champ who fought IBO level fighters sits on an IBO belt for four years and then in that time all the divisional names who held the WBC/WBA/IBF/WBO belts have retired so after the four years he makes a play for the IBF against a guy who was just four years ago IBO caliber and proceeds to continue defending against IBO fighters for the IBF; that mother ****er too would have a hard time building interest and would have the criticism of having never fought anyone worth a ****, and, would have to wait until new fans came with new perspective to forgive the entire IBO run and pretend like there was no one for this poor IBO fighter and we all just ignored him, not because he's an IBO scrub but because he's foreign......yeah.......nevermind we made Pac.....it's 'cause they foreign doe not because they ducked the real competition until there was none.

[billeau2]

- -Ks didn't make it a cr*p era, American fans, media, and and fighters did because the Ks humiliated them playing by American designed rules.

If You look at a Ring top 10 in their era or better a boxrec top 25, you have a better sense of how dominant they were against the strongest competition in heavywt history. Most all would handily outsize and beat down most title contenders and champs in history.

Moreover, between them the Ks were fighting 4x a year, and as You scan the top 25 , just about every name had previously been dominated by one or the other and the few left were DKing fighters waiting on easier road kill.

Your talking about Emmanual Stewart... Thats not all of America, the rest of the post is a flight of fancy. Come back down to earth sir! Its a tough life here on Earth, but we pass soon enough.