Rankings : How do you make sense of them ?

[Quixall]

I haven't posted a lot on here recently but i was checking the rankings and wanted to see how the land lay in terms of the lighter weight divisions, ie, Welter, light welter and lightweight. I have not really been into boxing that much of late, maybe because of so few decent fights, but the Broner - Rees fight made me check out a few things. So i went on fight news.com and looked at the rankings for the IBF. It also gave the rankings for the WBC, WBA and WBO organisations. There i saw our own Kell Brook ranked number one on the IBF list with the champion being Devon Alexander. However, Brook doesn't even figure in the WBC or WBA rankings ?? You would have thought that he would have at least been somewhere inside the top ten of the other organisations. But no, the guy is to fight Alexander for a world title and yet he doesn't even figure in the lists of the other organisations. How can this be ? It seems that if a promoter only works with one organistion he gets sidelined by the other three. Also, to add insult to injury, Khan was ranked numer three by the WBC and he isn't even fighting at welterweight !! It would be nice for someone to explain this rather bizzare ranking system

One final thought also. How good do you think Broner is ?

[Khaosai-Galaxy]

I used to go through the rankings in Boxing Monthly like it was the Koran.
My mate and I would go to the pub to argue about it when they came out.

Took me years to realise that they were about as relevant as lists like "Africa's 10 worst ever dictators"

[RonnieTheSharkClark]

The rankings are a massive joke! They seem to be as much use as a chocolate teapot! They should have one main organisation and the best fighter wins that belt... The Diamond Belt?!? How amazing would that be ;) They work with every organisation and the would get the overall real World Champion :)

[littlepug]

The ratings are a joke and anyone who closely follows the sport knows not to take them at face value, a bloke at work asked me to explain to him about the different world titles and how the rankings worked bloody hell that was hard work I think he thought I was making it up !

[Jack B]

In terms of the alphabet soup rankings, they are not a judgement of quality in a fighter. They're simply a tool for promoters to try and manage their fighters into title shots. Simple as that, I'm afraid.

Up until last year, I treated The Ring rankings as gospel (even after they got taken over by GBP). I loved the championship policy and would only regard their belt-holders as the true world champions. Unfortunately, they decided to relax their rules way too much and in my opinion they're meaningless now. There's a group called TBRB (Transnational Boxing Rankings Board) that set up recently - they're trying to promote one world champ per division rankings with stringent policies on championship bouts - but I must admit I find it hard to take them seriously when they don't recognise Wladimir Klitschko as World Heavyweight Champ.

I find it very frustrating, as on a personal level I love the whole history of the lineal championship, the man who beat the man etc., and wish we could live in a world where each division had 1 universally recognised, legitimate world champion, with contenders beneath him who have earned their spot by fighting each other. But, as that is a long way from happening, I think you have to just enjoy the boxing itself and not too worry too much about the politics outside the ring.

It will always frustrate me, however, when I see media outlets promoting misinformation, i.e. Froch-Kessler being a 'world title unification bout' when Kessler is a paper title holder. It causes confusion and misunderstanding amongst majority of fans (especially casual) which is to the long term detriment of the sport, in my view at least.

[fasteddie]

money talks,froch before losing to ward wasnt even ranked in the ibf top ten then all of a sudden he loses the wbc strap and is ranked 5 or something like that,seems to me that hearn has a big influence on this organisation similar to warren on the wbo

[SamWise72]

In the case of alphabet bodies, for "rankings" read "List of people where we have good enough relationships with the promoter that they might fight for our title"

[Alba]

rankingd are subjective and i take it with a pinch of salt ...

[ThereByTheGrace]

Eric Armit will give you a dissertation on the bad and the terrible of Self-Governing Bodies.

Sometimes when looking at them you think it's a different sport how inconsistent they are; whoever makes the organisation the most money these days.

I'd love to see Governments getting involved and replacing all these leeches with one single, accountable Governing body but it'll never happen.

[WestEndRiot]

I tend to trust the rankings on Boxrec and the likes of Boxing Monthly. Obviously they get it wrong from time to time but they give a good indication of where a fighter is at.

As far as the ABC's go, I pay no attention to them whatsoever. Every single one of them has an agenda, and if I see a name I don't recognise I can be almost certain he isn't there on merit. Sad but true

[Looking On]

I like to use boxrecs rankings as a good rough guide , but as stated previously , rankings are basically opinions and politics , theres none of that with the boxrec system as its computerised but then again theres no boxrec title , so do they mean anything at all really ??

[Finch]

Eric Armit will give you a dissertation on the bad and the terrible of Self-Governing Bodies.

Sometimes when looking at them you think it's a different sport how inconsistent they are; whoever makes the organisation the most money these days.

I'd love to see Governments getting involved and replacing all these leeches with one single, accountable Governing body but it'll never happen.

You could argue that is already in place to a degree and called 'Amatuer Boxing'; the problem being there is much more money to be made outside of this and so there is effectively a 'breakaway' called 'Professional Boxing'.

[bripez]

Jus reading a story about tennis on the BBC Sport website.

Apparently Andy Roddick retired 6 months ago and hasn't played a match since.

Strangely enough, he has now moved up the rankings by 2 places to number 40 in the World - although this isn't as mad as the boxer who movwed up the IBF rankings after he had died (can't remember his name) ..................

[straali]

The really daft thing for me is when BN puts out a periodic detailed British breakdown and attempts to rank fighters down to 50th or 60th place with fight records of 1-2 vs 1-1 etc Madness!

[m1kee50]

The only thing I bother doing is going through the 'who did he fight, who did he beat' game. You can be in the top ten of a sanctioning body, 25-0, and yet be utterly trounced by a fighter who would be regarded as a tough spar for the real champion of the division, who has a similar numerical record but has obviously done so much more with his time.