The Ring Magazine belt....it should decide who the REAL champ is....

[RedRooster]

ring isnt corrupt or biased. i remeber you saying there were biased against foreign fighters, right before ricky hatton was named fighter of the year. LOL at you!

Lies, lies, lies.

[TOPitBull]

While The Ring definitely prefers some fighters over others, who holds the belt is determined by a formula, not someones opinion.
I swear by The Ring belts.

[TheEvilSaint]

Why? Ring Magazine is corrupted, Ring Magazine is only an opinion.

The solution? Decide for yourself! I worked that out a long time ago.

this is good advice, but not for boxing.

there are too many ****** people out there with too many ****** opinions and ****** ideas for ****** champions. the ring magazine has been around for longer than 80 years. they know their stuff. the ring magazine is the title belt that matters most.

[grayfist]

It ain't perfect but The Ring belts have better pedigree and provenance than any offered by the alphabets.

With that said, isn't it sad that a magazine gets ascendancy over any and all of the sanctioning bodies?

And what about Canastota? Aren't the members of boxing media the ones dictating enshrinees instead of sanctioning bodies or state/national commissions? The ones who nominally make policies have little say over who are declared great. What's worse, the IBHOF is a product of the efforts of the people of a little town in NY state, and not of any of the alphabet organizations.

Of course, the WBC has its own Hall. But not too many have been paying attention. When the vast majority of people speak of a Boxing Hall of Fame, they mean Canastota.

Canastota and The Ring belts: testaments to the ineptitude and corruption that plague the alphabets. Deadly combination, that.

[mic573]

I find it quite funny that The Ring magazine talks **** about the belts but one of thier criteria for the The Ring belt is to unify a division.

The Ring belt holds no more weight than any other belt. HBO is a network who constantly talks down on the belts but they are quick to put on a championship bout. I don't agree with the policies of the organizations but name me one fighter who has ever said I'm training hard to win The Ring belt. They will gladly accept The Ring belt but that belt doesn't put money in a fighters pocket unless they are an established superstar. So the media and the fans can talk **** all they want but the fighters still care about those alphabet belts.

[gattifan24]

I'd love to see a fighter refuse to pay any sanctioning fees once he becomes a champion, forfeit all the titles and refer to himself as the People's champion. He'd save money from the fees and fight fans would recognize him as the best. Thats what I'd do in my dreamworld if I were a boxer!

[grayfist]

In 1984, when Larry Holmes dumped his WBC belt and took up the one offered by the fledgeling IBF, it was a case widely seen as the fighter lending prestige to the belt and not the other way around.

But the story has this side to it: Holmes picked up the offer-- goes to show he wanted an alphabet belt, regardless of who gave it to him. The IBF then was never mentioned in the same breath as the WBC.

When Pacquiao met Barrera, there was no belt at stake other than The Ring belt because Marco had already dumped the WBC version after having wrested it from Erik Morales and before meeting Johnny Tapia and Kevin Kelly. Pac and Marco fought just the same. Tapia, Kevin and Manny therefore aimed at nothing more than The Ring belt, which was the only one Marco had when they faced him.

At around the same time, Erik had regained the vacated WBC throne over Paulie Ayala in a box-off, then dealt with Eddie Croft and Fernando Velardez, names that do not glimmer as well even when compared with the diminishing lusters of Tapia and Kelley.