Matchmaking question - i dont understand it

[SentinelAeon]

Hello, i have been watching heavyweight boxing for a while, but i do not know much about about rings and how matches are made. I have been wondering this for a while and maybe you can help me understand it better. To me, if you are a pro boxer, your goal is to fight those at the top for a shot to be the best. In soccer in the final we always have 2 clubs that defeated everyone else to get to this point. We don't see best club fighting against the worst club.


I will first name a few fighters who got the opportunity to fight against the current champion and i do not know why they deserved this. Gerald Washington fought against wilder. Chris Arreola fought against Joshua and Klitschko. Artur Szpilka against Wilder. Éric Molina against wilder and joshua. Charles Martin against Joshua. Malik Scott against Wilder. I am not trying to take anything away from this guys, they are in the top 20, maybe even top 10 at the time of the fight. But they were all completely declassed, it was like watching pro against amateur, with the exception of Szpilka who was if im not mistaken winning in the points. But they didnt seem to be in the same class as Wilder, Joshua, Klitschko or Fury. And probably to me the most scandalous - Dominic Breazeale. He fought against both Joshua and Wilder. Got declassed. How did he earn that opportunity.

Then there are some fighters who would, at least to my amateur eyes, appear a lot more in place to be given a shot. Ortiz. He was undefeated until the age of 39, when he finaly fought someone that we say is a top fighter and he was actualy winning on points. Obviously he got brutaly knocked out but the fact that he fought a top notch fighter for the first time at 39 when most people are already retired ... He declassed malic scott and bryant jennings, yet they both fought champions years before him, first one Wilder, second one Klitschko. I would bet on Ortiz against all fighters i mentioned previously.

Then we have joe joyce. The first time i heard of him is when he was about to fight daniel dubois, i thought he just started boxing and i see hes 36, close to retirement. I am not saying he is something special but he is huge and i am pretty sure he would win against all fighters that i mentioned previously.

I will just mention this two but surely there are more names. Why are some people constantly given option to fight the champion and then we have some other boxers who most of the community would say are far better fighters ... are fighting some fighters that dont even have a wiki page. Is this their choice, they want to remain unbeaten and fight bums ... or are the promoters actualy denying them the fight ?

And just my opinion, again, my opinion is not important, i dont know much about boxing but to me it would be logical that you dont ask the fighters who they wanna fight - you force them. Simple. If you want to compete in our competition, you will fight people of your level, and that way when we have a champion, we can be sure he really is the best. And that problem with so many rings is also a problem. I think there should be a champions league of boxing where you would simply fight and then advance if you win, like best of 2 or 3. This way it doesn't make sense. And seriously ... Dominic Breazeale, i am not trying to take anything away from him but boxing skill clearly isnt on the same level as champions. So there must be some other reason. It cant be charisma - hes got as much charisma as a jar of pickles. And then you have Ortiz. Even if you dont like his boxing, hes great for promotion. His nickname is king kong. He comes into ring beating his chest like king kong. He looks unusual, its almost as his head is hidden behind his neck. Its brutal. He gets hit in the head and he punches his head 3 times and goes forward. And then you have Joe Joyce who is at least to me a lot more boring. But he is huge. His nickname is juggernaut. If nothing else ... if someone like Wilder would KO him, even him falling would be something amazing. I do not understand it, please help me understand.
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[RJJ-94-02=GOAT]

Boxing is all about money. It’s risk vs reward, that’s why we often see mismatches and see the best fights marinated. To go back to your football comparison there’s no singular governing body like FIFA. There’s 4 main governing bodies (WBC, WBA, IBF and WBO.) and several other less powerful organisations scattered across the sport, all have their own individual agendas, priorities etc. It often leads to conflicting interests.

Then you have promotional cold wars and network politics which constantly get in the way of the best fights happening. I always think of boxing as this giant troth of slop with hundreds of greedy pigs trying to poke their noses in. Everybody is trying to get a piece of the pie, whether it’s promoters, managers, advisors trainers, family members, network executives, the media etc. It’s a shameless business man.

A lot of these guys will do anything to get a foot in the door or to make a quick buck because unlike football there isn’t enough money to go around. Lads who play in the 4th tier of English football earn more than some World Champions. Boxing has some massive events but it’s generally a niche sport so you have to maximise revenue, the vast majority of fighters are looking for that one big pay day that one cash out fight and that’s why fighters often protect their records, avoid taking unnecessary risks etc. Their manager or promoter will literally have the same ambition too as one loss can ruin everything not just financially but physically too. Again to go back to football this isn’t a game it’s two people literally trying to inflict serious damage onto one another.

[anonymous2.0]

Matchmaking usually breaks down into the following categories:

Building up your fighter's mentality, skill, and experience as they fight better and more varied fighters. Not only are you getting your fighter more experience fighting better competition, your also getting your fighter experience in big fight atmosphere and the event. You can say that Wilder's early opponents when he won his title were meant to give him more contender level experience, sharpen up his boxing IQ and stop him from windmilling, as well as fitting into his role as champion easier.

Building up their brand name. High KO% and an undefeated record are easy for casuals to understand and so you see fighters facing weak competiton, see Wilder. Multidivision champs are lucrative so in this 4 belt era you got guys that target the weakest champ in the division or fight for vacant titles, see Adrian Broner. Fighters that play the Heel attract attention because we want to see them lose. Building your brand could also be as simple as being Mexican and fighting on Mexican Independence Day or a Puerto Rican fighting on Puerto Rico Parade day or being Irish and fighting on St Patty's Day.

Boxing politics. Sometimes fighters do want to fight each other but sometimes their own teams get in the way. Kovalev vs Stevenson was never made because both fighters were tied to opposing networks and couldn't get the fight made. The whole Mayweather/Pacquaio debacle. It's also a reason why promoters are so eager to have 2 of their own fighters fight so they can make more money.

Money fights. As the name says, these fights are made because its easy money. On paper Joshua vs Klitschko was a money fight, Joshua was the in his prime champ and Klitschko while old and out of the ring for over a year, still had name value. Usually a fan friendly name that's too long in the tooth will take these, like Chris Arreola.

The funny thing is though a fight could fall in one category or it can fall into all four categories.

[SentinelAeon]

But in the end its the fans that bring that money. They pay tickets. They watch "ads" and "promotions" so fighters/managers/etc. get money from companies. Wouldn't that kind of make fans in the power, as in, get together, make a campaign and simply demand this to stop ? Maybe i have my own agenda as in i would love to see Wilder vs Joshua and Joshua vs Fury. To me its the logical thing to do. Everyone wants those fights. And i am sure it would bring enough money. But yeah, like in so many other things, its about money and politics. A shame really. Maybe 1 thing to look up to is Wilder. If Fury really retires and Wilder doesn't, then he will have huge motivation to redeem himself and get his pride back. And to me that means he would want to fight Joshua since Joshua is still a huge name and since Wilder always goes for 1 punch knockout, i give him a chance in every fight. Now Joshua, if he wins against Usyk, he wont have any need to go fight Wilder. But if he loses again, then maybe he will also have a good motivation to fight Wilder since technicaly i think hes a better fighter than Wilder, but with less stamina and less of a 1 punch power. And i am pretty sure both Wilder and Joshua are big enough names to force their agents/promoters/whoever to arange them a fight they want or just switch an agent. Same with Fury ... i simply dont see him wanting a certain fight and his agent telling him to his face nope, ur not getting this fight. He would get ... FURYus

[gauze]

Wouldn't that kind of make fans in the power, as in, get together, make a campaign and simply demand this to stop ?

that would never happen. there's a lot of people on here that will buy every and any PPV because they think it "supports boxing". they fail to realize that it just encourages more mismatches and garbage that doesn't belong on PPV in the first place.

[PBR Streetgang]

Boxing is a different sport altogether than team sports or something like tennis that is individual. A training camp for a fight is around 2 months or so. You can only fight so many times in a calendar year and you typically need time off in between training camps (especially as you progress in your career and face stiffer opposition for more at stake). You can't have leagues or tournaments to determine who is the best.

On top of that, each fighter is tied to a promotion and if they are lucky to a network. These create obstacles. It's "prize fighting" so economics play a factor (usually THE factor), you want to maximize the reward for the risk taken. There are numerous sanctioning bodies and they are fairly dodgy as are their ranking systems.

The fighter and the team behind him weigh risk and reward in order to maximize the return (which could be money, rankings, etc).

You bring up Luis Ortiz, perhaps he was avoided as an opponent because he's skilled and dangerous but doesn't generate revenue among fans. Perhaps he avoided some because he only wanted to be bothered with big fights for big money.

It's all a very complicated business....

[SentinelAeon]

I don't know who this Nick Peet is but i really loved what he had to say. How the fans and boxers should get on the same train and tell those old farts to take their rings and go **** themselves. If we had only 1 competition then sooner or later all the best would fight eachother. But now we have so many rings that almost everyone can be a champion. Good part starts at 2:39, dont know why forum wont accept timestamp.

[SentinelAeon]

Btw, 1 fight that i am really looking forward is Ruiz vs Ortiz. Though i think its sad that Ortiz is way past his prime due to his age but i still think he will put up a good fight. And it will be interesting to see how the big weight loss affected Ruiz. Will that make him faster and more dangerous, or will it actualy negatively impact him due to Ortiz being big and strong and will he manhandle him around the ring. Ruiz otherwise looks such a nice friendly guy. When i look replays of first fight against Joshua, i almost cannot belive that agressive flurry that he went into after he first clipped Joshua. I am thinking like, how is that nice guy able to hit another person, let alone hitting him like 15 times in a row. And Ortiz is just nice to see. He really is peculiar. He has that killer look but hes really a nice guy.

From other comming fights the only one i am really looking forward is Usyk vs Joshua. I want to see how Joshua tactics will change and how Usyk will adapt. Other than that we have Pulev vs Chisora which in my opinion will be a boring fight, i really dont like Pulev style and i guess i have seen to many Chisora fights to see something new, maybe the only thing great would be if Chisora won after so many defeats and being an underdog. Kinda like Povetkin won against Whyte in first fight. And Kownacki ... fighting against unknown Ali Eren Demirezen, i dont know, after his 2 losses it seems almost as he is giving up. and Fabio Wardley vs Kingsley Ibeh, i dont know either. And thats about it from the upcoming fights. I would love to see another Wilder fight. But now that Fury retired it seems that heavyweight will go downhill again. Joe Joyce is old. Daniel Dubois might end up being a champ fighting bums for years to come when everyone else retires. I think looking back we will say what an amazing period of heavyweight it was when we had at the same time active fighters: Klitschko, Wilder, Joshua and Fury. Sadly we didnt see much, everyone but Fury avoided him while he was in his prime, then Fury went away for 2 years and Wilder and Joshua never fought. So much potential but not much realised.