You are the new Boxing Czar....

**Kirkland Laing** · 04-13-2009 10:24 PM

Originally Posted by Kel

Originally Posted by Kirkland Laing

1. Send the people running the sanctioning bodies to Guantanamo. Have one set of titles/rankings which can be run by a nonprofit organisation that can take sanctioning fees to be used only to set up a pension fund for retired boxers. The nonprofit can also do individual pension funds. The people running the nonprofit can be retired boxers. Only one title per division means everybody knows who the world champ is and when the casual fan is watching a world title fight he knows it's legit. The importance of that can't be overestimated. I think we should keep junior this and super that.

2. Don't sanction any fight on pay TV, even HBO or Showtime. Fights have to be on free-to-air national TV only. That way you get huge public interest back in boxing. The only country that still does free-to-air is Germany where boxing is huge. It used to be free-to-air in Britain before satellite TV came along and interest was huge then too. Do it in America and you'd have a massive sport again, with huge public interest in fights and fighters. Hidden away on HBO nobody knows them. It's only the very elite fighters who make money from PPV anyway. If they were on free-to-air they'd lose a lot of earning power but they'd have a national profile so they'd make money from sponsorship and endorsements. The top guys would still make millions so nobody loses and everybody wins. If the top of the bill is say a welterweight fight the next two or three fights on that bill should also be welterweights, so that up and comers can have their profile and ranking built up till they earn a title fight.

Exellent mate, I can't even imagine how amazing that would be.

I remember Hagler Hearns was such a big event in the States that ITV evening news had a report from America interviewing people on the street about the fight. If it was happening now nobody would know either guy. Does anybody know the viewing figures for that fight or other big American fights in the eighties?

**Chris Nagel** · 04-14-2009 12:07 AM

If I was the Czar of Boxing, I'd still be tied to the politics of the commissions However, I think that there are changes that should be done (at least I'd hope so) to make boxing more fair and entertaining.

It's unrealistic but let's say that if we have some sort "super" championship title fight via an elimination between present alphabet title holders. Why not bring back the 15 rounder for this special occasion. Assuming that these are the best elite-fighters that we are talking about then it shouldn't be a problem if the standard duration was extended a few rounds right?

As for a minor improvement, why not bring instant-replay into boxing. It could remove any doubt to whether a cut cause by a headbutt or punch, or if a punch was fair or not.

For fairness sake, and to reduce corruption in the sport, let's have competent judges and referees oversee the fights. The ABC groups should not be able to hand-pick judges and have referees that could endanger the health of the fighters.

I believe that too many people are selfish and would not agree with most decisions, but any improvement would be nice.