In MMA a Loss Doesn't Mean as Much as Boxing

I appreciate you using an objective set of rankings, though I'll have to voice when I disagree with them. I'll also be putting matches that happened recently between the two best, as any division is going to have another relevant fight waiting in the wings.

Before that Wlad fought Fury.

Povetkin failed multiple drug tests (I know MMA is no stranger to this). Had he fought Wilder when he was supposed to this could have happened. Wlad and Joshua are fighting for sure after Fury's retirement and those are basically the best Heavyweights out there today.

Heavyweight, check.

Usyk just fought Glowacki and Gassiev just beat Ledbedev. Gassiev has said he wants to unify and Usyk has said he wants Gassiev. I expect it to happen next year.

Cruiserweight, check.

Everyone knows Kovalev and Ward have unfinished business. Kovalev and Ward are both ahead of Stevenson in the eyes of most fans, so I consider this rematch the legitimate "best vs. best" matchup. After that, we can talk about Stevenson, who is fighting the Bute-Alvarez winner, which would be his most relevant fight in a while.

Light Heavyweight, check.

Signed.

Super Middleweight, check.

They're currently negotiating for a September fight. In the mean time, Golovkin is fighting the best contender available in Jacobs for a unification bout.

Middleweight, check.

Charlo just fought Williams in the best fight to make at the weight.

Since Canelo is moving up, the next best fighter for Charlo is Demetrius Andrade. That fight looks very likely after Andrade called him out at the last presser.

Junior Middleweight, check.

Pacquiao (who fights part time) and Brook (who moved up 2 divisions) haven't beat a top young natural welterweight in years. Thurman Porter was the best fight to make at welter after Brook moved up, and now Thurman-Garcia is, which is signed and ready to go.

Welterweight, check.

Already happened. Before that, Postol fought Matthysse. They're hoping for Pacquiao-Crawford next as Crawford has all but cleaned out 140. They're both promoted by Top Rank and Crawford needs a big coming out party so I see this as likely.

Junior Welterweight, check.

Zlaticanin is fighting Mikey Garcia. The winner is scheduled to fight Linares (or Crolla, if he wins their rematch, but either way it's winners vs. winners.)

Lightweight, Check.

Lomachenko-Walters just happened. Vargas has said he's open to unification and Loma wants Vargas. Salido is also in the mix for both fighters.

Super Featherweight, check.

Frampton-LSC just happened. The fight was good enough to warrant a rematch and LSC should still be ranked ahead of Vetyeka. Mares just beat Cuellar and Vetyeka is targeting him.

Featherweight, check.

Only if Rigondeaux impresses on the Cotto-Kirkland undercard. But a rematch with Donaire is likely which isn't a bad alternative under the circumstances.

Super Bantamweight, up in the air.

Couldn't say.

Gonzales is rematching Cuadras, which is deserved, but both have stated a willingness to fight each other and HBO seems keen to make that fight.

Super Flyweight, check.

Can't answer these with any honest assessment.


So every mainstream division, bar Bantamweight, has the two best fighters likely to fight, and most of those have had a recent significant fight between the best of them. I see no crisis, I see no lack of clear divisional leaders, I see no horribly unsorted divisions. I see some delays and frustrations, but not enough to generalize the sport as a failure to pit the best against each other. The best fight the best. They did last year for the most part, they will this year for the most part.

 

The main 8 divisions, the rest of which are hardly televised. So how is it a crisis? How are all of the most important divisions having top fights a crisis? The other 3 I simply couldn't tell you because they're almost irrelevant to the sport.

Complaining about multiple fighters calling themselves a champion and saying the best don't fight the best in boxing are two different things.

At this point you're going to simply have to reverse your position and admit that the best fighters in the majority of the divisions of boxing fight each other as the norm. I just showed you that in nearly every division, the top fighters are lining up to fight one another, and are coming off of previous fights that established the same thing. Don't say again that the best don't fight the best in boxing, because you'd be lying.

 

Sorry, it's not 8. From the list I gave it's 12. 12 of the 13 most relevant. To say that the extremely small weights aren't having the best fight the best just because neither of us know enough about them is dishonest. Read the number of checks I gave again. From Heavyweight all the way down to Super-Fly with the exception of Bantam and Super Bantam.

We've established already that Wlad just fought Fury and after Fury retired and Povetkin failed a drug test, Joshua is the next biggest fight. It's happening.

Good thing we established that they're nearly all fighting each other, have been fighting each other, and will continue fighting each other.

Looking at my list it is 12, with a few obscure unknowns that you've been counting as failures. Sorry I didn't correct that.

Heavyweight, Cruiserweight, Light Heavyweight, Super Middleweight, Middleweight, Jr. Middleweight, Welterweight, Junior Welterweight, Lightweight, Super Featherweight, Featherweight, all have the best fighting the best. That's most. You haven't contested the breakdown I gave which plainly shows that the best fight the best in boxing most of the time.

 

12. Why are you saying 8? I said 12.

Wlad was the #1 guy before Fury beat him. To completely disregard him is absurd.

How the **** is that the case when I put a bolded check after every division the best 2 were fighting each other? Count. There are 12. If you're simply discounting the ones I gave a different ranking than the site you chose, that's dishonest.

 

So you're basically pigeonholing the argument into one set of rankings. Don't you see how disingenuous that is?

I'm not happy with 8 because I know better than the rankings you gave me, I'm happy with 12/14 of the divisions I actually watch. Stevenson has no reason to be above Kovalev, Povetkin has no reason to be above Wlad when Wlad beat him already, Canelo can't be both at 154 and 160, etc. Try to conform to broader opinion and then we'll talk, but you can't deny those are high level fights among the best with a straight face.

 

Throw a stone in a crowd, and it will hit some one to hold true.

Look you can have gripes, (even though my comment was thrown at anyone who felt it applied to, not you personally).

We have forums to air grievances, boxing hardcore fan base are the most unforgiving men, but if you gain their respect, you are immortalized in the boxing hall of fame, like the greats like Jack Jonson and Gene Tunney,

Boxing remembers all its best fights fighters. its a honor to be a member of this fold, UFC is an old blue print of boxing before rules were created to make contest better and fairer,

in the olden days bare knuckle boxing involved kicks and wrestling, but the best fighters quickly realized the class in pummeling a man with the fist and allowing him the time to get up after being floored.

A gentleman sports with little excuses due to the fairness of being beaten with the hands and allowed to get up after a 10 count, . This Sport is practices all over the globe.

Criticse boxing, we need it, it will evolve as a result,

 

All ranking "bodies" have agendas far greater than my own. I'm actually listing what most people would agree are the top two fighters in the division. I just gave you reasons why my choices make more sense. If you want to put the rankings to a poll or something that's the fairest way to do it. But you can't deny that the fights I listed are not the best fighters in the division fighting each other.

The UFC has a shallower talent pool and everybody under one organization with slave contracts. Nobody said the UFC doesn't successfully match their ranked fighters, I'm contesting your statement that the best don't fight the best in boxing because they do. In almost every relevant division the best are fighting the best. You're arguments aren't specific at all. I keep listing fights division by division and you defer to rankings which will always be subjective to some extent. At the very least the fights I listed are between the top 2-4, if not 1 v 2.

 

Perhaps Lufcrazy, we disagree with your criticism because we feel that it is unfair and that perhaps you are moving the goal posts. You say that the best don't fight the best in boxing and then we show you that they do perhaps 10 times a year. Then you come back with, "Yeah, but it's not 100% of the time." That's an unfair expectation. Sure, we all want 100% but it's just not practical and you sound unreasonable demanding perfection. Most people would be happy with 50% and not ask for the moon.

A few pages back you said that the best don't fight the best. Then you gave a list of the top five fighters in divisions demanding that they all fight each other. Bogotazo declares that the #2 and #3 guy are fighting or that the #1 and #4 guy are fighting and now you only care if the #1 guy fights the #2 guy. That's moving the goal posts.

Also, you're being intensely legalistic by insisting on the rankings from just one site and ignoring common sense. You blamed me a page or two back for saying that the Canelo vs Golovkin fight would probably come off in September and counting it as a possible big fight, but then including Golovkin vs Jacobs as the actual #1 and #2 fighters currently at middleweight and saying that fight is also coming next year. I think you accused me of ranking Canelo both as a middleweight and a junior middleweight, when according to that ranking site you used he's the #1 guy at both. Your ranking system is a little schizophrenic there. And by your insisting that the top fights are only the one's that perfectly conform to that ranking system you seem a little unreasonable. I'm willing to agree that those rankings are fairly accurate, but having Povetkin as heavyweight champ, Stevenson as light heavyweight champ, and Canelo as middleweight champ should raise a few flags. Even you, who elsewhere insist on perfection, ought to agree that those rankings are not perfect.

Finally, when Bogo shows you that in most of the bigger divisions, as far as he knows the best are fighting the best, you point to the 106, 108, and 112 divisions and say "But what about those?" Meanwhile, the UFC doesn't even have a division below 125! I guarantee no great fights are being made at weights there south of 125. 100% of fights aren't being made in the UFC below that weight. Yamanaka, Gonzalez, Estrada, Inoue, Ioka, and Nietes couldn't fight in the UFC if they wanted to. You say that big fights are being made in 8 of the UFC divisions, then Bogo says that big fights are being made in 12 of boxing's divisions. Meanwhile, UFC doesn't have 12 divisions to make fights in! We have more fighters, more divisions, more fights per year than all of mma, and we have more meaningful fights as a result of the larger talent pool, even if a smaller percentage of the best fight the best.