The Transnational Boxing Rankings

He could be, if Mosley was considered champion when Floyd beat him. The Ring didn't consider him so, but it came down to who was considered number 2 earlier...

Mayweather should definitely not have won a vacant championship by beating Guerrero, but there is a case to be made for him becoming champion when he beat Mosley. The Cyber Boxing Zone considered the 2009 Margarito-Mosley fight to be for the vacant lineal championship. Deciding that this was a championship fight was clearly subjective, because it depended on whether Mosley was considered number 2 or not. Margarito would have moved to number 1 when he beat Cotto. The Ring only dropped Cotto to number 2, but if someone felt the loss should move Cotto further down then they would make Mosley number 2.

With opinion-poll rankings like the Ring's and the TBRB's, there will every now and then be situations where it's not clear who the number 1 or 2 boxers are, who can compete to fill a vacant championship, and this inconsistency shows that boxing needs objective rankings if lineal champions are to be legitimate.

 

If you think subjective opinion about quality of performance matters, then you can't dispute someone ranking Mosley above Cotto at the time, if, as I mentioned, they considered Cotto's loss against Margarito poor. Therefore you shouldn't be so absolute in your assertion that Mayweather's not lineal welter champion.

 

I'll never dispute the TBRB's divisional rankings with my opinion about quality of performance, but because flyweights don't fight middlweights subjective opinion about quality of performance is the most important factor in P4P lists... so here's my super awesome completely opinion-based P4P list...

1. Floyd Mayweather
2. Andre Ward
3. Guillermo Rigondeaux
4. Roman Gonzalez
5. Gennady Golovkin
6. Mikey Garcia
7. Sergio Martinez
8. Danny Garcia
9. Timothy Bradley
10. Juan Manuel Marquez
11. Bernard Hopkins
12. Carl Froch
13. Kazuto Ioka
14. Manny Pacquiao
15. Adrien Broner

 

You claimed the opposite regarding the Wlad/Povetkin travesty, stating it benefited his legacy 'enormously' . If you are going to rank Wlad on the performance of that fight ,where he lost more fans than he gained, ontop of existing fans, he becomes a loser ni a fight that done him more harm than good.

 

I remember I was originally turned on to him by an article of yours Matt...

 

solid list

 

The point in posting it was to show that because pound for pound lists aren't for the purpose of determining who can compete for a championship, subjective perspective about quality of performance and ability can and should be what they're about. Pound for pound doesn't matter, so it's completely up for debate.

But if the purpose of divisional rankings is to determine who's earned the right to compete for a divisional championship, they should strictly reflect accomplishments. I have Golovkin high P4P because he's a brilliant, complete fighter who's dominated different styles of opponents.. but he hasn't beaten someone of Geale's level yet, so I think Barker deserves a higher ranking at middleweight. If quality of performance is allowed to contribute towards divisional rankings more proven fighters will often be underrated.

And as determining quality of performance is subjective, allowing it as a factor can be especially problematic when differentiating two closely ranked fighters... and can leave who's number 2 or 3 ultimately up to a whim, which can in turn result in different lineal championships from different rankings. If you accept opinion-poll rankings, you have to accept that Mosley 'may or may not' have been lineal champion when he beat Margarito. Considering this difficulty, do you think objective rankings with consistent criteria are a better alternative? It would be great if boxrec's rankings didn't restrict a fighter to one division and acknowledged lineal championships.

 

I don't know how long you have been a boxing fan, David, but I'll suppose it has been long enough for you to recognize that boxing, as an unregulated 'sport' and as a spectacle, is not tennis. A boxing match is an act of legalized violence. It is dynamic. It has good losses and bad wins. It is riddled with controversy. Astute fans can see serious slippage in a winner due to age, injury, or inactivity. They can also see the rise of a lion in an official or controversial loser.

You, on the other hand, think a match can be reduced to simple math. You're hell-bent on forcing it into a hole that is as simplified and mundane and mechanical as a game of bocce.

Boxing ain't bocce.

Controversy?! Boxing is knee-deep in corruption. It has imperfect judges who can turn a fight in the wrong direction. It has a history of racism. It has judges that are either blind, bought-and-paid for, or both. It has colored the language with words like "ducking," "diving," "robbery," "tanker," and "throwing a fight." It has and always has had a percentage of fighters who cheat and cheaters who win with the complicity of so-called officials. It has no single authority with a broom big enough to clear away the crap, so that crap continues.

Boxing isn't just a bunch of numbers, man, and no one is going to make it so. It's blood on your shirt, too. And it needs a system flexible enough to keep fairness and sense in arm's reach, but one that also strives to be consistent, which is the part of fairness you are hyper-focused on. Consistency in our mission is captured in the charter for the most part. But where the charter stops, 36 guys immersed in boxing from all over the damn world put collective heads together to be as fair as possible. That keeps us flexible enough to address things in the sport that no amount of key-punching can address. That's what we're offering.

Your system offers one dude at a computer with a God complex.

Worse still, your system pretends boxing is on the up-and-up. It has to, lest it fold before the hand we hold.

Tell us again how your robotic, result-oriented rankings system addresses robberies.

 

This content is protected

This content is protected

This content is protected

This content is protected

This content is protected

This content is protected

 

I hope you and McGrain don't mind if I answer these. McGrain deserves a break!

This content is protected

At this point, we are trying to get the word out to as many fans as we can about who we are, how we operate, and what we're trying to do.

Many in the mainstream media will bash the WBS organizations in the same article that they acknowledge their belts. That will be a hard habit to break. Most writers on the Board have been using the Transnational Boxing Rankings as the rankings authority, and at the expense of the others. This tendency is beginning to spread to writers who are not on the Board, which is great.

The title-holders themselves are not going to readily walk away from these organizations for obvious reasons. But the hope is that those belts and their relevance will be reduced over time and the title holders (the vast majority of whom are contenders by our estimation) will aim for the divisional throne.

The networks are ultimately behind the current dysfunction. If fans get demanding and writers come around to identify who the true divisional champions are, then the networks will eventually have to turn their collective backs on Sulaiman and company.

We are "notifying" champions by way of the website and in articles/essays. We will step up this important part of the mission in time.

Basically, we are trying, slowly but surely, to encourage fans and writers and networks to aim their attention at the thrones and ignore the belts; while also encouraging fighters to aim their exertions at the thrones, and ignore the belts.

This content is protected

See the anniversary article by Springs Toledo (me) that was published on October 11th for more information on that.

Going in, we fully expected to be either attacked or ignored to death. As it is, we have gotten a surprising amount of support from fans particularly. It is very rare that a comment will appear on the site's feedback that is negative. Very rare. That's pretty heartening. We have also generated the inevitable critics.

I think that some fellow (non-Board) boxing writers may feel that we walk around with our noses up as if we're some fraternity. That's an assumption and a wrong one. I for one have never met anyone on the Board and I doubt many others have either. I have "known" McGrain for years through ESB Classic and I've corresponded with Alister Ottesen for historical projects and essays, but my fellow founding members Cliff Rold and Tim Starks were strangers to me until I joined the Ring Ratings panel (for a matter of days before resigning over the infamous revamped championship policy). We are like-minded when it comes to a desire to clarify the championships and offer the sport much-needed clean rankings, but we are anything but intimates. The membership was formed and continues to grow through networking. We try to recruit members from all over the planet, who have some kind of a CV, know their stuff, are uncompromised by the powers that be, and who play well with others. That's about it.

As to sanctioning bodies --we don't acknowledge them as anything but problems in boxing. Our official position is that we want nothing to do with them.

This content is protected

Our mission is pretty specific at this point, and the part that says "not for profit" is pretty important for our credibility.