Boxing Organisation change

I have read many, many times about how the fact that there are too many organisations in the industry and that the best don't fight the best.

It has spread across many a thread and has been expressed by many as the one thing they would change.

So I thought I would start up a discussion with a big "what if......"

Can this work in reality?

Okay let me explain what I am thinking.

So lets just say that you are the president of one of these organisations. Lets pick the WBC (not that its important which one but I have to pick one).

Its Monday morning and you have just read another report in a newspaper talking about how the best dont face the best and how there is too much money in boxing. How do you change it?

So you announce that every single fight is taken into account for ranking purposes. Even if the fight is not sanctioned by your org, they still get ranked/ ranking points for winning/ losing. After a few months, a clear top 20 in each division starts to take shape.

This top 20 is not chosen by a panel but purely down to the results, level of activity and opposition faced. basically, an unbiased top 20 that no one could argue with.

So far, not so hard to implement, although there would be some difficulties.

So what next?

Well the champ should be the best in that weight. But how do you get them to want your belt?

My answer is to assign a Quarterly payment attached to it and the top 20 people in the division. The higher you are, the higher your quartlerly payment..

So for example, if you are champ, you get a $1m payment each quarter. If you are the number 1 contender, you get $200,000 per quarter. If you are 20th, you get $10,000 etc.

This would make people want to be in the top 20 and more importantly champ.

The next thing you introduce is the fight making - if you dont fight regularly (say 3 times a year), you start to drop down the rankings and your regular income falls away. If you are champ, you must always fight the top available challenger or you must forfeit the belt and lose your payment. If the top challenger wont face you, they get demoted etc.

This way, it ensures that the best should be facing the best each time, if they want to keep a regular purse going (obviously these figures are for illustration but you get the drift).

Now this answers the fans but is it feasible? Could the WBC afford to do this?

Would the extra money that they start receiving through increased PPV sales actually make this a financial possiblity? Would fighters want to be part of this organisation under these terms? Would this help boxing recover?

Sorry for rambling but I just felt that this might be a good point of discussion and would appreciate either suggestions as to why this would/ wouldnt work or alternatively a other suggestion of how you could bring credibility back to boxing (and how you owuld actually implement it! Saying get the best fight the best is the goal but not a reality without how you could achieve it!)

I have no doubt fighters would want to represent any organisation that pays them for not fighting but for me it all sounds a little convoluted. However I genuinely don't know what the answer is because if one of the governing bodies did choose to get its own house in order us fans are so brow beaten and disillusioned it is debateable we would even notice.

Have said it before but change when it does come will be TV driven, as with PPV HBO and Showtime are the real power brokers of the sport, the governing bodies don't care about anything about money and how much they can generate, people say there are too many divisions, they propose a super heavyweight division, people say there are too many belts, the introduce the super and diamond belts, a fighter stubs his toe, they introduce an interim champion whilst he recovers from illness.

There is no great mystery in the sport or need to engage NASA's greatest brains to solve it, get one belt in a division, get sensible, fair rankings, get the new organisation run by someone who is not a crook and lock anyone who either trys to or suggests starting a new governing body away for life where they are forced to watch Skelton Sprott, on a loop for the rest of their life, easy.

I dont think there is a quick or easy fix to the problems with the structure of boxing really.

I dont think looking at the sanctioning bodies is the solution. I would scrap them all if it were possible.

What I would prefer is that the actual commissions sit down and begin to cooperate more with each other and address the problems. Currently there is no real organisation around that looks after the health or future of boxing. The closest things are probably the commissions in every country/state. But they have let tv companies, sanctioning bodies and promoters run riot over boxing for the most part. For instance the BBBC here until last year recognised 7 different sanctioning bodies. They have only recently stopped recognising the WBU/WBF.

I would like to see more cooperation between all the Commissions internationally starting with recognising the problems in boxing, agreeing to tackle them collectively and then looking at possible solutions. It would not be instantaneous but I do feel that they bear most of the responsibility and as things stand at the moment they are probably in the best position to do something about it because they actually have the power to instigate change.

Lovely idea Adam, however in reality the organisations are all too selfish and only look after themselves and seem to care less if they're criticised.

Boxing long-term fans will remain but numbers of new fans will dwindle with all the negative press and I can understand why especially when curious outsiders will think "boxing's not what it was, how can there be more than 1 champ per weight, too many weights, organisations and the best don't fight the best etc."

One thing i'd like is full disclosure from all the organisations i.e. they have to fully explain and justify why they sanction certain fights and why one fighter is overlooked for another for example the WBC would have to release a statement stating why Chavez is allowed to defend a world title against a fighter over Martinez.

I'd also like judges to release reports after every fight to explain their scoring round by round which will put more pressure on them to score fairly. It seems a ref can be dodgy as they like and never held accountable and most of the time you can't even find out how they judged each round.

The TV companies need to start demanding better fights. They hold all the cards for to long they have been accepting lesser opponents for to many fighters.

Unfortunately unless someone can bring Top Rank and Golden Boy around a table and get them working together boxing is in real trouble. They are being allowed to keep it in house far to often.