Not much talk about McDonnell's win

The belts still sever a purpose. Outside of Mayweather & Pacquiao, every fighter in boxing still needs to hold a belt, be fighting for a belt, or be building towards fighting for a belt to be relevant.

McDonnell is the lowest ranked of all the 4 belt holders at Bantamweight. But the title should mean he faced a decent level of opposition in the future.

These were the IBF Rankings for April. Pretty much every fight in there is a decent one for McDonnell.

1. Jamie McDonnell
2. Vusi Malinga
3. Julio Ceja
4. Tomoki Kameda
5. Sergio Perales
6. Stephane Jamoye
7. Hugo Cazares
8. Joseph Agbeko
9. Drian Francisco
10. Cesar Seda
11. Randy Caballero
12. Kohei Oba
13. Alejandro Gonzalez Jr
14. Juan Payano
15. Ryosuke Iwasa

 

Two fights involving British boxers against unbeaten fighters on Saturday.One a Puerto Rican another a Mexican,neither of them old men,both class boxers.There isn't a British boxer I don't want to succeed,and Nathan Cleverly is one.But look at how he got HIS title and then say McDonnell is a paper champion.Both lads did well to win,and it was great watching them do it.

 

In fairness Braehmer pulled out.

 

Fair point,but was his replacement worthy of a challenge for the vacant title?At one time if they weren't in the top 10 they couldn't.As you're more familiar than me with ratings you could probably say he was,but to me he wasn't in the same league as either of the opponents on Saturday.

 

I would have thought Malinga will be the first defence considering he was meant to fight McDonnell in an eliminator

 

Karo Murat is the only top 15 fighters Cleverly has faced. Since then his opposition has been woeful. Caja & Gonzalez are certainly ahead of anyone Clev has faced outside of Murat.

 

I actually think the IBF are the best of the bunch. You can't just buy their title and its difficult to become mandatory, if you look at their rankings the number 1 & 2 spots are almost always vacant because eliminators are needed to fill those spots in order to become the mandatory challenger. They wont just give it to you by defending the international or intercontinental trinkets against no names from the top 50, you have to beat guys in the top 10.

They may not be perfect but at least they're consistent.

 

No you can't just buy their title, they give it away to South Africans instead.

 

I wasn't around that day but to be fair the Scottish card looked much better on paper (and from the sound of it provided thrills & surprises aplenty, so it wasn't the wrong choice to go with Sky instead of Primetime as most likely did)

 

I always wondered what the connection between the IBF and S. Africa was, you can understand the WBC with Mexicans and the WBO with Boricua's but the IBF and S. Africans is a weird one alright, Bantem and below they seem to get first crack.

 

Would like to see him rematch Jamoye with the title on the line

 

Devon Alexander v Lee Purdy mandontry defence :thin

 

like he said. not prefect but at least consistent.

 

McDonnell is pretty much the epitome of a paper champ, as is Cleverly, as is Froch. Being a paper champion doesn't make your record any less impressive, or unimpressive as the case may be. Jamie put in a shift and his stock has risen significantly as a result, but he's a paper champion. Just the way things are.

 

Can we give Steffy Bull some credit too? He's done a superb job with Jamie.