what changes would you like to see in boxing?

• A unified national boxing commission in the United States. GB has the BBBofC, Germany has the BDB, Japan has the JBC, yet America's boxing authority is fragmented amongst the various boxing hotspots, mainly Nevada, California, New York, New Jersey, and Texas. Any significant changes to boxing would have to be applied unanimously and across the board in order to be effective. For example, if only Nevada started requiring mandatory OSDT for fights, promoters and fighters wary of such testing would simply choose to fight in New York or Texas or any other state that didn't have such rigorous standards. Unless there is a powerful national commission enforcing such rules, the independent state commissions would undermine each other's power to enforce any significant changes.

• Assuming the above takes place, I would like to see this hypothetical national boxing commission follow the JBC's example and limit the number of sanctioning bodies allowed to participate in fights taking place in America. In the early 1990s, the Japanese Boxing Commission banned the International Boxing Federation (IBF) from sanctioning fights within Japan after several JBC officials had "unfavorable" experiences with them. In addition, the JBC never recognized the WBO or IBO or any other sanctioning body beside the WBC and WBA. Therefore, as far as Japanese boxing is concerned, there are only two sanctioning bodies involved, the WBC and WBA. I would like to see this happen in America as well, except I would like to see it limited to only one sanctioning body, if feasible. If the hypothetical national boxing commission I mentioned in my first point were to come to fruition, it could easily dictate which of the numerous sanctioning bodies were allowed to participate in fights, and thus could reduce the number of frivolous "championship" belts from 4+ to only one or two, like it was in the 70s and 80s.

• As far as championship belts themselves, I would like to see more frequent mandatory defenses applied, under punishment of having their title stripped. As it is, fighters are prone to "milk" their titles by defending against outmatched "voluntary" challengers, or against undeserving mandatory opponents whose promoters paid a hefty sum to position their unremarkable fighters for a title shot. This clearly needs to be remedied. In the late 1990s, the IBF got themselves in serious trouble with the federal government, and had their entire operation picked apart by U.S. Department of Justice investigators. The DOJ continues to observe their organization to prevent any wrongdoing, and the IBF has become possibly the most respectable of the major 4 in recent years, regularly having title eliminator matches to produce credible mandatory opponents, refraining from stripping their champions for frivolous or shady reasons, and generally not doling out "interim" or "super champion" belts. I would like to see this degree of accountability with every major sanctioning body, preferably under the auspices of the hypothetical national boxing commission I keep mentioning. Generating credible mandatory opponents and requiring champions to defend their titles multiple times a year would ideally produce fruitful championship reigns spanning multiple years, which the sport has sorely lacked in the recent past.

• A same-day weigh-in rule. The situation regarding weighing in has gotten ridiculous in recent years. The move from same-day weigh-ins to day-before weigh-ins was idiotic and hurts the sport more than it helps. Starving and dehydrating oneself to make weight and subsequently rehydrating a significant amount of weight over the course of a day is insanely unhealthy and leaves a fighter vulnerable for brain damage, excessive swelling and a host of other injuries including having a "weak chin." We've seen fighters like Miguel Cotto and Amir Khan have fragile chins at lower weights where they were struggling to make weight, and have markedly better chins when they move up to a more natural weight class. Add to the fact that you rarely see serious injuries amongst the heavyweights, where the timing of a weigh-in is virtually irrelevant because there is, in fact, no weight limit. Same-day weigh-ins are safer, fairer, and solve the problem of fighters gaining ~15 lbs before the fight.

I could probably think of more, but those are the points that have been bothering me the most about professional boxing nowadays. If those things happen, I think the rest would fall into place on their own.

 

Yes but then there'd ensue the almighty battle over the division of purses, and the opening shots would be fired by the managers and promoters.

It still smacks of unnecessary belt proliferation to me. Under a universal governing body; with a single belt per division and an honest and rigidly enforced ranking system, the top Asian lightweight would be contesting the top lightweights from around the world as a matter of course, either in the midst of defending his title or in the quest to climb the rankings ladder and secure a title shot. And in this highly idealized scenario such top contendership battles would be highly lucrative undertakings for the fighters involved, given that they'd be highly competitive and talked about fights; a natural consequence of a just ranking system and a universal governing body, capable of promoting its product, boxing, to the world in a logically cohesive manner. Such a scenario would be a nail in the coffin of all regionalism and insulation in boxing, why then seek to revive it?

Of course this is all a pipe dream. Unfortunately, we've long since become trapped in the quagmire wherein, for the powers that be, an alphabet soup being on the line is far more important, from the perspective of sales and marketing, than a truly competitive fight.