So I was reading about Manny P. supposedly owing 30k to the WBC or he'll be stripped of the WBC belt.

The article I read mentioned that Barrerra basically told the WBC to go fuck themselves before (temporarily) and refused to pay the sanctioning fee.

My question/suggestion is this: Why don't ALL THE FIGHTERS get together, and say "We're not paying these sanctioning bodies any money. I can understand I suppose why these no name fighters do that so they can hopefully get a mandatory they may not even deserve, but why should the fighters who have proven themselves in the ring, have to give up money for a belt that means even less and less every day that another fake belt appears?

Why don't the fighters just start relying on the fans to know who the champions are, and eventually this would put the sanctioning bodies out of business.

Then maybe we can get ONE sanctioning body in there that will have some kind of credibility.

It would be too many different opinions and not enough reasoning.

I saw the title of the thread, and saw that Byrd Man made it. So, if I was to guess your fantasy, it would be jacking off to a picture of Byrd's wife doing him with a strap-on, while he read scripture aloud????? I'm not that far off base am I, just admit it......

That's the age old question. The answer is simple but much more complicated than it seems. A lot of fighters still believe that having a belt means something and allows them to get bigger paydays. It's true but not always. Plus I suspect the promoters, who have have long time ties with these organizations, constantly tell theirfighters that if they want to be known and get on HBO of Showtime they need a belt. Now let's say the belt does give you more exposure, the bad thing starts to happen when they start sticking you with mandatories that don't even deserve the shot. Sometimes you don't even make good enough money for them so they strip you and give it to someone else who makes more dough. They strip you, or they con you like they tried to do to Bones Adams. One could say that' fighting nothing but tomatoe cans is good, you'll never lose. Boxing is about learning and if you're fighting bums you don't learn. Moreover unless you are a well connected fighter, you will not be able to con people into believing you are good by fighitng pure bums. Then there's the problem of getting stripped even if you do fight the mandatories, the sanctioning fees that they don't even deserve and we could go on for pages about it. Now I know some people like the organizations and that they do some good. Yeah they do some good but the bad outweighs it, by a lot.

A lot of fighters are realizing that the alphabet belts don't mean jack. I mean how can you be the champ while you have two other guys with belts calling themselves champs and the organizations won't even allow you to fight each other to see who's the best? Now the Ring Magazine belt might not be perfect but when I want to see the real ratings I go to their magazine.

LOL

Agreed.

The Ring magazine title is the only one that carries any weight with me.

It does have its faults. I'm not a fan of Golden Boy owning the magazine. Just don't like the fact that a promoter has ties to the Ring ratings.

Also don't like the fact that the Ring champions don't seem mandated in anyway to fight a number one contender at least once in a year.

I mean how long did Nard and PBF hold their titles in Light Heavy and WW respectively without having to fight a top contender?

But on the face of it it is the way to go if they can iron out some little bugs.

I would LOVE one of the Ring magazine champs to chuck any other straps they hold in the bin and commit to just defending the Ring title with a promise to face a mandatory at least once every 12 months. I think if just one fighter would do it and be vocal about doing it others would soon follow suit.

I get so sick and tired seeing fighters drop to the canvass crying and bawling about how they've just become 'champion of the world' and it's like they've just won a WBO strap or some shit like that.

Anyone remember PBF's 'performance' after beating Gatti? What a ham.

It's part of what's killing boxing, nobody in the general public knows who the champions are. That and PPV but that's another thread I guess.

WBC, WBA, IBF, WBO belts = trinkets. A unified title is the way to go.

Also top fighters should want to fight each other more often. Case in point was Jermain taylor. I think his stock among fans actually went up after twice losing to Pavlik because he actually finally got around to facing a young legitimate contender for his title in 2 exciting fights, the first one in particular.

Vazquez and Marquez also prove the point. Both guys came away with an increased profile and the promise of better paydays because they got together and had 3 great fights. The outcomes are almost immaterial. If top guys fight and the fight is exciting they can forward their careers regardless of the outcome. This means far more to fans than padding your undefeated resume with tomato cans and corpses.

I really wish promoter's and the fighters themselves would wise up to this. Is Cotto any less marketable after his loss? Well maybe, but not by much, while defeats certainly haven't affected Oscar's marketability.

Oh and BTW what has happened to bones Adams? I liked that guy.

I'm sorry...but this is just so vicious and funny I gotta laugh too.....

Ring lost all credibility when they gave Vitali Klitschko their belt over a LOSING effort to Lennox Lewis. Now with Golden Boy Promotions assuming ownership of the magazine, it is what it is, a MAGAZINE. Ring is so far removed from its 1926-1970's heyday that one can't even draw comparisons to that time period anymore.

Boxing is much too internationally structured with any concept of a one world=one champion ideology. Sanctioning fees are used to cover the expenses and overheads for the organizations to make the belts, perform day to day operations, and use that money for research and development. The WBC is going to be presenting ideas for unification of boxing federations titles at its next convention along with better communications between the TV networks and promoters for consistency and uniformity. (Blackbelt made a post about this on the forum.) Jose Sulaiman has acknowledged at this year's WBC convention that the state of boxing is in very bad shape now. I think the WBC does the best effort at establishing and maintaining public communications better than the other organizations. At least they are willing to listen and make suggestions from the fans, something that I often have not seen from the IBF, WBA, or WBO.

I used to see Ring Magazine as a positive force for boxing, not anymore. With Internet technologies today, Ring's magazine data is so outdated. Most of its writers are American based and ratings are more of a popularity contest than that of fistic merits. At least the sanctioning bodies do force title elimination matches between their top contenders. Ring Magazine can't do that. It's background is based on faded name history in name-only. Nowadays, the Ring belt is no longer special, it's just another belt, bought, sold, and manipulated by Golden Boy Promotions. I'm sure HBO would love to get in on this as Oscar's cash cow!

At least with world federations, you have representation in hundreds of countries around the world that can reflect the changing times in social, economic, and technological advancements. Ring Magazine is still stuck in a traditional 8 weight class, one champion, 15-round title fight mode. The problem is boxing historian elite fan-base is shrinking. The best writers of the past are retired or have passed on. Up through the late 70's, you had merit with Ring. However, the sanctioning bodies are going to stick around, like it or not, because boxing is not an American sport anymore.

Federation champions SHOULD pay the sanctioning fees. If this were the past and Ring had merit, it would be more understandable if they did not. However, there isn't much proven by not paying the fees other than the loss of championship recognition. Than you have this, "Well, I am the champ of the people because I didn't pay my sanctioning fee." The problem is, there are too many international countries that support the alphabet federations, and than that champion (or former champion) has to explain to their commissions, "Well, I am the people's champion." They could say "bullshit!" You would get too much off a big doo-doo mess if champions gave up their alphabet titles. Than it because to the fans and the media from different countries, "Who the fuck am I supposed to follow?" Best example of this? Back in the mid 80's when Tyson had all three sanctioning body belts, but Michael Spinks had the "Ring" and linear title based on beating Holmes twice. And it was not until Tyson destroyed Spinks that people universally knew whom to recognize.

It's hard enough to get these fighters to even fight today, let alone the best fighting the best. I would submit that you have to have alphabet belts, or their would be too much disparity and controversy over who is and who is not a champion. Say that only Ring belts were recognized today, and no alphabet titles. However, other countries and people may not recognize the Ring belts and only acknowledged the alphabet belts. In this case, boxing people who refuse to follow Ring's ratings would never have world champions. People are looking for universal easy solutions that don't exist anymore.

Jack

You make some valid points but as I mentioned I do say that the Ring title is not a perfect concept and needs some things ironed out. One of shortcomings I mentioned was the B.S about keeping the title until someone beats you.

But do we need 4 main sanctioning bodies? Really?

I agree with a concept of a universal Ring title or any kind of universal title you need some input globally about how it's gonna be done but having 4 different straps out there is part of what's killing boxing.

Can you imagine having 4 different basketball or baseball leagues? How confusing would that get?

I would argue that it is having the 4 belts that creates so much of the disparity and top fighters can get away from not fighting each other under the old "I can't make this fight right now because I've got to face my mandatory" excuse.

They hide behind that shit all the time. Even the really elite level guys.

As for the sanctioning bodies making the top contenders fight each other in elimantions, is that some kind of joke?

Case in point we have a heavyweight here in NZ who I personally think is a load of shit. His name is Shane Cameron. I think he is now on the WBO list at number 15 and the IBF also rate him at 15. Now check this out, until his last fight he had never beaten anyone in the world's top 50! Is Terry smith in the world's top 50? Maybe. Well that was the last guy he beat, and only 3 fights ago this chump got knocked cold by Friday Ahunanya.

How the fuck can anyone get to 15 in the world without ever beating anyone in the world's top 50?? Could it happen in tennis? Golf? Motor racing? Only in boxing.

That to me is the phallacy of the sanctioning bodies, that a tomato can like Cameron can rise so high in their 'rankings' without ever beating anyone and it's why I can't put any faith in them.

Perhaps the sanctioning bodies have their place as you say to help develop the sport globally and so forth. There's some good logic there, but as I say their straps are no more than trinkets to me and if they want to call themselves WBC or WBA champion then fine, but that doesn't necessarily make them a world champion in my book.

Heck it even seems that insular old dude Sulaiman agrees with me.

4 sanctioning bodies has dealt a major blow to boxing. My ideal world in terms of boxing would be for all the top tier fighters to sacrifice the 'glory' of winning one of the world titles, and concentrate solely on beating the best opponents in their respective divisions for something akin to the ring belt.

Winning titles in multiple divisions was a huge accomplishment back in the day but today you can win 4 world titles in 4 separate divisions but never be the best in all of those respective weight classes. Taints the achievement big time.

Television has been the death knell because casual fans want to be watching a world title bout and so we have a situation where second class fighters can actually claim to be a world champion of some sort.

I know it's completely impossible but I wish the fighters would take a stand and say "fuck the alphabet belts, lets prove who really is the best." They don't fight enough, they earn big money for little risk and they have excuses as to why they can't fight A, B or C.

It takes a lot of passion to love this sport these days. It was a lot easier even as far back as 20 years ago.

I think a lot of the times, they should go back to the original two, the WBC and WBA and work toward unifications off of them. The WBA has been around since 1962 and the WBC since 1963. No one separated them for the most part until about the mid 1970's. They were there, but people didn't make a big deal about them.

The IBF only began because Bob Lee lost election to WBA President Gilberto Mendoza in 1982. In 1983 they gave Larry Holmes their new heavyweight title belt without a fight because he was considered the best at that time. They also allowed Hagler to fight Wilfred Scypion under the old 15-round distance when the WBC started enforcing the 12-round limit on him. At that time, they were still the USBF (United States Boxing Federation) but when several outside countries agreed to join them, they became the International Boxing Federation. or current IBF.

But the point is, they were not original in foundation. Neither was the WBO founded in 1989 by former Florida head commissioner Ed Levine, who used to be with the WBA. He and 20 delegates disbanded from the WBA to form the WBO because they didn't like the way Mendoza was running the organization. But again, the WBO like the IBF did not have an original structure, and these off-shoot organizations have become the bastard-child for the other nothing belts. This is the sham and shame of boxing.

Not one title, because you don't want a monopoly. But if you go back to two world federations, like baseball has and like football has, collimating in a superbowl of boxing where unified belts are encouraged AND STAY UNIFIED as much as possible, boxing would have less confusion than it does now.

Jack

I'm a little hesitant to post this in the middle of a thread, since I honestly think that it will get lost in the shuffle...so I'll try to keep it coincise.

You can't blame the sanctioning bodies for existing...it's the fighters that are at fault. That's right...the FIGHTER'S!!!

It is a fact that fighters get paid more when there is a belt involved, as opposed to fighting without one. For that reason, fighters clamor to collect those shiney straps. They are willing to pay the sanctioning fees, because even after getting that deducted from their paycheck they are STILL making more money. A LOT more.

Only the ELITE of boxing can make as much money fighting without a belt as they would with one...typing that reminded me of something that Roy Jones said in preparation for the Ruiz fight. He said that "Some fighters make the belt, and some belts make the fighter." Ruiz was a fighter that was made by the belt. If he didn't have that strap, he wouldn't have made anywhere close to how much coin he collected during his "reign".

Roy Jones, Oscar, Tyson...these guys make the belt. They are the attraction that people pay to see. They don't pay to see the belt change hands, they pay to see them fight. Unfortunately for us, and the overwhelming majority of fighters...there isn't enough guys like that who can say, "Fuck off WBC!" They need those belts to get paid the most they possibly can...and for THAT reason, the belts will never go away.

Sad to say I think you are spot on with your assesment.

Boxing would go down the shoot if there was only a Ring magazine belt.


Look at light-heavyweight right now. We've got Joe Calzaghe, Bernard Hopkins, Winky Wright and Roy Jones all as the recent contenders for it. There are all ancient, but the fights keep being made because they are the big names. With no mandatories, they will probably spend another two years round-robining with each other.

And without WBC, WBA and IBF belts...where would the next big names come from? Chad Dawson is only an up and coming name because he was a WBC mandatory and got to show his stuff against Tomasz Adamek. If he'd never won a WBC belt, we wouldn't have heard of him.


And that's the crunch. Most of the fighters we admire today, like Hopkins, for example, only became big names because they won alphabet straps. Hopkins isn't the most fan-friendly fighter. Would we have clamoured for Trinidad-Hopkins without him holding the IBF belt?

Of course not. We'd have been happy for Tito to be called middleweight champion and would have sat through two years of him fighting rehashed old names.


Look at the young up and coming fighters around the world right now. Do you think they'd get a look in if there was only a Ring magazine belt? Would Bernard and Joe ever entertain Chad Dawson?

Would Kelly Pavlik ever entertain Arthur Abraham if he didn't have a strap?


Of course not.



Boxing NEEDS a real sanctioning body, not a magazine. It's the NUMBER of them that's the problem.



And also, since when did the WBO slide into recognition? It's always been WBC, WBA and IBF. Almost ALL of the unifications involve those three, not the WBO. Let's not start confusing the issue even more by giving lower tier bodies status. Next it'll be the IBO, then the WBF and so on.




Black

LOL...

It never gets old.

What you said about Hopkins is true. Same would go for Vernon Forrest before the Mosley fights and we could go on. But there is no disputing that The Ring have their ratings correct. No one will argue that Joe Calzaghe is the best at 175. Or that Ricky Hatton, is the best at 140.

Even though Ring might not be perfect they are a hell of a lot better than the alphabets. NOw even though The magazine can't enforce mandatories they do put the pressure on the champs to defend the belts. Moreover there has not yet been an instnce where a long reigning champ hasn't defended the belt agains the deserving mandatory. Until now they are either being dethroned faster or vacating it. This is because they are fighting good comp. Overall the Ring does have its flaws but I think it is much better than the WBC IBF and all the other I's.

I disagree that Calzaghe is the best 175'er.

I would pick Dawson over him any day. Calzaghe has had one fight at 175, an unimpressive controversial decision over Hopkins, who himself only had one 175lb fight against Tarver (please don't say Winky Wright was a legit 175 fight!!!).

And Dawson has not only matched Hopkins performance against Tarver, but also beaten Glen Johnson, a guy who I would also pick to beat Hopkins and Calzaghe.

This is what irks me a little. The Ring belt has created a divide in the light heavyweight division. You've got Hopkins/Calzaghe/Jones on one side of it and Dawson/Johnson on the other. The former three won't fight the latter two because they are high risk/low reward...and that's the downside to a Ring belt. Only high reward fights get made because the fighter is in the driver seat.

Would you fight Dawson or Johnson if you were Calzaghe? Of course not, you'd make easy money against Jones instead, which is exzactly what he's done. That's why fighters shouldn't be allowed to make the decisions.




Black

was with you until you said Glen Johnson would beat BHop!

But I agree with everything else you said

No it was't him.

Anyway Black, you make some good poibts about Zaghe not fighitng as many times at 175 but whether he beat Hopkins impressively or not the point is he beat him.

LOL!!! I got a boxing buddy of mine who likes the WBO and gets picked on a lot (especially by me) for him supporting it, hahaha. It's all in fun though!

Seriously, the WBO I think should change its name to The European Federation Championship or the Frank Warren Productions Title. They are HUGE in Europe, but elsewhere, you mention the WBO and most people are like, the what???

They were calling Tommy Morrision a heavyweight champion when Tyson was universally recognized as heavyweight champion. That's all you need to know about the WBO.

Jack

LOL, I know I'm in the minority here, and I'm not hating on Bernard, but I just kinda think Glen would pull it off.

Hopkins looked BETTER than what he is because Pavlik was so bad. You put tonnes of pressure on Bernard and I think he'll still fight like a 44yr old. I can just see Johnson trundling forwards, nonstop punches, Hopkins doing like he did against Joe...evading, slipping and defending like a true old pro...but not actually winning the rounds.

It would be another controversial decision in which Hopkins swears he won, but I gotta go with workrate over skills in this one.


Sorry!




Black