Quote Originally Posted by MMASUX View Post
Quote Originally Posted by Ant Live View Post
Good for Berto and his team for getting this fight. But IMO, if a fighter lose in a championship fight, if there's no rematch, he should have to work his way back up to a title shot. Maybe automatically dropping their ranking to 3. In which if the champion fight his mandatory #1, the he should or have to fight the #2 guy for a possible title shot.
Saying that, if Berto win, his next fight will be high profile.
1. A rematch with Ortiz whether he lose to Mayweather or pull off the upset. FOY2
2. Mayweather whether he win or lose. MONEY!!!
3. Bradley?
4. Khan?

I agree with this. If a fighter is not getting a rematch, #3 or lower sounds good. I don't understand the reasoning of getting a immediate title shot. We might as well give Pascal and David Haye a title shot again as well in their next fight back. The root of this problem is all the damn belts in the first place, if there wasn't so mant belts these guys wouldn't be getting a immediate "title" shot again. Get rid of most of the belts and we get rid of the problem.

Actually the problem is your misunderstanding of what the belts are. There are 4 major belts in each weightclass. Therefore by fighting for one, in an ideal world the winner will be one of the 4 best fighters at that weight class.

The Ring rankings meanwhile have more real significance, with the Ring champion of each division being recognised as number in that division, most often there is no Ring champion at a weight class, as it requires unifying the belts.

So at welter, both Manny and Ortiz, the top two welters hold belts. Berto is rated number 3. Therefore he SHOULD be fighting for a belt for boxing to be fair and consistent. Surely the best and highest rated fighters should be getting the title shots.

He's fighting for Zaveck's strap, not for the Ring championship. If the winner of Berto Zaveck was to become the Ring champion then it would be a farce. But they will not. They will become a belt holder, a titlist, holding one of the 4 recognised belts.

This is entirely correct.

The problem is as I have stated before, some fans have an impossibly archaic view of what each belt represents. Winning a belt doesn't mean you are the best in the division, how can it, when there are three other belts. It just means you are one of the top 4 (ideal world). To know a fighters real ranking you turn to Ring magazine's rankings, and eventually if a fighter unifies they may end up as the Ring champion, and get a Ring belt presented to them. This is an honour that doesn't often happen as it's not easy to become a Ring champ.

There really isn't a whole lot wrong with the system, just many fans seem incapable of understanding it.