State of boxing - is it really so bad?

First topic message reminder :

It is widely postulated that we live in a barren time for boxing - with a large jump between the class of the elite - the Mayweathers, Pacquiaos and Martinez' and the rest. And that once these 3 aging supermen hang up their cloaks, there will be little left and the sport will subside into a cloaca of indifferent matchups, alphabelts and poorly conditioned, poorly skilled heavyweights winning the crown that Louis, Ali and Marciano once wore with pride.

Yet, are things all that bad?

If we just look at the number 1 in each division and their nearest challengers - how bad are things now?

HW - Wladimir Klitschko; with Vitali, Adamek, Helenius, Haye, Chambers around him.
CW - No champion; but Cunningham, Tarver, Huck, Lebedev, Palacios and Hernandez competing
LHW - Hoppo; with Pascal, Dawson, Cloud, Cleverly and Shumenov in the mix
SMW - No champion; but Ward, Froch, Kessler and Bute all competing
MW - Sergio Gabriel Martinez; Sturm, Geale and Pirog behind
LMW - No champion; Cotto, Alvarez, Bundrage, Williams all in the mix
WW - No champion; Floyd, Manny, Ortiz
LWW - No champion; Manny, Khan, Bradley, Maidana, Alexander, Judah
LW - JMM; but Guerrero, Rios, Vasquez and Katsidis
SFW - No champion; Burns, Broner, Fana, Uchiyama
FW - No champion; Gamboa, Salido, Juanma, John
SBW - No champion; Arce, Ramos, Montiel
BW - Donaire; Agbeko, Darchinyan and Moreno behind.

I'm not going to pretend my knowledge of divisional depth stretches much below bantamweight.

I have decided that "champion" is defined as a guy who would be a clear and definite favourite in >95% of minds to beat at least the top 4 contenders. And by favourite, I am referring to the extent that coxy would bet his house on the outcome.

I am arguable being generous in that Wlad wouldn't be the favourite in 95% of minds to beat Vitali - but given that Vitali has refused to fight Wlad - he has ruled himself out of "contender" status, ergo Wlad remains champion

Discussion

First thing that is easily visible from this table - is that MW and WW are astonishingly weak divisions. Setting aside the golden fighters at the top there's a lot of brass occupying the divisional ratings beneath.

Second thing is - there are a lot of reasonable and exciting fighters out there. This is also good.

Down to issues - there are so many divisions without a clear number 1. This, in my opinion, is the major issue affecting boxing today.

There is an attitude that once you win a fight once, there is no need for a rematch until the other guy proves the first result was an aberration. If that were the case - Burley would have beaten Holman Williams 1 or 2 nil in the record books. As it stands, the fights were exciting, they provided paydays and even though they weren't always particularly close - Williams was allowed the chance to close out the record books even with Burley. Because fighters aren't allowed to drop fights due to no guarantee of a rematch - we have far to many weak fights and not enough strong ones. Take Bundrage. He's just beaten Sechew Powell. He should be screaming for the Cottos, the Alvarez, Williams or the Margarito's of this world - if he is the LMW number 2. Cunningham should be calling out AND fighting Tarver, Afolabi, Palacios rather than just occasionally mentioning Huck.

Conclusions

Alphabelts are meaningless - but we all knew that anyway.
If the divisional leading fighters were to meet more often - boxing would be the number 1 spectator sport on the planet.
Someone really needs to teach some kids weighing at 160 and 147 to box.

I appreciate what you are saying, and I guess it is a combination of factors that have contributed to boxings "decline" over the years. I just imagine that there are a multitude of fighters who absolutely don't give a damn about their legacy and are content with earning the big bucks, something they wouldn't be able to do without 4 governing bodies.

Your point about domestic clashes is pertinent in light of the recent thread on PPV's as well. Just think how huge Groves v DeGale would have been on a terrestrial channel rather than a Sky PPV event if their careers had been televised to the masses.

Colonial Lion, perhaps I am not making myself clear, I am not necessarily saying it is a good thing, I am just trying to realistic and look at it from a different point of view. Of course the alternative of having one fighter and a clear transparent ranking system would be healthier for the sport and fans. I am merely trying to highlight that it is not a clear cut as it might seem. Not to me anyway and harsh as it may be to us fans, I am not sure how much David Haye or fighter X really cares.

Colonial - I swear you just raised my blood pressure by 20mmHg. That is a painful chapter of my ppv-buying experience that I prefer to pretend never occurred.

On topic - I think Tino is saying that for the fighters - for Haye, being a WBA titlist was extremely useful in monetary terms. Rubbish for the rest of us fans, however.

if tino and oxrings views could be combined, to a state where we had 4 titles per division, so the money is there to be made but unifaction fights happened all the time, then we would have the best of both worlds.

oxring wrote:
On topic - I think Tino is saying that for the fighters - for Haye, being a WBA titlist was extremely useful in monetary terms. Rubbish for the rest of us fans, however.

Exactly. It is not my personal preference or anything silly like that, I would dearly love for one champion per division, it was a purely alturistic stand on behalf of the poor, neglected fighters......!

There is another aspect to consider which again is from a fans perspective. The earning power the belts and PPV status gives fighters allows them to fight once a year and still make a great living. Would much prefer there be some motivation out there for fighters to fight more frequently. If there were less belts it would be harder to climb the rankings and earn a title shot so even if they were earning more through PPV if fighters had to earn a shot over a number of fights rather than a couple of decent wins have to think they would be in the ring a damned sight more frequently.

eddyfightfan wrote:if tino and oxrings views could be combined, to a state where we had 4 titles per division, so the money is there to be made but unifaction fights happened all the time, then we would have the best of both worlds.

You would soon come to a point where there no unifcations fights so surely it would be better just to have one title in the first place?

no because if they unified they would become "super duper" champion and it would be broken up again. plus people go up and down division, get stripped all the time and things like that

eddyfightfan wrote:no because if they unified they would become "super duper" champion and it would be broken up again. plus people go up and down division, get stripped all the time and things like that

You mean, a bit like when there was one champ per division and a group of contenders who fought each other for the right to meet the champion ?

Splendid idea.

How does that solve anything, you then get 4 belt holders none of whom would have to beat the genuine champion?

eddyfightfan wrote:if tino and oxrings views could be combined, to a state where we had 4 titles per division, so the money is there to be made but unifaction fights happened all the time, then we would have the best of both worlds.

Absolutely agreed eddy.

I'm not fussy - I don't mind if "the man" at the weight doesn't hold all the belts. As long as he beats his major contenders. That would do nicely for me.

Hopkins cleaning out the middleweight division saved us all the agro of these debates and so to a degree did Hamed who at one point should have held all 4 belts too.

Got to respectfully disagree with anyone arguing having four belt holders can ever be the way forward. Think for me we need not to look at it from our perspective, as we are all hardcore fans, but from the perspective of the casual or potentially new fans. From their perspective if they are to embrace the sport the situation most likely to help them acheive that is the one that provides the greatest clarity and for me one champion per weight is that situation.

rowley wrote:Got to respectfully disagree with anyone arguing having four belt holders can ever be the way forward. Think for me we need not to look at it from our perspective, as we are all hardcore fans, but from the perspective of the casual or potentially new fans. From their perspective if they are to embrace the sport the situation most likely to help them acheive that is the one that provides the greatest clarity and for me one champion per weight is that situation.

Bingo.

I regard myself as a hardcore fan, but I couldn't come even remotely close to naming all the ' champions ' today. What hope, then, for potential fans or casual fans ?

Im not sure having more belts even increases the wealth in the sport. It may give the individual alphabet title holder more financial power at the time, but overall I dont think it generates more wealth.

I found many of the old fashioned number one contender and eliminator fights to be more exciting and probably more financially lucrative than many of these alphabet defences nowadays.

Would much rather see two top contenders face off in an eliminator for a shot at the title than 3 belt holders defend against mandatories or hand picked voluntarys.

Lets for instance look at the 140lb and 168lb divisions which have been previously hailed as being among the best current divisions talent wise, how long has it taken since Hatton and Calzaghe moved on that we've known who the top man is?

Pacquiao beat Hatton but with it being his only fight at the weight i'll ignore him for now, for some time now we've been waiting for Bradley and Khan to face off which doesn't look like happening any time soon. We have Ward fighting Froch in the near future but even then we still have Bute with a claim to the top and if Froch beats Ward then so realistically does Kessler which means we're no closer to really knowing the true champion.

rowley wrote:Got to respectfully disagree with anyone arguing having four belt holders can ever be the way forward. Think for me we need not to look at it from our perspective, as we are all hardcore fans, but from the perspective of the casual or potentially new fans. From their perspective if they are to embrace the sport the situation most likely to help them acheive that is the one that provides the greatest clarity and for me one champion per weight is that situation.

I may be looking at this without studying the finer details but I can't see how it is feasible to have ONE champion per division anymore when you consider the champs fight twice a year and if we're damned lucky a "busy" champion fights three times! Given that fighters (rightly so) wish to finish their careers with their senses intact and the time it takes to hype up fights to make money I can't see how these guys can fight more than three times, meaning that challengers would find it extremely hard to get a shot at just one champion.

I can't help think that a spread of champions is inevitable given these circumstances and the future of boxing relies on many more unifications and the Ring Magazine belt being hailed as the ultimate seal of approval in determining the REAL champion at the weight.

Except - Ward beat Kessler who beat Froch - so we'll be in a nice little circle at 168.

I'm still shocked at the judging in the Kessler fight. All very well to say he was outboxed - he was - but when he was butted so many times he fractured a bone in his eye - is there really any wonder?

D Archie Moore managed to finish his career with his senses intact and can assure you he managed to fight more than once or twice a year on occasion.

rowley wrote:D Archie Moore managed to finish his career with his senses intact and can assure you he managed to fight more than once or twice a year on occasion.

Don't know much about Archie but didn't he fight for his dinner money a lot of the time? It takes months to hype up fights to get big money so given the time between hyping up world title fights as well as boxer recovery time it seems less feasible to have champs fighting more than three times a year. I could be wrong but think that Haye and Wlad were at the hyperbole for blooming years and then getting $15m each, surely they couldn't generate that level of interest and money in just a month or two?

rowley wrote:Got to respectfully disagree with anyone arguing having four belt holders can ever be the way forward. Think for me we need not to look at it from our perspective, as we are all hardcore fans, but from the perspective of the casual or potentially new fans. From their perspective if they are to embrace the sport the situation most likely to help them acheive that is the one that provides the greatest clarity and for me one champion per weight is that situation.

not saying that 4 belts is better than one, only that if the unifaction fights happened all the time then it is the best of both world, fans get the satisfaction of knowing who is the best, whilst boxers promoter etc can still make money, not ideal but a decent way of operating compared to how it is now.

Have you seen the list of top quality fighters Moore was facing during his whole career, had more fights against fellow greats than many fighters now have during a whole career.

Even in older era's champions seldom defended their titles more than 3 times a year. They fought more non title match ups in between but in many cases the more active fighters were not defending their belts every time they stepped into the ring.

eddyfightfan wrote:

rowley wrote:Got to respectfully disagree with anyone arguing having four belt holders can ever be the way forward. Think for me we need not to look at it from our perspective, as we are all hardcore fans, but from the perspective of the casual or potentially new fans. From their perspective if they are to embrace the sport the situation most likely to help them acheive that is the one that provides the greatest clarity and for me one champion per weight is that situation.

not saying that 4 belts is better than one, only that if the unifaction fights happened all the time then it is the best of both world, fans get the satisfaction of knowing who is the best, whilst boxers promoter etc can still make money, not ideal a decent way of operating compared to how it is now.

Chavez could in theory clean out the 160lb division, wouldn't make him the best 160lb fighter though - would it? Mainly because everyone with half a brain knows he gets brutally smashed to bits by Martinez.

Imperial Ghosty wrote:Have you seen the list of top quality fighters Moore was facing during his whole career, had more fights against fellow greats than many fighters now have during a whole career.

Okay Ghosty take your point, perhaps Archie was made of sterner stuff than the fighters of today. Bear it in mind that even popular warriors like froch don't fight very much now. Given Froch's brutal affair with Kessler, his fight with Abraham was delayed a couple of months for him to recover properly.

Like I said between hyping fights and recovery time I can't see today's champs being able to do more than three fights a year.

The Archie comment was just a flippant throw away comment to dismiss the inference that every fighter who fought a lot of fights ended up with mashed potatoes for brains as it is simply not the case. Tragedies happen now as they did then. However my main point on this remains that a situation where there are four guys who can claim at any one time claim to be the best at their weight and the top guys in the game only fight once a year is not and cannot be healthy.

The problem with the talk of unifications is it would take will from the rival companies, fighters and promoters to make it happen and as recent experience has shown us this is far from easy to acheive. Surely it is better to have one champion and if you want to fight him you earn a number one ranking in his weight, because there would only be one set of ranking it would stop guff like Salita ending up as number one contender so mandatories would no longer be seen as a nonsense to be tolerated but would most likely be a champion in the true sense of the word fighting the best of the rest at his weight. Accept it is a utopian view of things but it is how things are supposed to work.

What's wrong with having the title defended three times a year as Colonial has already said the world titles have barely ever been defended more frequently than that anyway.

Imperial Ghosty wrote:What's wrong with having the title defended three times a year as Colonial has already said the world titles have barely ever been defended more frequently than that anyway.

because normally the take one or two mandatory as well, and if a fight or 2 had a early KO then we could be looking at less than an hours action per champion per year in actual title fight ring time.

The mandatories would be against far better fighters than the organisational mandatories we currently have, for instance if Bradley was the current 140lb champion his mandatory going by the ring magazine rankings would be Amir Khan then follow that up with a voluntary against a top ten ranked opponent and we're all happy.

Eddy thing to remember is if you had one governing body and one set of rankings becoming number one contender would be far harder than it is currently, as such a mandatory challenger would in all likelihood be a decent fighter and match up.

Imperial Ghosty wrote:What's wrong with having the title defended three times a year as Colonial has already said the world titles have barely ever been defended more frequently than that anyway.

Okay maybe but don't you think it was a bit rough on some of those guys who fought the champ in non title fights? Eg. Norfolk beating Greb only NOT to be called world champion and The hateful "No contest" rule also sucked balls! Poor Jim Driscoll!

Come on guys things aint so bad! The reason there are 4 titles is due to the WBC /WBA being all corrupt way back when, and a few p***ed off people went away to form the IBF and WBO.

It aint all doom and gloom! Cheer up!

Dunno D - from bantam to heavy only 4 divisions where I can call a champion - that's pretty bad.

A title fight is far different to a non title fight, take Sandy Saddler for example who was fairly inconsistent in non title fights but as soon as the title was on the line he was a different fighter neither do I recall Greb losing to Norfolk at middlweight during his title tenure.

I can accept to an extent that fighting less nowadays means its harder to climb a theoreitcal one system ranking table, but the flip side is that quality opposition is garaunted. In the old days, a mandatory was generally going to be a top opponent. Nowadays mandatory has become a by-word for a gimme fight.

I feel that some people are overestimating the importance and neccessity for every fight to have a plethora of titles attached to it. There was nothing wrong with a fight between two top opponents with no title at stake and with merely rankings or contendership points on the line. Theyve tried introducing numerous titles and sub titles in an effort to make every fight seem like its for some kind of championship and it simply hasnt worked and has just reduced credibility overall.

The Greb v Norfolk fight was at lightheavy. The fight was a foul fest and either man could have been disqualified. In the end it was Greb who was thrown out for a foul after Norfolk had repeatedly hit him low.

i dont worry for my entertainment, im a huge boxing fan and there are plenty of fights around the world that i can pay for or stream, and the worst needed is to stay up till 4am which im happy to do. what worrys me is that 99.99% of the general public and sports fans won't bother, they will just flick over to championship football, world cup rubgy or whatever else they get for free on sky+ and not give boxing a second thought again. i just dont want the sport i love to slip into obsurity.

Knew you would be able to enlighten me about that fight Windy

Not entirely sure why a fight has to have a world title on the line to be successful or popular with a couple of recent examples being Hopkins/Pavlik and Mayweather/Mosley, good match ups is what matters not world titles primarily.

Imperial Ghosty wrote:Knew you would be able to enlighten me about that fight Windy

Not entirely sure why a fight has to have a world title on the line to be successful or popular with a couple of recent examples being Hopkins/Pavlik and Mayweather/Mosley, good match ups is what matters not world titles primarily.

Yeah but those match ups were only good because these guys all held multiple alphabets in the past anyways, otherwise no-one woulda recgnised these as good fights or recognised the fighters themselves for that matter.

Can't have a word said against our original Windmill, Mr Greb, Ghosty !

Absolutely agree with you about fights without titles on the line. Yesterday I made the point about contenders climbing the rankings, and Colonial Lion amplified that point today. If we were to just take the flagship division as an example :

After Tunney beat Dempsey, there was no provision for an immediate rematch. Dempsey had first to beat Jack Sharkey, ( who had beaten Harry Wills, ) in an eliminator.

Schmeling and Baer met in an eliminator to fight for the title which was expected to be still in the hands of Jack Sharkey. Sharkey, in a huge upset, was turned over by Carnera and Baer, who had beaten Schmeling, fought Primo instead.

Plenty of other examples of top contenders squaring off in an eliminator, but these two alone - Sharkey v Dempsey and Baer v Schmeling, were absolute classics and everybody in the world understood their significance.

Mosley and Mayweather were two of the 3 top welterweights in the world which is why it was a good match up whereas Pavlik/Hopkins was between the current and past universally recognised middleweight champion, hardly fights between alphabet belt holders, they were all seen as genuine quality at the time.

the one thing going for todays boxing is the amount of coverage availble, got nothing to do with the fighters realy just as fans we are lucky (sometimes unlucky in some fights) to be able to watch nearly every fight possible. something wasnt always avaible in the past. sure you might have to pay £15 for the priveledge but at least you still got the choice

which leads to the point about seeing great fights recently, at world level these days there are very rarely good fights that arnt one sided mismatches or more hype than substance. which backs up the point others have made about the belts, promoters and lack of challeges forced on champs. there is however plenty of great domestic fights that we are able to watch which are often matched much more evenly. if it werent for some of the great domestic fights ive seen recently i quite posisbly lost intrest even more in the world level boxing (credit to macklin and strum one of the few great fights at world level recently)

Imperial Ghosty wrote:Knew you would be able to enlighten me about that fight Windy

Not entirely sure why a fight has to have a world title on the line to be successful or popular with a couple of recent examples being Hopkins/Pavlik and Mayweather/Mosley, good match ups is what matters not world titles primarily.

Exactly.

We're seeing good matchups and that's all that matters. The belts are just trinkets to attract the less knowledgeable, and always have been.

Jukebox Timebomb wrote:

Imperial Ghosty wrote:Knew you would be able to enlighten me about that fight Windy

Not entirely sure why a fight has to have a world title on the line to be successful or popular with a couple of recent examples being Hopkins/Pavlik and Mayweather/Mosley, good match ups is what matters not world titles primarily.

Exactly.

We're seeing good matchups and that's all that matters. The belts are just trinkets to attract the less knowledgeable, and always have been.

They are also the moneyspinners which encourage the Frank Warrens and Wilfried Sauerlands of this world to build a stable of fighters who get their hands on one of these baubles and ' defend ' it against nobodies in ridiculous mismatches, with hometown judging in place as a safety net.

How on God's green Earth can it not be farcical that two supermiddleweight champions who were contemporaries both got to retire undefeated ? Why didn't we see that ' good match up ? '

HumanWindmill wrote:They are also the moneyspinners which encourage the Frank Warrens and Wilfried Sauerlands of this world to build a stable of fighters who get their hands on one of these baubles and ' defend ' it against nobodies in ridiculous mismatches, with hometown judging in place as a safety net.

How on God's green Earth can it not be farcical that two supermiddleweight champions who were contemporaries both got to retire undefeated ? Why didn't we see that ' good match up

Good point.

Jukebox Timebomb wrote:

Imperial Ghosty wrote:Knew you would be able to enlighten me about that fight Windy

Not entirely sure why a fight has to have a world title on the line to be successful or popular with a couple of recent examples being Hopkins/Pavlik and Mayweather/Mosley, good match ups is what matters not world titles primarily.

Exactly.

We're seeing good matchups and that's all that matters. The belts are just trinkets to attract the less knowledgeable, and always have been.

I dont understand where you are coming from. You are saying we have great match ups nowadays as if its some kind of new phenomenon. This is hardly the case. The multitude of titles and number of weight classes do nothing to facilitate big fights happening. It just allows a greater freedom to pick and choose.

The belts didnt used to be "just trinkets". They meant something in the past. Which is why there is a desire to return to that. They dont attract the less knowledgeable. If anything they drive them away as trying to understand the current ridiculous system requires plenty of effort rather than a simplistic one champion per division. Even knowledgeable fans struggle to pinpoint who the real champion is at most weights now. They may have an opinion, but in the abscence of a credible champion and rating system thats all it is.

The Ottke, Calzaghe, Eubank, Naz etc days are gone. Welcome to modern boxing.

If you don't like watching good fights everyweekend then what are you doing here?

I tell you what, let's talk about Boxing in the sixties. That's really exciting. Let's all pretend we were there and that we got great fights every week to listen to on the gramophone. And none of us can ever be wrong because we were never there so how would we know.

Jukebox Timebomb wrote:The Ottke, Calzaghe, Eubank, Naz etc days are gone. Welcome to modern boxing.

If you don't like watching good fights everyweekend then what are you doing here?

I tell you what, let's talk about Boxing in the sixties. That's really exciting. Let's all pretend we were there and that we got great fights every week to listen to on the gramophone. And none of us can ever be wrong because we were never there so how would we know.

On the other hand, let's just be arrogant and pig ignorant, shall we ?

Colonial Lion wrote:

Jukebox Timebomb wrote:

Imperial Ghosty wrote:Knew you would be able to enlighten me about that fight Windy

Not entirely sure why a fight has to have a world title on the line to be successful or popular with a couple of recent examples being Hopkins/Pavlik and Mayweather/Mosley, good match ups is what matters not world titles primarily.

Exactly.

We're seeing good matchups and that's all that matters. The belts are just trinkets to attract the less knowledgeable, and always have been.

I dont understand where you are coming from. You are saying we have great match ups nowadays as if its some kind of new phenomenon. This is hardly the case. The multitude of titles and number of weight classes do nothing to facilitate big fights happening. It just allows a greater freedom to pick and choose.

The belts didnt used to be "just trinkets". They meant something in the past. Which is why there is a desire to return to that. They dont attract the less knowledgeable. If anything they drive them away as trying to understand the current ridiculous system requires plenty of effort rather than a simplistic one champion per division. Even knowledgeable fans struggle to pinpoint who the real champion is at most weights now. They may have an opinion, but in the abscence of a credible champion and rating system thats all it is.

There is no desire to return to boxing as it was 50 years ago.

Over the last couple months we've enjoyed the greatest run of good fights that I can ever remember. If you've seen better spell then tell us?.

juke box what exactly has been so great these past couple of months, other than macklin fight most fights have been pretty disappointing. if you think fury v chisora was a good fight then you realy have been watching to much modern heavyweight boxing

Well if you list out what these great run of fights have been over the last 12 months I am more than confident that I can find a better stretch.

Jukebox Timebomb wrote:The Ottke, Calzaghe, Eubank, Naz etc days are gone. Welcome to modern boxing.

If you don't like watching good fights everyweekend then what are you doing here?

I tell you what, let's talk about Boxing in the sixties. That's really exciting. Let's all pretend we were there and that we got great fights every week to listen to on the gramophone. And none of us can ever be wrong because we were never there so how would we know.

The sixties, i love Lionel Rose, would recommend his documentary which Scott has on his thread, a great fighter.