The Ring Magazine, commonly known as the Bible of Boxing has been owned by Golden Boy Promotions for some time now. Many fans thought its credibilty as a neutral boxing magazine was under threat as a person with an iversted interst of having some fighters ranked higher than others now owned the magazine. Is it me, or does it seem it is purposefully making a point of not helping GBP fighters, two recent example of this are Hopkins losing #1 at LHW and Mosely somehow losing #1 at WW. I was wondering what everyones thoughts were on The Ring being owned by GBP, and whether anyone is as puzzled as me as to how the Ring is now ran, and if anything has changed under GBP!
I'm a cynical SOB but I haven't seen anything that makes me think The Ring is compromising its integrity.
There is a perception that because GBP bought the mag that they own the rankings, but there has been questions on the Ring ratings scheme going back to when they reinstituted them early this decade. They have a large diverse board on their ratings panel and a fairly transparent model on how it works and explain their changes every month. Tell me how that's worse than the BS the alphabet gangs perpetrate. Oscar De La Hoya has a blog on the website where he accused Arum of making the Cotto Pac fight in favour of Pac by making a bigger ring. Arum pointed out De La Hoya must be tripping because Nevada has had standard ring sizez since the mid 90's - The Ring reported Arum's story and removed that section of DLH's blog. I love how in the sport of boxing the magazine that actually tries to be transparent and declares it's potential conflicts of interest has somehow LESSENED it's credibility in doing so. It's the ONLY bastion of honesty in the fricken sport!
There was an inerview in boxing monthly i think it was with schaefer in which he said that GBP bought the ring as an investment and they'd have to be pretty stupid to **** up that investment by screwing with what makes it popular. So for business reasons if nothing else GBP aren't going to start messing with the impartiality of the ring
Yeah I agree it would be very stupid to start messing with its neutrality and its integrity as a boxings magazine, and a work of sports journalism. However, I know alot of boxing fans, myself included, who were very pessimistic about a promoter owning a magazine that hands out reputable titles; but it looks like its remained neutral.
As long as GBP or any promational company has an owner ship of the Ring than it's rankings are as good as the WBA, WBC, IBF, WBO, BoxREC. In otherwords there is nothing speical about the Ring's rankings.
The ring magazine has its ups and downs...I didn't see the need to swap Bernard Hopkins with Shane Mosley after Floyd Mayweather beat Marquez... They had BHOP at 3 and Mosley at 4 and for some reason after Floyd beat Marquez they swapped em around and had Mosley at 3 and BHOP at 4....something not right there
The Ring is a fine publication and Nigel Collins is a very good editor. ALso, managing editor Joe Santoloquito is a hell of a writer, and IMO the best boxing writer in the world. Those guys produced a high class magazine on a shoe-string budget with a a grand total of 3 employees, and they revolutionized the sport again and tried to bring sense to this cluttered title mess. To put it in perspective, they used to be owned by a publisher that makes puzzles...how much do you think they cared about boxing? They do a hell of a job and there is little doubt in my mind that they have been able to maintain journalistic integrity while finally getting the resources they deserve through their buyout by Golden boy.