To Ignore, Or Not To Ignore, The Alphabet Title Gang In Boxing

That's a fair point, but what about fighters who have winning streaks against substandard opposition? Should they climb up the rankings more than somebody who loses but looks good against better opposition?

 

I think i have possibly the least understanding of all the alphabet belts, title holders, super champs, diamond belt, emeritus (sp)?, etc.

If someone cares to provide an explanation in laymans terms... in one short sentance, it would be much appreciated.

 

Bradley should be demoted purely for rejecting a very good offer to face Khan. You can't reward that type of behavior, that was the fight to decide #1 and if he wants to turn that down he should be demoted. It's only fair really.

Not that these Ring rankings mean jack ****.

 

You are quite correct....the rankings could be thrown completely into chaos if, as you described, a journeyman snuck a win over a ranked fighter. In Roe world the journeyman would take the position in the rankings of the man who he has just beaten...Then another journeyman comes along and beats the former journeyman, he then takes his place and so on and so on....We would end up in a complete mire where someone like Peter Buckley is dominating the rankings based on one win. Rankings have to take into account the standard of opposition, its obvious.

 

I'm with Max in how I think a fight should be scored.
The winner of a round is the guy you would rather be in the round.
Kotelnik was the aggressor and made him miss and made him pay all night long. Alexander winning 8-4 rounds on 3 scorecards is a robbery imo.

 

No offence Roe and Dave but this alternative method of ranking sounds shite :good

 

I fully understand what you are saying, I just don't agree with you. Your example uses two journeyman...multiply that by 10 or 15...one journeyman beats the first journeyman, he then gets beast by a journeyman and so on and so on...you would end up with the upper reaches of the rankings dominated by journeymen who have only had one win over another journeyman....its journeymadness

 

None taken.

I'm not sure what Dave thinks but I'm not meaning it as an alternate. I just meant in an ideal world, a ranking system would work where you have to beat a higher ranked opponent to move above them. Obviously there are other scenarios such as inactivity, level of performance etc which have an effect.

You guys are right because boxing doesn't work like that but I'm just saying that it should. Just like this thread is saying that perhaps alphabelts should be ignored, well they aren't.

 

You're example is equally flawed though. What you're saying is that all these journeymen aren't very good despite the fact that they're all beating other top 10 ranked fighters? If a prospect is very good, but doesn't yet have a good win to his name then he needs to beat one of the top 10 guys to get rated. Otherwise it's all subjective.

Of course it doesn't work in reality because nobodies active in competitive fights enough but that doesn't stop it from being how it should be.

 

All this discussion about how rankings should work is fine, but we all know the governing bodies aren't interested in ranking fighters on merit.
They corruptly use the ranking system as an arbitrary means to get the title fights (and therefore "Champs") that they want, according to who's paying the money and pulling the strings.

 

That still doesn't make ranking the journeyman that high right in the first place. Relying on "market forces" to correct your incorrect rankings for you probably isn't the best way to rank fighters, eh?

Under your "system" the journeyman would be less likely to to fight a top ranked contender because all he has to do is sit tight, not lose and he'll keep his ranking. Stupid way of looking at things IMHO.

Thankfully things arn't done like that.

 

Yeah I saw that and its ridiculous. Think about it mate.

 

He beats most (6-7) of the others in the top 10 easily. Pirog should be top 3 in my opinion. Macklin gave it a good go against Sturm, but Sturm was so poor. Both Seb's are really average. Williams and Chavez are not really middleweights.