Jeeso this thread went to ****. @Dubblechin, why so obtuse? It's not difficult to get the idea of ACTIVE fighter. Whilst there were rumours that Pac was gonna fight Crawford, he was gonna fight Mikey - then obviously the announcement that he was fighting Spence happened, I assume that Manny was removed from the TBRB BEFORE this fight was announced. At that point, when a fighter is inactive and UNRATED, then of course they have to fight again to be rated again. Tough titty, be more active!!! There were also plenty of rumours that Pac was gonna retire too... Maybe, the only thing I would suggest that is pertinent, is whether a fighter shows INTENT to be ACTIVE? In this case, Wilder could be argued as being active because the fight with Fury has been scheduled and confirmed. Of course it might be delayed due to Covid, but IMO that could easily be argued as different to Manny's inactivity - his fight with Thurman is coming up for 24 months old, and the intent to fight Spence was 22 months - which is still a heck of a long time to be rated without earning it. If I was on a ratings board, I personally would be arguing very strongly for higher activity - e.g. Canelo regardless of any other stuff I might not like about him, he get's extra 'rating juice' because he is fighting regularly; like 2-3 times a year! Not total throwback but much better than the 1 fighte every 18 months that seems to be the norm these days! Personally I'd say that if a fighter didn't have at LEAST one fight in a calendar 12 months, then they should be excluded from the pool of fighters to rate in a division at any given time. I'd probably go even further and say there should not be any longer than 6-9 months for the intent to be active, by having a fight scheduled / announced. How many times did Mayweather "retire", when folks knew he would come back? Inactivity / fake retirement or whatever, if you are not properly active, then it simply penalizes other fighters who are IMO. I'm not a big fan of the whole 'champion in recess' thing either, but obviously there can be real extenuating circumstances there and for bona fide champions, these should be reviewed on a case-by-case basis.
I was specifically referring to Dubblechin regurgitating the same stuff for 13 pages rather than having a constructive discourse; the thread could have been elevated if:- 1) Dubblechin acknowledged that TBRB currently do not have Manny as ranked due to a legitimate part of their rating process - inactive fighters are not part of ranking till they fight again. 2) Rather than butting heads ad nauseum on the same 'rate 10 best fighters' vs 'rate 10 best ACTIVE fighters' argument, why not go to the crux of the matter? The moment that Manny vs Spence was announced, the question should be does Manny NOT become active at that point? He has a scheduled fight, maybe at that point he should be included / considered in the ratings process again? 3) Acknowledge that Champion / Contender have different rules under TBRB current process as stated, then make a cogent argument as to why that current process is flawed. See below for further thoughts on that. With Mayweather, he was Champion though, as McGrain previously said, there is a difference between Champion and Contender/Challenger. Whilst I don't like the idea of belts being held hostage for long periods of time, it is also arguably not fair to penalise a Champion for something that is outside of their control (vs simply not wanting to fight). But this is tricky - some might argue that Spence's car accident would NOT be something that should be 'extenuating' as with all due respect to Spence, whilst everyone I'm sure wished him a speedy recovery, there was the question of DUI and culpability. This would be difference to a Champion having surgery / Covid IMO. A challenger / contender on the other hand - there are MANY of them and not all can be accorded special dispensation. If someone is not fighting, then they cannot be challenging to become the top dog, regardless of the reason. One final thought here is that I believe much of the disagreements that people have in this matter stems from semantics and an inability to accept that rating list X is not actually what THEY are talking about; they are talking about rating list Y. For example, based on everything I have read in this thread, I would suggest that:- 1) TBRB Rating List : TOP DOG, plus the 10 fights MOST LIKELY to DETHRONE the TOP DOG in the next 12 months 2) Dubblechins Rating List : List of the 10 BEST boxers at the weight that have not OFICIALLY RETIRED or DIED. Now, I have been deliberately verbose here to try and show that these are not the same lists. Are there value in both lists? I think there absolutely is, but they are still apples and oranges, and anyone conflating the 2 is obviously going to be disappointed / have issues.
