My solution to alphabet titles- network champions

[Kris Silver]

Like I said they shouldn't try to cover them all, just the 17 real champs at the very most.

Rigondeux would still have gotten his shot because it was a good match up regardless of the alphabet belts on the line.

All Calzaghe's top fights were on showtime or HBO. before that you couldn't consider him the clear best in the division.

If anything having a network champ would be more of an incentive to match fighters to because you wouldn't be able to make as much money as you can when you can currently pick and choose the hundreds of titles out there now.

Furthermore on calzaghe, he was the one with PPV prospects more than any other 'local' US guy. He was the money-man. That's why showtime and HBO went to wales to cover his fights. Only his last two were in the US.

Let's say on average there's 2-3 champs per division at present. If 2 networks suddenly take over from the organisations (something un-heard really on that scale for world sports for good reason) how on earth could we expect fair working out of which 1 loses his belt? Or rather, which one's lose their belt/s and who keeps a belt, or gains some?

The organisations are already often biased, corrupt and money focused. But networks would be even more so, they are literally ONLY in the business of sport to bring in audiences thus money, alone.

They would un-avoidably give favouritism on a worser scale than present, to home grown fighters of the US, those whom draw the highest PPV's and audiences etc.

To not realise this is extreme naivity.

Rigo is the 10th best P4P fighter in the world at the moment, but best in the division or not he doesn't pull audiences. So HBO are not keen on matching him up, not treating him based on his sports talents but business potential. That's fundamentally flawed. It would worsen tenfold if a mere 2 networks from ONE country, gave out the belts. The mandatory system, rankings would all be undoubtedly biased on a worser scale than present.

[Funky_Monk]

This is ridiculously US based!
Something needs to happen but I have no simple solution.
Unlike some of the other grey areas ;-)

[Pez]

Sounding a lot like WWE with RAW and Smackdown. Soon, we will have tag team boxing.

[Light_Speed]

Its a good idea in theory but they would just end up doing the same thing the ABC organizations do and trying to steer things in favor of money makers

Exactly, look what HBO did with Chavez Jr and Martinez. They rejected Zbik as an opponent for Martinez, then Martinez got stripped off the WBC belt and Chavez Jr fought Zbik for the title shortly after that. Networks are crooked too.

Only solution is if all the national and state boxing commissions got together to form an international organization, ban the ABCs orgs, create their own rating system and one world title per division (olympic style testing for all the top 10 fighters in each division would be a plus).

[MBE]

Let's say on average there's 2-3 champs per division at present. If 2 networks suddenly take over from the organisations (something un-heard really on that scale for world sports for good reason) how on earth could we expect fair working out of which 1 loses his belt? Or rather, which one's lose their belt/s and who keeps a belt, or gains some?

The organisations are already often biased, corrupt and money focused. But networks would be even more so, they are literally ONLY in the business of sport to bring in audiences thus money, alone.

They would un-avoidably give favouritism on a worser scale than present, to home grown fighters of the US, those whom draw the highest PPV's and audiences etc.

To not realise this is extreme naivity.

Rigo is the 10th best P4P fighter in the world at the moment, but best in the division or not he doesn't pull audiences. So HBO are not keen on matching him up, not treating him based on his sports talents but business potential. That's fundamentally flawed. It would worsen tenfold if a mere 2 networks from ONE country, gave out the belts. The mandatory system, rankings would all be undoubtedly biased on a worser scale than present.

For a start there's on average 4 champions per weight, of which there is the possibility of regular, interim and super at the same time. Creating a maximum of 207 titles in the sport.

Out of all of these though it's really easy to decide who is the real champion and who is a beltholder. Just take the number 1 from espns division by division rankings for example.

Yes I agree networks could have a tendency to be more money biased than the sanctioning bodies as in theory they would only exist to promote viewers. However if they were not being credible then we as fans could vote to watch the other network. Currently when the abc bodies do something corrupt there is nothing we as fans can do.

Yes the system would favor the us. But I'm not saying that networks in other countries can't do the same and promote their own champions. The champion of sky tv will essentially be the uk champion. I still think that hbo attracts the very best of the worlds fighters. I can't think of a top draw fighter who doesn't fight on an American network.

As for rigondeoux, keen or not the fact is he will be on HBO because they know its important for the credibility of the sport. This isn't the wwe, these networks do care about the credibility of boxing too.

Yes the rankings would favor fan-friendly fighters. They would also encourage boring fighters to fight in a more fan-friendly way. This is both a good and bad thing.

[MBE]

Exactly, look what HBO did with Chavez Jr and Martinez. They rejected Zbik as an opponent for Martinez, then Martinez got stripped off the WBC belt and Chavez Jr fought Zbik for the title shortly after that. Networks are crooked too.

Only solution is if all the national and state boxing commissions got together to form an international organization, ban the ABCs orgs, create their own rating system and one world title per division (olympic style testing for all the top 10 fighters in each division would be a plus).

The Martinez situation being stripped then showing Chavez with the vacant title did leave a sour taste in the mouth. But that's because of the abc titles that it happened not the network. It wasn't the network who stripped Martinez and gave it to Chavez.

Yes in the ideal world your solution is the very best. But who is going to make that happen? Who has that kind of organizational power? It will never happen.

My suggestion is by far from ideal and does have some big flaws but in my opinion it is better than what we have now and it's easy to implement.