Why does the boxing media continue to ignore the ring belt.

I see The Ring as just setting out a bluprint of how things should be. I think I'd go insane with all the politics if it wasn't there. As for fans deciding who's no.1 and there being no need for a title, I don't see how that is satisfactory? There's often not a clear cut no.1 and anyway if Leon Spinks beats a Muhammad Ali or Buster Douglas why shouldn't they get all the glory that goes with that, including being looked upon as the man?

 

What happens when the man decides he wants to stay the man so defends against the likes of Audley Harrison and co?

 

Thats the price boxing has always paid for having titles won and lost in the ring. Comes with the territory unfortuneatly.

 

How long do you get away with doing that in a one champ era? If you retrace the undisputed heavyweight title (prior to L.Spinks) how far do you go back to find someone doing that and avoiding the top contenders. Even Paterson couldn't avoid Liston. My point is with all focus and attention on one champ I don't believe they could get away with that - certainly nothing like the extent that today's alphabet champs are able to hide behind their belts.

 

Chambers #3 (effectively #2 if you discount brother Vitali at #1 who Wlad couldn't realistically be expected to fight.)

 

Perhaps, but why then does an alphabet belt 'mean' something if you indeed believe that it does? After all, to win a vacant Ring belt Bradley has to beat Khan and vice-versa - no mean feet for either. Meanwhile to win a vacant WBC belt you can beat Matthew Hatton or if Vitali had retired a few months back, Ray Austin.

On a different point, if anybody believes The Ring are in it for self-promotion why aren't they in a rush to give their belts away? They have what 5, 6 belts filled?

 

Here's an old article from Maxboxing that some might find interesting...

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What About Ring?

Fans used to hearing more frequently about ‘real’ World champions on HBO and ESPN in recent years may be wondering why the lineages noted above don’t entirely line up with Ring Magazine since Ring is often the standard used by those media giants. That’s simple.

When Ring decided to start naming champions again, they elected to ignore some established history, including their own.

That’s a problem when considering that their policy is supposed to be about the notion that titles are won, and lost, only in the ring. In other words, Ring looks like it is all about restoring lineage to titles but, if there was an election that said they could just call a do-over on history, I missed it. While Ring left the game of tracing ‘the man who beat the man’ or at least the ‘man who became the man’ in the late 80’s, websites like the Cyber Boxing Zone (CBZ), and the magazine Boxing Illustrated well into the 90s, were still protecting Boxing’s history.

So, with renewed discussion at this site, and around the sport, about the merits of Ring’s championships, it’s time to take another look at how things have played out on this front. Loyal readers will find this subject old territory for me, but MaxBoxing readers not as familiar with my work can quickly be caught up on the specifics.

When Ring began recognizing champions again, sans alphabelts, earlier this decade, they did so by declaring, among others, the titles at 108, 112, 115, and 126 lbs. vacant and recognizing Roy Jones as Light Heavyweight champion. Jones was easy for most people to swallow because he was, well, Roy. However, his ‘undisputed’ title reign was built on sanctioning body recognition, stripped alphabelts, and occasionally top foes. They ignored the history passed from Hill to Dariusz Michalczewski.

They reasoned, paraphrasing, that the other divisions were in disarray and it would be too confusing to retroactively trace the lines so vacant won. Was that really the case? Well, let’s say it wouldn’t have taken much looking to be un-confused.

If any of you have the February 2008 issue of Ring handy, open it up to page 128 and you’ll see that Sot Chitalada and Barry McGuigan were, correctly, recognized as World champs at Flyweight and Featherweight respectively in March 1986. Those lines never broke, and they traced back farther than ’86. When Ring started noting champs again between 2001 and 2002, that would have meant Wonjongkam and Naseem Hamed.

Since becoming a recognizer of championships again, other problems have arisen with Ring. Among them are:

• Crowning Rosendo Alvarez at 108 while the lineage ran through Jorge Arce in a straight line from Michael Carbajal-Humberto Gonzalez;
• Ignoring the lineage at 115 lbs. that belonged to Masamori Tokuyama in a straight line to the Jiro Watanabe-Payao Poontarat fight in 1984;
• Crowning Paulie Ayala at 122 lbs. for his one clear win over Bones Adams in 2002 after three arguably bad decisions in a row for Ayala against Hugo Dianzo, Johnny Tapia and Bones Adams and with no other wins in the division. Ayala never defended his hollow crown; and let us not forget…
• The coronation of big brother Vitali Klitschko as Heavyweight champion for his first win over a currently rated Ring top ten fighter, ever, against Corrie Sanders in 2004. Much as he was loathsome to watch, John Ruiz’s rebound from the Roy Jones loss with wins over Hasim Rahman and Fres Oquendo were more meritorious than anything Klitscko had actually finished when he entered the ring with Sanders.

To their credit, they have been on the ball on other occasions. Their recognizing Jose Luis Castillo-Juan Lazcano as being for the then-vacant Lightweight title in 2004 appeared correct and was validated by an excellent series of fights that culminated in Castillo-Corrales I. Evidenced above, most of their titlists are accurate to date, so it's not as if they're way out of the ballpark there even if they did back into history rather than embracing it. Finally, through much of modern Boxing’s rich and unique history, Ring’s belts have been a constant from old pictures of Nat Fleischer and Ray Robinson to the casket of Apollo Creed. When a fighter proves to be his divisions true champion, having that belt there is a bonus and a cool aesthetic. But…

This Ring review is inspired in large part by Steve Kim’s piece here at Maxboxing on Monday. Steve and I don’t approach this issue from the same direction or even reach all the same conclusions, but for those like Steve who might feel no obligation to recognize Bernard Hopkins or Joel Casamayor as sole champions, Ring provides the role model. After all, if Ring can decide that legitimate lineage is discardable, then why can’t their placebo lineage at 175 or decision to recognize the weight-skewed Casamayor-Corrales III also be discarded by knowledgeable boxing people based on the results unfolding before them?

 

just add mandatorys and it stops being a problem.

 

chambers has been been on the top 5.

 

Because Vladimir Klitschko also has the Ring Belt!!!!!!!

 

what are you responding to?

 

Add mandatorys and you lose the linearity of the title. As we've discussed on countless occassions....