Ring Magazine on the Road to Sanity

[Rantcatrat]

You are hung up on one single word, 'world'.

Titles are essential in sport. You're completely missing the point about Wimbledon. The whole two weeks is Wimbledon, the entire competition is the final. It's a knockout competition and so one single event.

Your preferred idea would be to scrap Wimbledon as an exciting knockout competition which allows even unrated players a chance to challenge for the title and just have the two highest seeded players play each other for the title of world tennis champion, with the 3 and 4 seeds battling for the right to play the champion next time.

That would be shit.

In tennis there are 4 grand slams, an official tour ranking and dozens of minor competitions. So somebody can be the US Open champion, or the Wimbledon champion, or be the number one rated player on the tour or the Rogers Cup champion.

Every time these guys play, it's in a competition for a prize of some sort.

Imagine they called the open winners world champions, and your little nose was put out of joint so you wanted them scrapped and the champion determined by who was the highest ranked player on the tour. Would that improve tennis? Of course not, it would ruin it.


Boxing is no different. You have fourmajor titles in each weight class, the IBF, WBC, WBA, WBO and a lot of minor ones, IBO, British, Commonwealth etc.

It's the same structure as any other sport, only you object to the word used 'world'.

Let me ask you, if instead of the world champion tag the belts were called 'IBF Major champ', or 'WBA Open champion' would that be better? My guess is that you don't mind the belts themselves, rather it's just your constant focusing on the single word 'world' that gets you all worked up.

A division with no belts would be shit. What would people be fighting for? There would be only two, at most 3 championship fights a year, sometimes none if the champ is inactive and a couple of eliminators.

How would you reward the best challengers? What would they have to distinguish them from everybody else? Currently they get a belt, which marks them out as one of the best fighters in the division, and someone a fighter must beat if they wish to claim the title of Ring champ. It's a good system.

Let's look at your Martinez argument. First of all, what fans are confused about whether he's the best fighter? It's a straw man argument because everyone knows Sergio Martinez is the best fighter in the division, which is why the Ring have him rated at one.

What about Sturm? Well his belt clearly marks him out as the best challenger, a man Martinez must beat if he wants to unify and become the Ring champ. Of Sturm also knows he must beat Martinez if he wants to be regarded the same.

It's not confusing, you know the true status of fighters in the middleweight division as well as I do. The idea that fans can't understand and think Chavez Jr is the best fighter is false.

What about Chavez Jr. Well as the son of a legend, and a very popular and undefeated fighter himself with a huge following, especially in Mexico, his belt marks him out as one of the best fighters too. That's a good thing. Guys like Chavez Jr and Saul Alvarez are GOOD for boxing. Ticket sellers, popular fighters who fans want to see. Giving them a belt helps market them and gives significance and context to their fights. It's entirely normal and how it is in every sport where any top sportsman is a champion of some sort. You need titles otherwise it's just people playing sport.

Do you object to the World Series by the way? Do you write and complain to your favourite baseball magazine that they stop it because world only means American and that the whole world thing is a sham? Should they scrap the world series to save baseball?

I think your argument is simply outdated, still living 30 years ago. We have moved on, IBF World champion doesnt' mean best fighter in the world and hasn't for decades. Just regard them as similar to being the US open champ or the US Masters champ and all is fine. Stop getting hung up on a single word, that hasn't meant what you believe it does in more than a generation.

There is only one champion per year in baseball, basketball, and football. Those sports are extremely successful with only one champion.

Titles are essential in sport, but I don't understand the why there should be more than one title per division division? Is your argument strictly based on marketing (a la it makes fighters easier to sell)? Are Canelo and Chavez Jr. not as marketable without titles or do their titles make them more marketable? Shouldn't titles convey the idea that the holder is the best? If not, aren't they wastes of time if a fan would know the difference?

Why is tennis a good comparison? I'm not too familiar with tennis, but is there a ranking organization?

Does UFC have multiple titles per division? Not too familiar with UFC.

Now that is not true at all. You have the American League East, West and Central Champions, who battle to be The American League Conference Champion. Then there is the National League champions. Both Conferences are divided up by geographic regions. Basketball and Football follow the same type of conferences and divisions. You could easily relate it to minor belts and major belts.

Wait a minute. Explain that to me a little more.

At the end of the year in baseball, basketball, and football, the two best teams play eachother to be champion (e.g. the Steelers may have been the AFC champs, but there is no debate that the champs last year were the Packers). There is only one champion every year. No one cares who the division champ was unless to say that the Steelers were in second place of the league at the end of the year. In those sports, the best play the best for the ring at the end of the year. The point of the divisional and league champion is only to aid in determining who will be in the final contest, and, thus, the complete champion at the end of the season.

Comparing them to boxing is difficult. There is no system to determine who the champion is for each weight class. The WBA and WBO super middleweights aren't competing for the ultimate boxing championship (the S6 was an attempt at doing something like that by the way). After the Andre Ward v. Carl Froch fight, who is the champion of the super middleweights? The winner or Lucian Bute? What if Lucian Bute fights Kessler and Pavlik? Ward loses to Glen Johnson. What then? For example, who is the champion at 140 right now? Amir Khan or Tim Bradley (err Eric Morales since the WBA stripped Tim Bradley). Who was the champion at heavyweight before Haye fought Klitschko? Vitali, Wladimir, or Haye? Moreover, the WBA (or WBC, I can't recall which) frequently strips fighters of their belts if they unify.

Boxing in the Olympics is much more comparable to american baseball, football or basketball. Geographic champions compete to the best at the end of every four years. There is a first, second, and third place.