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Along with everything else at stake in and relevant to the forthcoming May 2 superfight between Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Manny Pacquiao, the long awaited bout will carry one more piece of significance: its winner will be the first recognized World welterweight champion in the eyes of the Transnational Boxing Ratings Board.
"The welterweight throne is vacant, and rightfully so," points out Springs Toledo, an award-winning boxing writer and historian, and also—along with Tim Starks of The Queensberry Rules and BoxingScene.com's own Cliff Rold—founding member of the independent ratings panel comprised entirely of writers from around the world.
The panel was formed in 2012, initially in response to the sudden decline in standards found among The Ring Ratings Panel. Beginning with its ratings launch in Oct. '12, the aforementioned trio along with their fellow chair members will recap the fights for each week and put forth a set of rankings for the remaining board to vote up over a 48-hour period prior to the site's Tuesday morning ratings updates.
In the initial round of discussion to announce the first set of rankings for the site, votes were cast for the proposed Top 10 rankings in all 17 weight classes, along with which title lineages would be honored by TBRB.
At the time, World champions were recognized in only four of the 17 divisions: light heavyweight (Chad Dawson, having dethroned Bernard Hopkins); super middleweight (Andre Ward, who had already run the tables in the Showtime Super Six World Boxing Classic); and flyweight (Toshiyuki Igarashi, whose title lineage traced all the way back to Miguel Canto in the 1970s, and whose divisional run remains the longest current unbroken championship chain).
The absence of a defined king at heavyweight and welterweight were the first to raise a few eyebrows. [Click Here To Read More]
"The welterweight throne is vacant, and rightfully so," points out Springs Toledo, an award-winning boxing writer and historian, and also—along with Tim Starks of The Queensberry Rules and BoxingScene.com's own Cliff Rold—founding member of the independent ratings panel comprised entirely of writers from around the world.
The panel was formed in 2012, initially in response to the sudden decline in standards found among The Ring Ratings Panel. Beginning with its ratings launch in Oct. '12, the aforementioned trio along with their fellow chair members will recap the fights for each week and put forth a set of rankings for the remaining board to vote up over a 48-hour period prior to the site's Tuesday morning ratings updates.
In the initial round of discussion to announce the first set of rankings for the site, votes were cast for the proposed Top 10 rankings in all 17 weight classes, along with which title lineages would be honored by TBRB.
At the time, World champions were recognized in only four of the 17 divisions: light heavyweight (Chad Dawson, having dethroned Bernard Hopkins); super middleweight (Andre Ward, who had already run the tables in the Showtime Super Six World Boxing Classic); and flyweight (Toshiyuki Igarashi, whose title lineage traced all the way back to Miguel Canto in the 1970s, and whose divisional run remains the longest current unbroken championship chain).
The absence of a defined king at heavyweight and welterweight were the first to raise a few eyebrows. [Click Here To Read More]
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