Should the IBO just...fold?

I would suppose the incentive on paper would be shame? ...honour? ...dignity? But as I'm even saying that it's with a cynical laugh remembering just what world we inhabit.

They set out, in '88 alongside the WBO, to rival and ultimately parallel the Big 3. As stated earlier, there was room for one more and it ended up not being them. So, experiment failed/race lost...pack up and go home. Not when there's $$ to be squeezed, though, eh?

I guess them continuing on in some form would be fine provided they were calling their belts "intercontinental" or regional or somesuch and self-identifying as the steppingstones they are. Passing themselves off as purveyors of legitimate world championships is what bothers me. Same with every org beyond the Big 4, and even then four was already too many (by about three).

I guess ultimately their motivation to stop would be the fighters themselves ceasing to act like they give a damn about them. It really only is a few bad apples in the mix among genuine world ranked pros that hype them up, like Joshua or Eubank, but apparently that's enough to give them continued raison d'être.

 

Bad take, lads.

Wrong direction entirely - we should be looking to move away from diluting the waters any further with more belt proliferation. The solution to "we have too many belts in this splintered era" isn't to elevate a pretender org because some of the originals have fallen into disfavor. If expecting the IBO to close up shop and go away because they're useless is wishful thinking, wtf do you think expecting the WBC or WBA to end their very lucrative rackets is? Downright quixotic naïvete, if you ask me.

Both of those, as goofy and ridiculous and often infuriating as they have become, carry between them a lion's share of the sport's heritage. They're not going anywhere, certainly not to be replaced by upstarts like the WBO and IBO (no matter how much better run, more transparent in their rankings system, and less corrupt they may be) - that's magical thinking. Fantasy land. Categorically not happening in our lifetimes.

So if we accept the already established "legit" world title sanctioning bodies are, like it or not, here to stay (until they start to either merge - the preferable option, with all of them eventually coalescing into a single authority the way it always should have been in the first place, but now we're into magical thinking again - or die off) we absolutely should not be inviting any more to exacerbate the already pretty dire situation.

What needs to happen is the public - fans and media - need to call out the nonsense of including the IBO title along with the real ones in discussions of who gets to call themselves a champ, or which fights are unifications. Shills like Eubank and Joshua need to be ignored or castigated when they act like they're hold another prize of equal prestige to any of the Big 4. Eventually the message will be sent, the go-away heat will hopefully affect their bottom line and make the cost of doing business too high, and the IBO will either stop advertising themselves as having the jurisdiction to crown world titlists, or just go bankrupt.

 

Doesn't matter, really.

WBC has been embroiled in many over the years, with their name absolutely dragged through mud, deservedly, but they are still the one the majority of top boxers have coveted the most, for generations now, and that probably isn't going to change.

If you want a nice balance of tradition/prestige and virtue/integrity, then probably the IBF would be the org for you to pin your hopes on, as far as long-term survival. I just don't think either of the '88 newbies (and that does include the WBO, despite them shoehorning their way into hearts and minds as the Big Fourth) are going to ever rival the original three in terms of their perceived meaningfulness.

 

Okay, but name one champ of theirs (who isn't also the champ of a real org from the Big 4 - ie, not Usyk or Golovkin) that is widely recognized as the best in their division. Or even second or third best.

Aside from Usyk and GGG, do you really believe their slate of titlists isn't exponential orders weaker than all of the Big 4's? (which I'm by no means saying are perfect)

I do respect what the IBO set out to do, with their computerized rankings (similar to BoxRec's system) ambitiously intending to revolutionize the industry, but as we saw with BoxRec, taking out the subjectively qualitative human element brings us no closer to rankings everyone can agree on than any other way it's been done.