Jared Anderson vs Frank Sanchez - IBF Final Eliminator

Right. They always "form" under the guise of FIXING something.

Independent ratings groups do the same thing. Fans get together to start "a real" ratings org. Then, immediately, they start making up rules to screw themselves over. Someone hasn't fought in 12 months, so that guy is out of the ratings. Even if he has a fight scheduled the next month. Then he fights the next month ... and he's immediately back to where he was.

So the one ratings period where the guy was removed - because of their own self-imposed 12-month rule - meant that one month their ratings were purposely wrong because they believe that guy is a top 10 fighter, but they removed him anyway because he didn't follow THEIR RULE that THEY MADE UP.

It goes from rating the best fighters, to rating fighters who "follow their rules."

Once you purposely start stripping the actual world champion for not following your rules ... and you remove the best fighter from the division, and then you purposely start rating fighters according to who agrees to follow your rules ... you are just another problem.

And THEY ALL do it. Which is why new ratings orgs keep popping up.

It's nonsense. Just rate the 10 best ... and STAY OUT OF THE WAY.

 

Usyks next opponent could have been Parker or Wardley

 

Yes, general picture of boxing is ridicuolus, has been ridicuolus for decades. 4 major and a dozen minor sanctioning organization is ridicuolus, we all know that, but It’s been the situation for long long time. It didn’t come out yesterday for Anderson and Sanchez.

And what are these dumb rules of IBF that only bad fighters would accept? They’ve had Some great mandatories, had some garbage ones. Their purses are probably low for fighters like Dubois and Chisora, but that’s not the case for the likes of Ajagba and Torrez.

Specifically in the case of Torrez, an olympic medalist with an 14-0 record, this would be the perfect coming out party for him for the pros. But he rejected it, because he didn’t fancy putting his O on the line against Sanchez. So no, I’m not blaming Anderson for it.

 

sanchez should win easily as long as he is atleast 70-80% of what he was

 

Whoever lands the first solid shot on the other guy's glass jaw wins. Anderson hits harder, so I'm going with him.

Wouldn't shock me to see Sanchez score the upset if he lands the right shot on Anderson's fragile mandible, however - he's packing some pretty fine china in that chin!

 

I wonder how Anderson is #6 and his daddy Bakole #8 in IBF ranking.

Yeah Bakole has had a naff year - his own fault given his apparent inability to lay off the pies and cakes.

But he still completely destroyed Anderson when they met and Anderson has done nothing since.

 

Thank God Sanchez finally has a dance partner!

Could even be an interesting fight, this one.

 

Great fight. Tough comeback for Anderson, and tbh I see Sanchez winning via decision.

but props to them both for taking the fight. I will be tuning in.

 

Good fight as it goes. Just happy to see guys getting into the ring.

 

I agree, and I think you have hit the nail on the head with the rules about the split. That seems to be putting off a lot of guys on the IBF ladder. But at the same time there are 3 other ladders, so they knew what they signed up for. So a duck is a duck...

I disagree with this other idea of orgs just ranking the top 10 and letting the fighters get on with it (@Dubblechin @BubblesUK). That just gives even more power to the promoters. It would be a disaster

We saw this with the WBC and the reign of Deontay Wilder. The WBC had one of the best rankings. Lots of the top names. What happened? Dillian Whyte was ranked #1 for years and never got a shot until Fury became champion. Wilder/PBC were allowed to turn the WBC championship into an in-house promotion with Wilder selection of opponents being who could he get away with fighting. It was atrocious

Orgs like IBF certainly have problems, but letting the champion do whatever they want like the WBC did is certainly not the answer. Quite the opposite

 

Promoters and managers have always had the power.

Ratings bodies shouldn't make fights. It's not their job. Their job is rate fighters and let the chips fall.

Trying to force fighters to meet the opponents the org wants them to fight OR ELSE ... ends up ruining the only thing the org is needed for ... and that's to rank the best challengers in order.

That's all they are needed for.

If you asked any fan to name the 10 best heavyweight contenders right now, none would say two of the spots should be taken up by Guido Vianello and NOBODY.

Yet the IBF ratings have NOBODY rated #1, Vianello at #10, and the rest, from top to bottom, are Chisora, Sanchez, Torrez, Dubois, Anderson, Hunter, Bakole and Jalolov.

No Wardley ... because they made a rule they can't rate another org's beltholder.

What's the harm in rating another org's beltholder if he's a top 10 heavyweight? NOTHING.

But the org can't MAKE him fight someone, so they MADE THEIR OWN RULE not to rate him.

So the ratings are already screwed up because of that rule that they placed on themselves.

When the IBF was created, its first champs were mainly champs that held other orgs titles. Hagler was presented with an IBF belt when he held the two other belts. Curry was presented with an IBF belt while he was also the WBA champ. Michael Spinks held the WBC and WBA belts, too.

Why isn't Parker rated? He beat Chisora twice and knocked out Bakole in a couple minutes. Because Parker held another org's interim" belt, so they removed him from their ratings, FURTHER DAMAGING THE SOLE PURPOSE THEY WERE CREATED FOR.

Why isn't Agit Kabayel rated? He beat Chisora, too. He stopped Sanchez (the IBF #3 contender). But he has another org's "interim" belt, too.So, according to the rules the IBF IMPOSED ON ITSELF, he's out.

Does anyone think Tyson Fury isn't a top 10 heavyweight? Seriously? How is Fury not ranked. He's still rated the #1 heavyweight in the world by Ring. He beat the IBF's #2 contender Chisora THREE TIMES, stopping him the last two.

But the IBF has had it in for Tyson Fury since he beat Wlad in 2015. They stripped Fury 10 days later because, according to their RULES, Fury had to immediately sign to fight Czar Glazkov (Remember him? Probably not.)

So, the IBF stripped the world champ less than two weeks after he won the title because freaking CZAR GLAZKOV was the org's next great heavyweight and Czar couldn't wait a moment longer for a title shot.

Is rating NOBODY #1 preferable to including Wardley, Fury, Parker or Kabayel in the top 10? Of course not.

And if Usyk doesn't fight the winner of Anderson-Sanchez, the IBF is going to remove him (the best heavyweight in the division) from their ratings, too.

Because of THEIR RULES.

For what, exactly? How is ignoring the top fighters purposely - nobody is making them ignore them, they do it on their own - making anything better?

Basically none of the fights that are considered the great ones from the late 2010s - Joshua-Wlad, Fury-Wilder 1, Wilder-Ortiz 1, Joshua-Ruiz 1, etc. - were "mandated" by a sanctioning body. The ones that get ridiculed, on the other hand, tend to be when mandatories are made out of matchups like Anderson-Sanchez.

The orgs making demands doesn't make anything better if the result is the top fighters disappear from the ratings.

In fact, all these arbitrary rules org place on themselves just make their ratings worse (like the ratings we have now).

And bad ratings lead to some other group of clowns deciding to start yet ANOTHER sanctioning body to create "real ratings" ... who then turn around and make the same mistakes everyone else did.

Ratings bodies should stick to their lane.

Joe Louis and Muhammad Ali did just fine fighting whoever the hell they wanted. Between them, they had close to 50 title defenses. Neither was forced to fight a mandatory. Every title fight wasn't against the best guy on the planet. But the best get around to fighting each other when the orgs stay out of the way.

All we need from them are clean ratings. Then let the fighters, managers and promoters do their jobs.

Now that I got that rant out of the way, happy thanksgiving.

 

You are harkening back to a era long past though with Champions like Ali and Louis. As I said, we know what happens when an org lets a heavyweight champion do whatever they want. We saw it. Heck even Usyk is just fighting the same guys over an over again to line his pockets. That previous era is long gone, sadly.

Regarding the IBF and Fury. Fury was stripped because as WBO mandatory he signed up for an unnecessary rematch clause against Wlad (one that he didn't honor). So he unfairly tied up the IBF belt. If he hadn't signed up for the rematch, they couldn't have stripped him. Now it can be argued that he "had to" sign a rematch clause otherwise Wlad would have dropped the WBO belt. Well... (1) that is a hypothetical, and (2) that is just how things go sometimes - he was the WBO challenger, not the WBO/WBA/IBF challenger. He basically took the path of least resistance to the title, and cheated against Hammer of all people in the WBO final eliminator. So, let's put away the violins here. The IBF did the right thing.

I don't think the IBF is necessarily the problem. It is the 4 belt era that is the issue. Can we return to a one belt era? Possibly. Will is make the champion fight all-comers? I doubt it.

Happy thanksgiving to you too

 

The problem is, you get laughable rankings otherwise, with fighters who shouldn't be within a million miles of a title thrown into eliminators - exactly as is happening here.

Promotors are, at least, motivated to make profitable fights - and there's motivation for making the big ones, once profiles are suitably built...

There are times I'd like to see rankings played with, though - when fighters are consensus "up there", yet take awful fights to protect rankings and avoid challenges, I'm absolutely fine with cowardice being rewarded with a slide down the pecking order (see Kabayel at the moment).

The problem is, as much as the above would be nice, there are plenty of places where rankings can be run differently...
And by indulging multiple sets of compromises, a multiple belt era is completely unavoidable.

 

Well again, I think the issue with the IBF is the purse splits. They have strict rules whereby the guy above in the eliminator gets the biggest share. I would agree it needs to be reconsidered.

However at the same time, it means that it is harder to A-side your way up the rankings. And gives opportunities for a lesser known fighter from a smaller nation to move up. Such fighters are likely more than happy with lower splits. The problem is, I guess, when an A-side fighter won't accept the lower split.

The other problem is the money men that clearly control the sport.
For the IBF, #1 = mandatory challenger. #2 still means a final eliminator is required. I don't think many people felt so negatively about #3 v #4 being for the #1 mandatory position when it was Bakole v Ajagba. The trouble was Turki/Warren/etc. did not want either of those guys challenging Dubois.

Dubious ducks Parker. Money is thrown at Bakole to step in. Usyk v Dubois 2 is made - a fight no one really wanted except the money men. Parker was swerved. Bakole after losing can no longer legitimately fight Ajagba for IBF#1. So they also took out the Ajagba problem... On and on it went as the whole ladder fell apart as they weighed up the risk/reward. IBF being now back of the line in the rotation, it suddenly became the least attractive ladder.

As for Kabayel, he's not daft. He probably doesn't want to get stitched up or be another Whyte/Joyce/Zhang/Parker

He seems to have the backing of Sulaiman finally, and by rights now Usyk has dropped the WBO, he is next up