Possible Ideas to Revive the Heavyweights (and quite possibly boxing in general!).

I was reading the article on the main page about how there is disappointment in the championship negotiations between the upper echelon of fighters. During that I had a few ideas that shot through in terms of solving the situation, and I think it's time that we, the fans, state what should be done to create order. Also, above all this the ideas should be organized and sent to belt organizations and promoters. If you have any ideas, add them here in this thread. All things silly and irreverent will be left out and ignored.


My idea: That we should create (or demand) a multinational event and have a tournament in the style of the NCAA Basketball brackets. Using their setup that would be 16 fighters per bracket meaning a total of 64 fighters would get a chance to establish their ranking. The selection of fighters could be made in terms of continent, but since there are six inhabited continents and some of them are larger (Asia) and some are smaller (Australia) it would make sense that these four brackets be balanced properly in terms of how many fighters from each continent are allowed (much like the collegiate voting system is balanced in terms the inside each American state has been divided based upon the population that resides there). Also that will help the four divisions stay inline. Instead of breaking into six. Perhaps South America and Australia could combine, and Africa could combine into another continent like Asia or Europe. Maybe even North America should combine with a nation. I'm not favoring any set of continents here.

Since I think it will strip boxing of its dignity to force these fighters into a rather small frame of time and making them fight in four round bursts over a short period of time (like the concept of Superfighter), this should be setup over a much longer period of time. I'm thinking one year. This will allow longer fights to be established. And since this will assist in establishing who is the better fighter (not to mention reinforce the rankings) this can be done every four years like the World Cup, just to maintain order, and the in between years can be used for the promoters to do what they would like with their fighters so they can make the money that they choose.

This would be set up like an invitational format. So the representative continental organization chooses the fighters they wish to see represented and those fighters have the right to accept or deny their invitation. Also, belt champions may be invited or they may choose to retain their title and deny invitation allowing them to defend against the remaining fighters. I can only imagine in this format, most top 20 fighters would not accept invitation and this would allow lower ranked prospects to get recognition, and also add a certain prestige to the winning fighter. This would add something additional to look at, among attaining titles. Saying that you are the winner of a professional world boxing tournament that you were able defeat all other multinational opponents would be rather impressive.

I am also aware of the cons of this type of set up. It would not allow the fighters to fight what might be considered a better match up. This is to establish a better set of rankings. I can imagine the amount of fighters that are afraid of losing and giving them a less respectable record, and would not participate. I can imagine the amount of complaints from traditional boxing fans thinking this is just another ****** wrench in the already ruined machine.

This would clear up who would be able to fight each other. Give more merit to those that are avoided as fighters. This could also eliminate fighters that are record padders. And I hope that this format would produce the most hungry fighters. Since I have to go to class I'll end this right now, but I will return to expand upon my ideas.

I am interested to hear the criticism upon this idea and also I encourage you to put forth your own ideas.