What would change about boxing?

[rjj tszyu]

In an ideal world we would have one "world wide" governing body. How would we get there? God knows!

Yup that's another must that just wont happen. For instance the Wbc has already told Garcia that he must give up one belt or the other. I don't even think I will ever see true unification again in my lifetime.

I'd also bring back 15 rounds for title fights.

Is that right? Fucking disgusting behaviour if they have said that.

I'm afraid so:

by David P. Greisman

The winner of this Saturday’s junior-welterweight unification bout between Amir Khan and Danny Garcia will have to vacate one of his two world titles, according to World Boxing Council President José Sulaimán.

Khan-Garcia will be for the WBC and WBA belts, though the unification won’t last for long.

That’s because the World Boxing Council hasn’t recently allowed for its world title to remain unified with other sanctioning body belts, though.

Just last month, 105-pound titleholder Kazuto Ioka defeated Akira Yaegashi, adding Yaegashi’s WBA title to his own WBC belt. Ioka and Yaegashi had been told beforehand that the winner would need to relinquish one of the titles. Ioka opted to keep the WBA belt and ditch the WBC.

And in another noteworthy instance three years ago, Timothy Bradley was told he’d have to pick between his WBC title and the WBO belt he’d just won from Kendall Holt. Bradley held onto the WBO belt and vacated the WBC.

The aforementioned bouts came with the WBC’s blessing in advance. The news of another belt other than their own being at stake for this weekend’s HBO headliner in Las Vegas was, well, news to the WBC’s leadership.

“It is a real surprise to know … that the WBA title is involved,” Sulaimán told BoxingScene.com via email Thursday night. “The WBC will accept only the WBC. Whoever doesn’t want it, the title is vacant.”

Garcia is the WBC’s titleholder, having won that vacant belt in March by defeating Erik Morales. The fight between Khan and Garcia has been marketed as being solely for the WBC belt.

Earlier this week, however, the World Boxing Association made official what had previously been rumored — the WBA returned its junior welterweight title to Khan, who had lost that belt against Lamont Peterson in December. Peterson tested positive for synthetic testosterone ahead of a since-canceled May rematch with Khan.

Peterson’s team admitted to using the substance for what it said was medical purposes ahead of the first Khan clash, which apparently was enough reason for the WBA to take the title from Peterson and give it back to Khan. The WBA also lists Marcos Maidana as its “regular” 140-pound titleholder.

The WBC should be eradicated from Boxing. Decisions like this is what makes boxing so hard to keep up with for the casual fan.

[armyash]

In an ideal world we would have one "world wide" governing body. How would we get there? God knows!

Yup that's another must that just wont happen. For instance the Wbc has already told Garcia that he must give up one belt or the other. I don't even think I will ever see true unification again in my lifetime.

I'd also bring back 15 rounds for title fights.

Is that right? Fucking disgusting behaviour if they have said that.

I'm afraid so:

by David P. Greisman

The winner of this Saturday’s junior-welterweight unification bout between Amir Khan and Danny Garcia will have to vacate one of his two world titles, according to World Boxing Council President José Sulaimán.

Khan-Garcia will be for the WBC and WBA belts, though the unification won’t last for long.

That’s because the World Boxing Council hasn’t recently allowed for its world title to remain unified with other sanctioning body belts, though.

Just last month, 105-pound titleholder Kazuto Ioka defeated Akira Yaegashi, adding Yaegashi’s WBA title to his own WBC belt. Ioka and Yaegashi had been told beforehand that the winner would need to relinquish one of the titles. Ioka opted to keep the WBA belt and ditch the WBC.

And in another noteworthy instance three years ago, Timothy Bradley was told he’d have to pick between his WBC title and the WBO belt he’d just won from Kendall Holt. Bradley held onto the WBO belt and vacated the WBC.

The aforementioned bouts came with the WBC’s blessing in advance. The news of another belt other than their own being at stake for this weekend’s HBO headliner in Las Vegas was, well, news to the WBC’s leadership.

“It is a real surprise to know … that the WBA title is involved,” Sulaimán told BoxingScene.com via email Thursday night. “The WBC will accept only the WBC. Whoever doesn’t want it, the title is vacant.”

Garcia is the WBC’s titleholder, having won that vacant belt in March by defeating Erik Morales. The fight between Khan and Garcia has been marketed as being solely for the WBC belt.

Earlier this week, however, the World Boxing Association made official what had previously been rumored — the WBA returned its junior welterweight title to Khan, who had lost that belt against Lamont Peterson in December. Peterson tested positive for synthetic testosterone ahead of a since-canceled May rematch with Khan.

Peterson’s team admitted to using the substance for what it said was medical purposes ahead of the first Khan clash, which apparently was enough reason for the WBA to take the title from Peterson and give it back to Khan. The WBA also lists Marcos Maidana as its “regular” 140-pound titleholder.

The WBC should be eradicated from Boxing. Decisions like this is what makes boxing so hard to keep up with for the casual fan.

I'm not entirely sure how these sanctioning bodies run things and I could be wrong here but the only reason I can think of for this is that if a fighter holds for example WBA and WBC titles and has to fight a WBA mandatory then surely that fighter will only have to pay a WBA sanctioning fee, not WBC. If the WBC force a fighter to hold only their belt then every time they fight they pay the WBC a sanction fee. Does that make sense?

and the only reason I can see that a fighter would accept to do this is that the WBC is seen as the most prestigious to hold thus making more money when selling the fight.

I'm sure someone knows better than me on this forum.

I have said before that titles are now meaningless to me when it comes to watching fights. I know who the good fighters are and I know who I want to watch and I know a good match up when I see one. Doesn't help the casual fan though.

[greynotsoold]

If all fights were to be fought under the rules of the JBE- that is, the Joe BoxingCouncil- all weigh ins would take place 6 hours before the fight. There would be one champion in each weight class, and i'm pretty sure I would eliminate a bunch of the weight classes. i don't think i'd go back to the original 8, but there would be less than there are today.
There would be more cheerleaders involved, maybe multiple ring-card girls. I used to like getting to the Forum early for the bikini contest featuring potential Miss Ringsider contestants. (Incidentally, some of those girls made more than world ranked jr flyweights fighting 10 round fights.)
There would be qualifications before you were allowed to fight for a title. Maybe, beat three top 10 guys, or draw a $500,000 live gate. (We'd have to adjust that based on local ticket prices.) The whole point being, the guy can either fight, or draw fans.
I have no problem with "bad" decisions. They get people talking about boxing, and even great fights don't do that. most sportswriters and, these days, radio hosts, are fucking morons, so i would ban them from fights, with an explanation that they are too stupid to understand the activity, anyway.
I would ban any use of the word "sport" in relation to boxing, and make all potential commentators sit down and watch 100 hours of fights with me, so we don't have the public perception of boxing being tainted by brain dead know fuck all nothing "experts" like Lampley, Bernstein, Merchant, kellerman, etc...etc...ever again.

[TitoFan]

I'm glad this thread was bumped back up, as it brings back the subject of bad decisions.
And we're far enough removed from the Pac-Bradley fight that no one's feathers will get ruffled by the topic.

Here we go again with the "bad decisions are part of boxing" defeatist attitude. I honestly don't get this way of thinking. Is it a problem? Yes. Does it turn some people off and away from boxing? Yes. As with any other problem, can it be resolved? Yes. Then why on Earth should we wring our hands and not even hope for a resolution? It doesn't make sense to me. If you ask me, that's one of the first things we should change about boxing, as someone else already said. Overhaul the judging system, from training... to picking judges... to deciding where they sit... to considering maybe adding two more judges... to implementing an accountability system... etc, etc, etc.

And the view of "well... at least if gives people something to talk about". Please!!
Again, it's an area that can be fixed.

There's a prevalent viewpoint that the "real" boxing fans don't care, because they'll keep coming back and will never abandon the sport. But don't we want to attract new fans to the sport? It's the best way to ensure the future of the sport, and maybe bring it toward the mainstream once again, as it was in the past. Not doing anything to resolve the problems that plague boxing is a narrow-minded approach, that only serves our own self interests. As long as we continue liking boxing, who cares what anybody else thinks, right? Wrong. As true fans of the sport, we should very much care about bringing in new fans and increasing the popularity of boxing.

[IamInuit]

On a related note, NBC wants to increase the break after each round to 67 seconds instead of 60 to compensate for the lost commercial time.

Somehow the roll eyes emoticon just doesn't cut it.

[X]

1. get rid of the crooked and corrupt, self serving sanctioning bodies. The proliferation of aplhabet boys brings absolutely nothing positive to the sport

2. get rid of fights on pay per view. This makes huge (and disproportionate) payments to marquee fighters, stops 'trickle down' to contenders and others, makes it hard for poor kids (the next generation of fighters) to see and get interested in boxing, and gives the Tv networks too much say in the fight game

3. Bring in an international insurance and pensions scheme, linked to the possession of a boxing license