I'm not convinced that Cleveland Williams beats Floyd Patterson

No, what you said was that either the Ring or the NBA are EQUALLY valid. They arent. Again, the NBA was a body composed of governmental organizations that had the ability to dictate who got title shots, who was stripped, if fighters got banned, etc. The Ring couldnt do any of that. Why would anyone give a **** what the Ring said if "its all just someone's opinion" if the Ring had ZERO official standing? The NBA ratings were the official ratings in the USA. Again, even you are using the NBA's rankings to bolster your argument that the Ring ratings werent that bad because a fighter found his way into the Ring ratings by beating someone who wasnt ranked in the Ring but was ranked in the NBA rankings. In essence you are deferring to the NBA to support your own argument.

As for Hans Stretz, yes, he moved up in the rankings by beating someone who was actually rated by the NBA. What he did following that has no bases on why he got his rating. Crystal balls only exist in fantasy. You tell me what makes more sense: Stretz getting rated over beating Sullivan BEFORE Sullivan lost to McAteer or Stretz getting rated by beating Sullivan, bumped from ratings for drawing with Mueller and then McAteer taking his place for beating the unrated Sullivan after Sullivan had already lost to Stretz which is exactly what the Ring did. I'll go with the NBA's logic. Im not sure why you think drawing with Mueller should have disqualified him of a ranking. He didnt lose, it was a draw.

 

Exactly. So why you've been claiming that I said the Ring ratings were better than the NBA ratings is beyond me.

No crystal ball required. The NBA ratings only came out quarterly, so by the time they promoted Stretz to their #7 contender spot he had already drawn with the unranked Muller. Evidently the Ring considered that a poor enough result that they dropped him from their #10 spot and replaced him with the undefeated, 37-0 McAteer.

You prefer the NBA's logic? That's fine, but either way it doesn't support your thesis that the Ring were unjustly favouring foreign fighters. Not when this is a debate about which of two foreign fighters deserved to be rated.

 

As you say, a lot to unpack, but I am interested in the supposed corruption of The Ring ratings.

"It was discussed in a casual conversation as an aside to a completely unrelated interview."

Of course, no one else knows exactly what Loubet said. All we know is that you take this "aside" as an excuse for incontinent extrapolations.

"It was just the opinion of a magazine whose sole purpose was to sell more magazines."

You are certain Fleischer didn't care about his reputation or about the well being of a sport he devoted his life to? You know his "sole" purpose.

"Never mind that they rated fighters and gave undue copy to fighters in states and countries where they wanted to beef up their sales."

Well, the proof of this is in the pudding, and examples. You gave three. Pat McAteer, Fred Galiana, and Seraphim Ferrer.

Fred Galiana--I could only find him rated once in the yearly Ring ratings. He was rated the #1 contender in 1955. Why? Because he was on a winning streak and coming off a win over Ray Famechon. The NBA had rated Famechon their #1 contender in October. Galiana defeated him in November and took the European featherweight title. In their end of the year, or December, 1955, ratings, the NBA rated Galiana #2 behind an American, Carmelo Costa. The Ring rated Galiana #1 and Costa #2. By the way, Galiana had been rated #11 by the NBA in their October ratings going into the Famechon fight. So your big corruption claim seems to be rating Galiana #1 rather than #2. Personally, I would have rated him ahead of Costa after looking at both men's records.

Seraphim Ferrer--I couldn't find him in the Ring's yearly ratings, so when was he rated? If in early 1955, he deserved it as he KO'd Paddy DeMarco in 5 rounds in early 1955. DeMarco was coming off two championship fights with Jimmy Carter, and had defeated Carter in the first one, winning the world lightweight title. So Ferrer at least being rated doesn't seem odd at all. And by the way, what is your evidence that sales of The Ring in France or Algeria would be significant enough to warrant corruption?

Pat McAteer--this one has been covered. McAteer was a promising young fighter with a 37-0 record who had just won the British Empire title. The Pathe newsreel announcer comments that Sullivan was warned for his low punches by the ref and finally DQ'd. The film does show obvious low punches, including the last one. The announcer concludes that McAteer was ahead on points and a deserving winner. His getting a #10 rating out of this doesn't strike me as evidence of corruption.

So none of these are convincing at all.

Lost in this is why did an American boxing organization have a right to prescribe "official" world ratings. If they were dealing with American champions, okay. But world champions? The NBA had no more validity rating world championship contenders than The Ring did.

"Fleischer could not possibly have seen them all."

But The Ring had correspondents all over the world. Using their feedback he did at least as well as the NBA. I agree with the earlier poster. There really doesn't seem to be that much difference between the NBA and The Ring's ratings.

*I think a more valid criticism of these ratings is that they underrated foreign fighters. For example, compare Eddie Cotton and Wayne Thornton in the mid-1960's with Mauro Mina and Gregorio Peralta. The relative ratings are often head-scratchers.