Quote Originally Posted by Fenster View Post
Forget the silly alphabet belts - you're (bilbo) picking the champ on your interpretation of formlines. That just complicates things further. How about Casamayor already having a victory over Campbell?

Marquez is the MAN because Casa was the man. Campbells three alpahbets mean fuck all. Fact.

You know, it's a really complicated picture. I completely agree with you that according to the Ring criteria that Marquez is now the man as he did indeed beat the man and is now the linear champ.

But it's more confusing than that. The Ring rankings are devised as a way to rank fairly and accurately the state of each boxing's divisons so that mess of the alphabet titles and dodgy organisation rankings becomes clearer.

In this particular instance though going strictly by the Ring's ranking criteria only serves to muddy the waters further so to speak.

Coming into his fight with Nate Campbell there is absolutely no question that Juan Diaz WAS considered the man to beat in the division. Casa had been the beneficiary of arguably one of the worst judging decisions of all time and had looked terrible against Santa Cruz. Furthermore he simply wasn't fighting and was too inactive.

Diaz on the other hand was on a tear through the division, holding 3 belts and forcing reigning champ Julio Diaz and lightweight great Acelino Freitas to quit on their stools from the punishment he was dishing out.

There is absolutely no question that Juan Diaz was THE man in the lightweight division. He didn't have the claim to lineage that Casa had but he clearly and undisputabley the best fighter in the division.

So Campbells dominating victory over him was huge.

Meanwhile Casa had had like one fight in two years and got schooled, it was simply no contest as to who was the champ in the division.

So whilst I agree with you that the 'correct' ranking is to put Marquezs as champ for beating Casa, this is simply not an accurate reflection of the lightweight division.

Marquez didn't beat the best lightweight, he didn't beat the real number one in the division. Nate Campbell did when he beat Juan Diaz.

This means that the Ring rankings in this particular case actually produce an innacurate picture of the lightweight division.

It's something of an irony but shows that even the Ring rankings are flawed and that indeed that ranking fighters is very hard if not impossible to do.