Do you consider The Ring champs title holders?

Im thinking on doing a Wikipedia article on the scandal...

 

Exactly. Before this happened the only time a Ring belt was issued was when a fighter won all the belts to become unified and lineal as well. Now it’s just another piece of jewellery for a well managed boxer.

 

For those decrying Oscar's purchase of the magazine and harkening back to a supposedly rosier time just remember that the Ring was founded with money provided by Tex Rickard to Nat Fleischer to start the business. Rickard gave Fleischer office space in Madison Square Garden. And it was Rickard who created the magazines first ratings. The magazine stayed in the Garden for decades and was always influenced by being able to make the most money and sell the most magazines, not necessarily what was best for the sport. So for most of the magazines history at the very least it had several conflicts of interest in regards to the integrity of the sport. Oscar purchasing the magazine was merely an extension of that. It was a business, not a bible, despite its masthead.

 

Boxing is at the point where who holds what belt barely even batters. Damn near everyone holds a belt. As I type, there are currently four men with a world heavyweight belt of some description (and that's not counting lesser ABCs like the IBO, WBU etc, if they even still exist).

I don't see the Ring as any more or less credible than the ABCs. They're currently owned by a major promoter and even before that they had a checkered history of weird and biased rankings, questionable decisions (like handing Roy Jones their belt when by rights it should have gone to Dariusz), not to mention the aforementioned bribery scandal.

 

That ratings scandal was interesting. Didn't it lead to the tournament being canceled (after a few fights happened)?

 

Indeed..Ruben Castilllo and Dwight Muhammad Qawi were among the more noteworthy affected boxer participants.

 

That's a shame. A tournament like that is an awesome idea.