Tweet
I was looking at TBRB's 135 rankings and i'm not entirely sure what they are trying to accomplish by leaving Javier Fortuna out of their top 10 in favor of Emmanuel Tagoe and Yvan Mendy (who the F are they TBRB? Wtf). Just another instance of elitist journalists rewarding fighters who have been looking good vs lower tier fighters and penalizing top fighters who don't look spectacular vs high level opposition.
This brings me to the gripe I have with this on why this hurts the sport. Many fans blame fighters for defending their "0" and fighting poor opposition. But the message that journalists and voters of ranking systems are sending to boxers is to basically fight lower tier opposition and look great, we will reward you with a top 10 rank. Fight high level boxers and don't look spectacular, or lose, and we will demote you.
This leads to promoters giving their fighters a bum of the month in order to get their fighters seen as a top 10 fighter, get title shots, and therefore maximize their profit. They will be praised and talked about, their power will be praised for KO'ing a string of lower tier fighters, they pass the "eye test" by facing nobodies. Meanwhile top fighters fighting each get demoted in the rankings in favor of fighters who they are actually better than.
Some of the biggest load of crap I see currently is Golovkin and Estrada being ranked under Inoue, Crawford and Usyk. GGG and Estrada have faced much better opponents than any of them, have wins over better opponents, and lost against better opponents. But what do the journalists do about this? They demote them and reward guys like Crawford and Inoue a top 3 spot in the P4P rankings for beating lower tier or past prime fighters. Teofimo Lopez's wins over Lomachenko, Commey and Nakatani are better than Inoue's top 3 wins.
Another thing with The Ring is their disregard for Heavyweight fighters being top 10 P4P fighters. Tyson Fury is clearly a highly skilled fighter for any size. He doesn't necessarily use his size in all of his fights, he actually uses his boxing ability to win. If everyone was the same size is Fury, he'd look damn good. I give credit for TBRB for at least getting that right and ranking Tyson Fury in their top 10 P4P rankings.
This brings me to the gripe I have with this on why this hurts the sport. Many fans blame fighters for defending their "0" and fighting poor opposition. But the message that journalists and voters of ranking systems are sending to boxers is to basically fight lower tier opposition and look great, we will reward you with a top 10 rank. Fight high level boxers and don't look spectacular, or lose, and we will demote you.
This leads to promoters giving their fighters a bum of the month in order to get their fighters seen as a top 10 fighter, get title shots, and therefore maximize their profit. They will be praised and talked about, their power will be praised for KO'ing a string of lower tier fighters, they pass the "eye test" by facing nobodies. Meanwhile top fighters fighting each get demoted in the rankings in favor of fighters who they are actually better than.
Some of the biggest load of crap I see currently is Golovkin and Estrada being ranked under Inoue, Crawford and Usyk. GGG and Estrada have faced much better opponents than any of them, have wins over better opponents, and lost against better opponents. But what do the journalists do about this? They demote them and reward guys like Crawford and Inoue a top 3 spot in the P4P rankings for beating lower tier or past prime fighters. Teofimo Lopez's wins over Lomachenko, Commey and Nakatani are better than Inoue's top 3 wins.
Another thing with The Ring is their disregard for Heavyweight fighters being top 10 P4P fighters. Tyson Fury is clearly a highly skilled fighter for any size. He doesn't necessarily use his size in all of his fights, he actually uses his boxing ability to win. If everyone was the same size is Fury, he'd look damn good. I give credit for TBRB for at least getting that right and ranking Tyson Fury in their top 10 P4P rankings.