What do you think of the IBO?

I, as most people do, have a strong dislike of the alphabet title system situation. However, I was wondering how people felt about the IBO?
I actually think they are on to something and if the other sanctioning bodies adopted their approach I believe it would actually result in more unifications and much less subjectivity, which must ultimately be good for boxing? Before everyone decries me as a lunatic, have a read and let me know what you think.:nut

As most of you probably know, the most important difference between the IBO and the other sanctioning bodies is they have implemened a computerised ranking system, which goes a long way to removing subjectivity (and bribes for better rankings & title shots..!).
Fighters are ranked soley on who they beat or who they lose to, so beat the best and your rating (and as a result their ranking usually too) will increase, lose to the best and it is no disgrace, you rating would decrease only slightly. A major benefit of this is that padded records are not favoured highly, if you beat someone ranked much lower then you cleary don't deserve as much credit. You might be a very talented boxer but until you beat people good enough to warrent an improvement in ranking you wont be ranked highly.

An example of this is Amir Khan, he is rated 8 by The Ring, 6 by the WBC, 4(!) by the W(arren)BO, which must be taking into account potential as he has only had 15 fights and not beaten anyone ranked anywhere near that high. In my opinion this is not very fair on other less spectacular boxers who may not appear as talented but who have earned their ranking through fighting better opposition. The definition of 'potential' is that it is something not yet realised, Amir might look like extremely good but until he proves it against well ranked opposition there will always be a question mark over the areas he has not been truly tested in. In comparison Amir is ranked 19 by the IBO which seems much more reasonable given who he has actually fought, rather than what people might think he is capable of. I personally think that potential should not be figured into rankings at all, if you are good enough you will eventually beat the people required to deserve a high ranking so why second guess people's abilities and risk getting it massively wrong? More deserving but less hyped boxers will miss out when human opinion gets involved.

The rankings can be found here. Even though a computerised system still holds a very small amount of subjectivity (it has to be programed by a human afterall), once it is running I believe it approximates the true state of affairs pretty well. If each sanctioning body were to adopt a similar approach I think we would be much more likely to see similar rankings throughout. However if people don't take the IBO seriously then the top ranked fighter may not actually hold the belt, maybe that is something which would improve with time as a reputation is built. As far as I'm aware, they have been very transparent in the way they operate and have not been responsible for any strange decisions or corruption that has often been linked with other sanctioning bodies. I think that despite being the newest, they are the best of a bad bunch.

What do you think?:think

 

That pretty much sums up my waffling above! However, I'm not sure where to place Khan, his talent is clear but his record to me does not yet confirm it. If, for instance, there was an relative unknown who looked OK-ish and had Khan's record I would be very suprised to see them as high as 12. I just feel it's unfair to boxers who have actually fought the people necessary to justify their ranking if they are ranked lower because someone else just 'looks very good'.

I know it is a simplistics view to take, but generally if someone is good enough I think they will be able to earn a high ranking through results. I don't want to read to much into the manner of victories as it is often said that styles makes fights and someone who looks amazing against hand-picked lower class opposition might fall short at a higher level against particular opponents, so I would prefer to let their results speak for themselves instead of trying to guess what the look like they may be capable of. If you still think Khan should be rated at 12 then that is fair enough.

 

I don't know how the system deals with fighters who change weight class, maybe Miranda has to have a couple more fights at 168 before his ranking stabilises. However, I think there might be a reasonable argument that his record does not justify a very high ranking (yet), none of first 25-ish seem to suggest anything worthy of a particularly high ranking. His position will mostly be based on his last seven fights:

* He beat Eastman (good! but I don't think he fully realised his potential so might carry a lower rating than expected in the system)
* Loses to Abraham (wont be a big negative)
* Beat Gibbs (padded record - carries little weight in a computerised system)
* Beat Green (who hadn't really beaten anyone of note that I am aware of, so will have a lower rating than he may be capable of in future)
* Loses to Pavlik (wont be a big negative)
* Beats two more people with padded records (and according to Boxrec I think it says he didn't even make the weight for these Super Middleweight fights!)

So it might be fair enough that his rating isn't particulary good, I agree that he is probably better than the 15th best Middle/Super Middle in the world, but I also feel that his record is not actually that good so he shouldn't be rated much higher yet! The thing with a computer based ranking system is that it rewards consistency rather than one off flukes or excesively penalising one bad fight.

This is not necessarily true, have you heard of ELO ratings? I imagine that the IBO ratings will be based on a modified ELO system - no initial rankings are required for the system. Everyone can be given the same rating and then one iteration of the system is applied, this gives an initial set of ratings that do not differ a great deal and then another is carried out which uses the ratings given from the first iteration, providing slightly better approximations again. This process is repeated as many times as is required for the ratings to stabilise.

 

I don't know how the system deals with fighters who change weight class, maybe Miranda has to have a couple more fights at 168 before his ranking stabilises. However, I think there might be a reasonable argument that his record does not justify a very high ranking (yet), none of first 25-ish seem to suggest anything worthy of a particularly high ranking. His position will mostly be based on his last seven fights:

* He beat Eastman (good! but I don't think he fully realised his potential so might carry a lower rating than expected in the system)
* Loses to Abraham (wont be a big negative)
* Beat Gibbs (padded record - carries little weight in a computerised system)
* Beat Green (who hadn't really beaten anyone of note that I am aware of, so will have a lower rating than he may be capable of in future)
* Loses to Pavlik (wont be a big negative)
* Beats two more people with padded records (and according to Boxrec I think it says he didn't even make the weight for these Super Middleweight fights!)

So it might be fair enough that his rating isn't particulary good, I agree that he is probably better than the 15th best Middle/Super Middle in the world, but I also feel that his record is not actually that good so he shouldn't be rated much higher yet! The thing with a computer based ranking system is that it rewards consistency rather than one off flukes or excesively penalising one bad fight.

This is not necessarily true, have you heard of ELO ratings? I imagine that the IBO ratings will be based on a modified ELO system - no initial rankings are required for the system. Everyone can be given the same rating and then one iteration of the system is applied, this gives an initial set of ratings that do not differ a great deal and then another is carried out which uses the ratings given from the first iteration, providing slightly better approximations again. This process is repeated as many times as is required for the ratings to stabilise.

 

That's true, maybe if boxers nowadays would fight more than twice a year then things would be easier to calculate!