Ring Champs

war_machine · Post by **war_machine** » 02 Jun 2004, 13:33

Any chance of getting the Ring Champs listed? They are just as worthy as the WBU or NBA titles. Besides, it might in some small way, help to legitimize the Ring champs over the ABC bodies.

Please? I will do it myself! Just give me the power!

RiddickBowe · Post by **RiddickBowe** » 02 Jun 2004, 15:27

I agree that champions are recognized by Ring magazine should be mentioned. As far as I'm concerned right now, Pacquiao is the only Featherweight Champion of the world, and Roy Jones did not "regain" any championship when be beat Tarver the first time.

Ring magazine is a much better indicator of who the real champ is rather than those thieving bandits at the WBC, WBA, IBF, etc.

wouter · Post by **wouter** » 02 Jun 2004, 15:30

RiddickBowe wrote:Ring magazine is a much better indicator of who the real champ is

There is no such thing as a real champ

RiddickBowe · Post by **RiddickBowe** » 02 Jun 2004, 15:50

wouter wrote:There is no such thing as a real champ

I think that's debatable. When Lewis was HW champion, he was THE HW champion, even when he only possessed the WBC belt. Similarly, Hopkins is THE Middleweight champion, no matter what Masoe and Sturm think. Tszyu is still THE Jr. Welterweight champ, regardless of what worthless pieces of leather Mitchell, Gatti, et al, have. Sure, in some divisions it's debatable, such as Featherweight. But when you have Pacquiao who beat Barrera who beat Hamed who cleaned out the division, I think he deserves his status as the only champion recognized by Ring magazine.

I'm not advocating that BoxRec only recognize Ring belts; however, when there is a notation for every worthless alphabet group out there (WBF, IBO, IBA, WBU, IBC, WBB, etc.) it at least makes sense to note what Ring magazine thinks, too.

wouter · Post by **wouter** » 02 Jun 2004, 15:58

I think we should draw the line at boxing organisations.

Blue · Post by **Blue** » 02 Jun 2004, 16:10

Ring lost it’s credibly in back in 79 when they were caught fudging records.

They further lost it when they stopped publishing their Rings Around The World results section in the late 90’s.
How can U rate & declare champions when U don’t have recent results?

Two years ago they declared Paulie Ayala the super bantamweight champ even though he only beat “Bones” Adams who had failed at 126.
The official title he won was a paper title called the Vacant IBO title.
The Ring by-passed the real guys like Larrios & Pacquiao & declared Ayala whose promoter is a big advertiser in the magazine.
Ayala never defended his bogus title and recently renounced it.

I am against it because using Ring would compromise BoxRec’s credibility.

RiddickBowe · Post by **RiddickBowe** » 02 Jun 2004, 16:24

If you're worried about the site's credibility, then why do we list bodies like the WBF, IBO, IBC, etc.? These are all complete jokes as organizations, and yet we still dutifully put in that Iran Barkley won the WBB Heavyweight Title when he defeated Gerrie Coetzee. C'mon, we all know that isn't a real title and those two washed up fighters were far from being world class when they fought.

And Paulie Ayala being named champ was completely justified since he and Bones Adams were the two best 126 pound fighters at that time. Of course, you can disagree with that if you like and say that this decision to recognize the winner of that fight as champion was somehow tainted. Well, if that's the standard you're going by, then how can we recognize Bruce Seldon's WBA title, when he won it from an ancient Tony Tucker. The only reason either of them got a shot at that "title" was because Don King promoted them. Neither was close to being a top 10 HW at the time. So do you want to refuse to recognize the WBA?

And while an editor at Ring was caught fudging records in the 70's, that's ancient history. Are we refusing to recognize the IBF championships because of their record of corruption (which is much more recent and much more egregious than simply adding a few bouts to the records of some journeymen fighters in the 70's)? Do we refuse to recognize the WBC even though Don King's fighters receive undeserved rankings there?

The fact is, Ring's ratings are much better than every boxing organization's ratings and they have clear, uncorrupt criteria for recognizing champions. They are better than any of the sanctioning bodies. We should at least mention the fights they recognize as being for the legitimate title. If Brian Nielsen has a notation by his fights here that some stupid sanctioning body sanctioned them as being for a "heavyweight championship," then I think we can mention that Ring recognized the Manny Pacquiao-Juan Manuel Marques fight as being for their championship.

HOGBEAR · Post by **HOGBEAR** » 02 Jun 2004, 16:43

As much as I don't like the sacntioning bodies, I think it makes sense to draw the line there. They sanction the fights; The Ring sanctions nothing.

Further, if boxrec started recognizing Ring champs, they would also have to recognize lineal champs, USA Today champs, Maxboxing.com champs, eastsideboxing.com champs, BoxingNut.com champs...you get the picture.

PS: If you want to talk about corruption...the Ring championship lost a lot of its luster when the editors shot Vitali Klitschko from No. 10 to No. 4 for doing nothing other than getting KO'd by Lennox Lewis—and then shooting Vitali from No. 4 to No. 1 for beating UNRANKED Kirk Johnson. They then proceeded to observe Klitschko/Sanders as a fight for their "championship." Gee, I wonder if magazine sales factored into all those decisions?

RiddickBowe · Post by **RiddickBowe** » 02 Jun 2004, 16:55

Let's examine the Vitali situation for a second -- he did indeed shoot up the rankings after he lost, but there were a few things to explain that. One, he was ahead on the score cards when the fight was stopped due to a cut. I think it was a legitimate stoppage, but the fact that he was leading Lewis on the cards when the fight was stopped showed that he was one of the top heavyweights in the world. Two, the rest of the HW division is very weak. Vitali showed in the Lewis fight that, even though he lost, he was among the top heavyweights out there. Ranking him #4 in the world was perfectly justified.

Now when they ranked him #1 you also have to realize that they did this around the time that Chris Byrd (their previous #1 fighter) basically lost to Fres Oquendo. It made sense of Vitali's dominant performance to rank him #1. Who else deserved the ranking at that time?

I don't agree that Vitali should have been given the Ring championship after the Sanders' fight (there is the little matter of him needing to avenge his loss against Byrd), but his moving up in the rankings is perfectly legitimate.

HOGBEAR · Post by **HOGBEAR** » 02 Jun 2004, 17:10

Official decisions trump everything. Byrd shouldn't move down in rankings for WINNING. Vitali shouldn't leapfrog six other fighters for LOSING (by TKO). Until he'd beaten Sanders, Vitali Klitschko had never beaten anyone in Ring magazine's Top 10.

But this misses the point. Ring is a magazine, and they could declare Mo Harris their champ next month if they wanted to. They don't sanction fights; they don't enforce mandatories; their success depends on magazine subscriptions. That's why I think they are correctly excluded from boxrec's database. I wouldn't be upset if boxrec started noting them, but as I said in my last post, it opens a nasty can of worms with how many "subjective" champions they'd have to start including. I really don't care who USA Today or Eastside recognizes as champ.

Blue · Post by **Blue** » 02 Jun 2004, 18:25

Dear RiddickBowe,
I am in agreement with U about not listing bodies like the WBF, IBO, IBC, etc.

I warned about this can of worms long ago. If we start listing Ring magazine champs all the other publications will follow and the mess will only get worse.
(Will Ring publish the BoxRec ratings? I think not.)

I totally disagree with Paulie Ayala and Bones Adams being the two best 126 pound fighters at that time (Though I think U really meant 122).
Ayala never fought at 122 before or since his two fights with Adams.
Internationally he was only recognized 2nd best in the bantamweights because he was clearly beaten by Tatsuyoshi who was then destroyed twice the real Bantamweight champion Sahaprom. 8)
Ayala also weaken his claim by winning three controversial hometown decisions before meeting Adams.

Now “Bones”, who wasn’t rated at 126 either, was manipulated in by-passing #1 ranked WBA mandatory Yober Ortega even though he hadn’t even fought at 122 in 6 years, much less earned a rating by beating a top Super Bantam.
(BTW, at the time, the gym word was out that Garza was a shot fighter.)
After beating the worn out Garza, Adams failed to keep his commitment to face the top ranked Ortega and instead ended up with 2 debatable decisions over unranked journeymen before being fed to Ayala.

Boxing sites & printed publications should be watch dogs and deal in news instead of trying to shape our minds with opinions.

I still vote NO!

wouter · Post by **wouter** » 03 Jun 2004, 04:40

Regardless of what you think of those boxing organisations, if a fight's for the WXYZ title it's our job to report that. It's not our job to make sense out of boxing, thank goodness.

RiddickBowe · Post by **RiddickBowe** » 03 Jun 2004, 09:38

Good analysis of the Ayala-Adams situation (and, yes, I did mean 122 -- damn proliferation of weight classes. But I guess that's another discussion) and I'll defer to you there.

However, I don't think this is a slippery slope. If we recognize Ring we don't have to recognize anyone else because they are not as prestigious as Ring. ESPN2 and HBO (to a certain extent) recognize Ring's champions and rely on their ratings. That gives the magazine a legitimacy that no other publication has.

And while it's true that when fights are for the XYZ title we should report that, then why should we exclude a notation that Ring magazine recognized some fight as being for the championship? After all, we're just reporting that, same as any other "title" fight.

wouter · Post by **wouter** » 03 Jun 2004, 09:44

RiddickBowe wrote:If we recognize Ring we don't have to recognize anyone else because they are not as prestigious as Ring.

That's a nice definition of a slippery slope

war_machine · Post by **war_machine** » 03 Jun 2004, 13:31

wouter wrote:
RiddickBowe wrote:If we recognize Ring we don't have to recognize anyone else because they are not as prestigious as Ring.
That's a nice definition of a slippery slope

I see what you are saying, but BoxRec already reports Ring Fights of the Year and Upsets of the Year. So there is some precedent already.

Also, no other magazine rankings are used by ESPN, HBO (granted to a lesser degree) most boxing websites etc.

I also would argue that USA Todays rankings aren't nearly as recognized as The Ring. They are hardly cited on broadcasts and seldom mentioned on the major boxing websites.

The Ring Magazine is obviously not without fault, but there is no way you can even begin to say they are even close to being as corrupt as the ABC bodies. Everyone one of the Box Rec members can probably name 10 instances of ABC corruption off the top of their heads. I don't think you can say the same about the Ring.

I must sound like the biggest Ring nuthugger but I am not at all. I just think the Ring Champ policy is the best alternative to the ABC bodies.