How credible is Ring Magazine and it's ratings?

The thread on the p4p rankings from Ring Magazine has me asking this question and also that it's owned by Golden Boy Enterprises which promotes boxers.

First off the thread on the latest p4p rankings also has me questioning the selections like Donaire in it and guys like Dawson and Williams are left out, especially Williams who has fought and won all of his fights at 3 weight classes, with only 1 defeat which he avenged.

But I think that the magazine is owned by GBP which promotes boxers is a major conflict of interest. I really don't think a company that promotes fights/boxers should be owning the Ring Magazine which has so called credible ratings and is considered to be an authoritative source within the boxing community. How do we know things like ratings/rankings won't be manipulated?

Your thoughts?

What does it matter if the ratings are manipulated? It's just a magazine. Who would that favour?

Their ratings/rankings are just as rubbish as every other. They poll the OPINION of so-called experts, but all rankings are flawed and hypocritical.

IF their ratings guarantee title shots, and therefore big money oppotunities, then I guess it would be important.

Ring rating has always been corrupt even before they got associated with GBP. They say they're the bible in boxing. But which bible?

There are only 3 GBP boxers in the Ring Top 10, Juan Manuel Marquez, Bernard Hopkins & Shane Mosley, all of whom get in to almost all fans' top 10. There's a lot to criticize about GBP but manipulating Ring Magazine is not one of them.

However, in truth their rankings are just as open to being abused by idiotic choices as our own are ;D

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Originally Posted by JazMerkin

There are only 3 GBP boxers in the Ring Top 10, Juan Manuel Marquez, Bernard Hopkins & Shane Mosley, all of whom get in to almost all fans' top 10. There's a lot to criticize about GBP but manipulating Ring Magazine is not one of them.

However, in truth their rankings are just as open to being abused by idiotic choices as our own are ;D

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I guess that's a good way of looking at it. It's still a big conflict of interest for me with it being own by GBP, since Ring magazine is seen as an "authoritative" publication in the boxing world with it's Ring titles and that sort of stuff and p4p rankings and being quoted by lots of people for credibility.

Ratings are personal opinions....

Think of it like this:

There are perhaps 100 Junior Welterweights in Britain alone, so maybe there are at least 1500 active 140lbers in the World?

And somehow a panel of experts have watched all these fighters, discussed and come to a consensus on the ten best, and placed them from one though to ten.....

Pound for pound there must be at least 12,000 active pro's weighing between what 100 and 400lbs? Yet every month this panel can come to an opinion on the ten best if they all weighed the same?;D

Even the best ratings are opinions, and the best ratings are your opinions!;)

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Originally Posted by generalbulldog

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Originally Posted by JazMerkin

There are only 3 GBP boxers in the Ring Top 10, Juan Manuel Marquez, Bernard Hopkins & Shane Mosley, all of whom get in to almost all fans' top 10. There's a lot to criticize about GBP but manipulating Ring Magazine is not one of them.

However, in truth their rankings are just as open to being abused by idiotic choices as our own are ;D

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I guess that's a good way of looking at it. It's still a big conflict of interest for me with it being own by GBP, since Ring magazine is seen as an "authoritative" publication in the boxing world with it's Ring titles and that sort of stuff and p4p rankings and being quoted by lots of people for credibility.

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My understanding was ODLH bought it as part of a plan to use it to revive public interest in boxing. The way that GBP fighters have come to monopolize HBO schedules is far more of a concern to me than the Ring thing, which as far as I can tell they have stuck to their word & stayed out of editorial decisions.

Well The Ring Champions are as follows:

Heavyweight: the winner of Wladimir Klitschko (IBF, WBO) vs Ruslan Chagaev (WBA)
Cruiserweight: Tomaz Adamek
Light Heavyweight: Joe Calzaghe/VACANT
Super Middleweight: Joe Calzaghe/VACANT
Middleweight: Kelly Pavlik
Jr. Middleweight: VACANT
Welterweight: Floyd Mayweather Jr./VACANT
Jr. Welterweight: Manny Pacquiao
Lightweight: Juan Manuel Marquez

You guys have issues with any of those???

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Originally Posted by Lyle

Well The Ring Champions are as follows:

Heavyweight: the winner of Wladimir Klitschko (IBF, WBO) vs Ruslan Chagaev (WBA)

Light Heavyweight: Joe Calzaghe/VACANT


You guys have issues with any of those???

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Wlad or Chagaev also have to beat Vitali before they can claim the Championship.

Erdei may not be able to clean Calzaghe's boots, but he is champion in my eyes, bacause of being the man who beat the man etc, who won the Hill/Maske/Michalczweski fights.

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Originally Posted by Lyle

Well The Ring Champions are as follows:

Heavyweight: the winner of Wladimir Klitschko (IBF, WBO) vs Ruslan Chagaev (WBA)
Cruiserweight: Tomaz Adamek
Light Heavyweight: Joe Calzaghe/VACANT
Super Middleweight: Joe Calzaghe/VACANT
Middleweight: Kelly Pavlik
Jr. Middleweight: VACANT
Welterweight: Floyd Mayweather Jr./VACANT
Jr. Welterweight: Manny Pacquiao
Lightweight: Juan Manuel Marquez

You guys have issues with any of those???

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Yeah, Ring Magazine should give up any pretensions they have about a Ring "belt", or a Ring "title", they are a magazine and that is all. They should just rank active fighters from one to ten and be done with it. None of this vacant crap for me.

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Originally Posted by Britkid

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Originally Posted by Lyle

Well The Ring Champions are as follows:

Heavyweight: the winner of Wladimir Klitschko (IBF, WBO) vs Ruslan Chagaev (WBA)

Light Heavyweight: Joe Calzaghe/VACANT


You guys have issues with any of those???

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Wlad or Chagaev also have to beat Vitali before they can claim the Championship.

Erdei may not be able to clean Calzaghe's boots, but he is champion in my eyes, bacause of being the man who beat the man etc, who won the Hill/Maske/Michalczweski fights.

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Though I believe Vitaly would beat either of them fact is he has only been back for 2 fights, Wlad has been the dominate HW of the division like him or not he is the man to beat

Great question. I do monthly ranking for another venue and it's a grueling job (but I love doing it). However, I benchmark against a number of sources including Fightnews.com, WBO, IBF, WBA, WBC, and Ring. I also use what I see on Saddo and my own reserach.

My bottom line is that Ring Magazine is not one of the better ones to bench mark against. I like Fightnews probably the best plus I depend on my own reserach when it comes to the lighter weights. I follow, South Korea, Japan Aand Thailand as closley as anyone I know. Most of the rankers are guessing when it comes to the real small guys and that's wrong.

Here is an example of my Flyweight Rankins for June. They will change on July 1:

Flyweight (112 lbs)

1. Nonito Donaire
2. Denkaosan Kaowichit
3. Daisuke Naito
4. Omar Narváez
5. Koki Kameda
6. Pongsaklek Wonjongkam
7. Omar Andres Narvaez
8. Brahim Asloum
9. Luis Concepcion
10. Julio Cesar Miranda
11. Ponomrunglek Kratingdaeng
12. Bernard Inom
13. Takahisa Masuda
14. Moruti Mthalane
15. Omar Salado

BTW, Here is the Ring's latest ranking re Flyweights:

CHAMPION: Vacant


1. Nonito Donaire
2. Daisuke Naito
3. Pongsaklek Wonjongkam
4. Denkaosan Kaovichit
5. Omar Narvaez
6. Takefumi Sakata
7. Koki Kameda
8. Moruti Mthalane
9. Julio Cesar Miranda
10. Bernard Inom

The Ring Rating Panel
Mark Abrams
Carlos Arias
Eric Armit
Bill Calogero
Nick Charles
Brian Doogan
Coyote Duran
J. Michael Falgoust
Steve Farhood
Doug Fischer
Margaret Goodman, M.D.
Lee Groves
Jack Hirsch
Michael Hirsley
Keith Idec
Carlos Irusta
Ted Lerner
Marc Lichtenfeld
Jessi Losado
Scott Mallon
Rich Marotta
David Mayo
Barry McGuigan
Marty Mulcahey
Bernard Osuna
Vittorio Parisi
Matt Richardson
Cliff Rold
Michael Rosenthal
Rick Scharmberg
Don Steinberg
Joe Tessitore
Paul Upham
Claude Vesque
Calvin Watkins
John Whistler
Phil Woolever
Kurt Wolfheimer

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Originally Posted by holmcall

Great question. I do monthly ranking for another venue and it's a grueling job (but I love doing it). However, I benchmark against a number of sources including Fightnews.com, WBO, IBF, WBA, WBC, and Ring. I also use what I see on Saddo and my own reserach.

My bottom line is that Ring Magazine is not one of the better ones to bench mark against. I like Fightnews probably the best plus I depend on my own reserach when it comes to the lighter weights. I follow, South Korea, Japan Aand Thailand as closley as anyone I know. Most of the rankers are guessing when it comes to the real small guys and that's wrong.

Here is an example of my Flyweight Rankins for June. They will change on July 1:

Flyweight (112 lbs)

1. Nonito Donaire
2. Denkaosan Kaowichit
3. Daisuke Naito
4. Omar Narváez
5. Koki Kameda
6. Pongsaklek Wonjongkam
7. Omar Andres Narvaez
8. Brahim Asloum
9. Luis Concepcion
10. Julio Cesar Miranda
11. Ponomrunglek Kratingdaeng
12. Bernard Inom
13. Takahisa Masuda
14. Moruti Mthalane
15. Omar Salado

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Your list looks good... Appreciate the hardwork and headaches you had in putting such credible ranking...

BTW, I'm also a fan of FightNews rankings...
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And I greatly appreciate your comment! :lolololol:

Well the ring ratings are what they are and that is jst like all the rest.

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Originally Posted by holmcall

The Ring Rating Panel
Mark Abrams
Carlos Arias
Eric Armit
Bill Calogero
Nick Charles
Brian Doogan
Coyote Duran
J. Michael Falgoust
Steve Farhood
Doug Fischer
Margaret Goodman, M.D.
Lee Groves
Jack Hirsch
Michael Hirsley
Keith Idec
Carlos Irusta
Ted Lerner
Marc Lichtenfeld
Jessi Losado
Scott Mallon
Rich Marotta
David Mayo
Barry McGuigan
Marty Mulcahey
Bernard Osuna
Vittorio Parisi
Matt Richardson
Cliff Rold
Michael Rosenthal
Rick Scharmberg
Don Steinberg
Joe Tessitore
Paul Upham
Claude Vesque
Calvin Watkins
John Whistler
Phil Woolever
Kurt Wolfheimer

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Wow.Never knew that.Too many chefs in the kitchen right there.

Nick Charles ??? Who owes him money ;D. All ranking should be scrutinized.I put them right up there but what is that saying exactly?Not enthused with the empire of GBP owning either.Saraceno (?) use to have some pretty solid rankings in USA Today.

It's a very politically correct list, but not necessarily the best list.

The Ring Ratings are the best & most unbaised around! Although I don't agree with everyones rating they are pretty fair unlike the alphabet boys. The Ring panel is just there to get a broader view on issue (like Margarito/ Mosley being for the championship) but at the end of the day the editors have the final say on the rankings!

Not everyone is going to agree with everyones ratings because a lot of it comes down to opinion.

In the original post it asks why Williams & others are not rated in the P4P? The P4P is just a mythical list & no one will every agree on one set list as its too objective but the Rings divisional ratings are based on achievement in that weight division.

Some people may weight Donaire's win over Darchinyan, followed by Maldonaldo & then his blowout of the highly respected prospect Martinez as more important than Williams win over an inactive middle aged Wright, a Phillips on the slide, plus his loss to Quintana (although revenged in style)

I question why Homcall would say the Ring is not one of the better ones to benchmark against, but says he likes Fightnews? They are very similar

Also Sakata is nowhere to be found in his Flyweight rankings! Sure he lost but it was to his supposed #2 rated guy (that surely doesn't push him out of the top 15 does it? Not when you've got Takashi Masuda ranked at 13. Luis Concepcion seems an excellent prospect but his biggest win was over a guy who did his best work at strawweight about 6 years ago.

See what I mean its all opinion based!!!

The ring is 100 times better than the sanctioning bodies but they are still flawed. We all need to remember money makes the world go round so it is impossible to get a unbiased opinion with golden boy owning the ring effectively......

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Originally Posted by Hunter

The ring is 100 times better than the sanctioning bodies but they are still flawed. We all need to remember money makes the world go round so it is impossible to get a unbiased opinion with golden boy owning the ring effectively......

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Yeah its definitely better than the alphabet organizations out there, its just that I just read that in it's history it was already manipulated by Don King.

So I was wondering if it would be manipulated by GBP? Because as everyone knows money talks. And it was manipulated once. People say well its just a magazine, but it's seen in the boxing world as the so called credible source and authoritative source.

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In 1976 The Ring magazine fabricated records of selected boxers, to elevate them, thereby securing them lucrative fights on the American ABC television network, as part of the United States Championship Tournament. [1]

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A King-Size Scandal in the Ring - TIME

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Originally Posted by Galaxy

The Ring Ratings are the best & most unbaised around! Although I don't agree with everyones rating they are pretty fair unlike the alphabet boys. The Ring panel is just there to get a broader view on issue (like Margarito/ Mosley being for the championship) but at the end of the day the editors have the final say on the rankings!

Not everyone is going to agree with everyones ratings because a lot of it comes down to opinion.

In the original post it asks why Williams & others are not rated in the P4P? The P4P is just a mythical list & no one will every agree on one set list as its too objective but the Rings divisional ratings are based on achievement in that weight division.

Some people may weight Donaire's win over Darchinyan, followed by Maldonaldo & then his blowout of the highly respected prospect Martinez as more important than Williams win over an inactive middle aged Wright, a Phillips on the slide, plus his loss to Quintana (although revenged in style)

I question why Homcall would say the Ring is not one of the better ones to benchmark against, but says he likes Fightnews? They are very similar

Also Sakata is nowhere to be found in his Flyweight rankings! Sure he lost but it was to his supposed #2 rated guy (that surely doesn't push him out of the top 15 does it? Not when you've got Takashi Masuda ranked at 13. Luis Concepcion seems an excellent prospect but his biggest win was over a guy who did his best work at strawweight about 6 years ago.

See what I mean its all opinion based!!!

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Yes, Sakata was a mistake, but hey, it's easy to point out two or three questionable ones, but try doing 15 for each division. Not so easy. The Ring only does ten and they are a bit too international for my blood. I never said mine were all that good, but I definitly don't care for the Ring's because it has always been my belief that knowlegable posters know just as much as guys who do it for the Ring. And yes, I prefer mine to the Ring's.

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Originally Posted by Galaxy

The Ring Ratings are the best & most unbaised around! Although I don't agree with everyones rating they are pretty fair unlike the alphabet boys. The Ring panel is just there to get a broader view on issue (like Margarito/ Mosley being for the championship) but at the end of the day the editors have the final say on the rankings!

Not everyone is going to agree with everyones ratings because a lot of it comes down to opinion.

In the original post it asks why Williams & others are not rated in the P4P? The P4P is just a mythical list & no one will every agree on one set list as its too objective but the Rings divisional ratings are based on achievement in that weight division.

Some people may weight Donaire's win over Darchinyan, followed by Maldonaldo & then his blowout of the highly respected prospect Martinez as more important than Williams win over an inactive middle aged Wright, a Phillips on the slide, plus his loss to Quintana (although revenged in style)

I question why Homcall would say the Ring is not one of the better ones to benchmark against, but says he likes Fightnews? They are very similar

Also Sakata is nowhere to be found in his Flyweight rankings! Sure he lost but it was to his supposed #2 rated guy (that surely doesn't push him out of the top 15 does it? Not when you've got Takashi Masuda ranked at 13. Luis Concepcion seems an excellent prospect but his biggest win was over a guy who did his best work at strawweight about 6 years ago.

See what I mean its all opinion based!!!

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No, it's not entitely opinion based. I try to get it as quantified as possible, but boxing is a subjective business. One of my things is to be harsh on a fighter who loses badly. I also put a lot of stock in quality of opposition and how many times a fighter fights outside of his country. Each ranker goes at it a bit differentlly I suspect, and I'm pretty satified that when I hit the "send buttin" on the first of each month, I have put in as much research and work as I am capable of--with the ephasis on research. Like I said, it's not easy, but for some strange reason, I love doing it. Here are three takes on the Batamweight Division (they will change in July, of course):

Bantamweight (118 lbs) = Mine

1. Anselmo Moreno
2.Fernando Montiel
3. Hozumi Hasegawa
4. Joseph Agbeko
5 Wladimir Sidorenko
6. Abner Mares
7. Eric Morel
8. Yonnhy Perez
9. Toshiaki Nishioka
10. Gerry Penalosa
11. Nehomar Cermeño
12. Silence Mabuza
13, Alejandro Valdez
14. Michael Domingo
15. Kohei Ohba


1. Hozumi Hasegawa = RING
2, Anselmo Moreno
3. Wladimir Sidorenko
4. Yonnhy Perez
5. Silence Mabuza
6. Joseph Agbeko
7. Abner Mares
8. Nehomar Cermeño
9. Roberto Vasquez
10. Fernando Montiel


1.Fernando Montiel = Fight News
2. Anselmo Moreno
3. Hozumi Hasegawa
4. Wladimir Sidorenko
5. Joseph Agbeko
6. Simone Maludrotto
7. Yonnhy Perez
8. Eric Morel
9. Abner Mares
10. Christian Mijares
11. Silence Mabuza
12. Alejandro Valdez
13. Sasha Bakhtin
14. Leon Moore
15. Z. Gorrez
16. Kohei Ohba

My opinion is divisional rankings should be based on what a fighter has done in that division! Montiel although a great fighter has not really achieved much at 118 yet. On a pound 4 pound basis I would definitely have him above guys like Moreno & Hasegawa. But I think it is unfair to have him above these guys who have achieved much more & fought for a longer time at that weight.

I'm not criticizing your ratings Holmcall, just wondering why you don't like The Rings which every divisional rating is based on work done at that weight. Whereas I see Fightnews has Montiel at #1 at 118 when seriously what has achieved there? I know he has the potentil to but until he proves it he doesn't necessarily deserve it imo.

I don't see a difference between a top 10 or top 15 or top 20. Most guys usually have a few guys just outside the top 10 & as you said from there its just subjective.

I agree that knowledgable posters may know just as much as the guys from The Ring, but does that make there rankings any worse than yours or mine?

Imo The Rings divisional rankings are usually pretty spot on, a few of us on here do The SaddoBoxing Official Ratings & its fun, a lot of the decisions are made by votes from the division managers, which imo is the fairest way rather than just having one guy calling the shots...

Like I said, boxing is a subjective business. I will say one thing that is dead on, however, and that's when you make a list of any kind (P4P, Rankings, 10 most exciting, etc), you are going to be taken apart. No one can ever agree on a list. The best you can expect a few props.

Peace.