Rating the ratings

[candyslim]

I thought I’d take a look at the comparative merits of the ratings of the governing bodies and one or two other notables to see how they compare in terms of credibility.

Naturally my judgement is subjective but I’ve restricted this to just the heavyweights which I know more about than all other weight classes combined.

I’m not concerned with whether Breazeale is rated above Ruiz or Whyte above Miller or Pulev above Povetkin. We each have our opinions but unless they have fought, this is merely speculation. Their achievements suggest them to be on a similar level. I’m more concerned with how someone like Manuel Charr can find his way into anyone’s top 4.

So if the ranking is reasonable I score it 3 points. If it strikes me as eyebrow raising, I score it 2 points. If I think it’s really out of line 1 point, and pure unadulterated bullshit scores 0

My apologies for the presentation. When I typed this I paid great attention to lining everything up so it was neat and easy on the eye. Unfortunately all the spacings have been removed and everything appears compressed and untidy ...

WBC WBA IBF WBO

CH) Wilder 3 Joshua 3 Joshua 3 Parker 3
01) Stiverne 1 Ortiz 3 Pulev 3 Fury 1
02) Ortiz 3 Ustinov 1 Takam 2 Hammer 1
03) Pulev 3 Oquendo 0 Hammer 1 Pulev 3
04) Whyte 3 Charr 0 Klitschko 3 Schwarz 1
05) Ruiz 3 Povetkin 3 Miller 3 Breazeale 3
06) Takam 3 Miller 3 Whyte 3 Miller 3
07) Wach 3 Pulev 3 Breazeale 3 Ruiz 3
08) Breazeale 3 Whyte 3 Dimitrenko 1 Povetkin 3
09) Chisora 3 Bryan 1 Helenius 1 Fujimoto 1
10) Duhaupas 3 BJ Flores 0 Wach 3 Whyte 3
11) Martin 3 Wallin 2 Martin 3 Ortiz 2
12) Molina 3 Hammer 3 Povetkin 2 Zhang 2
13) Kabayel 3 Martin 3 Wallin 2 Kabayel 3
14) Miller 3 Fujimoto 2 Kabayel 3 Wallin 2
15) Browne 3 G Jones 0 xxxxxxx 2 Mansour 3
--- --- --- ---
46 30 38 37

IBO The Ring Boxrec Candyslim

CH) Joshua 3 T Fury 2 Joshua 3 Joshua
01) Klitschko 3 Joshua 3 Povetkin 3 Wilder
02) Povetkin 3 Wilder 3 Wilder 3 Ortiz
03) Pulev 3 Pulev 3 Pulev 3 Parker
04) Ortiz 3 Ortiz 3 Ortiz 3 Povetkin
05) Browne 2 Parker 3 Browne 2 Pulev
06) Martin 3 Povetkin 3 Parker 3 Miller
07) Hammer 3 Ruiz 3 Martin 3 Whyte
08) Kownacki 3 Whyte 3 Hammer 3 Breazeale
09) Miller 3 Breazeale 3 Kownacki 3 Ruiz
10) Breazeale 3 Miller 3 Miller 3 Takam
11) Scott 3 xxxxxxx 3 Breazeale 3 Kownacki
12) Ruiz 3 xxxxxxx 2 Scott 3 Martin
13) Duhaupas 3 xxxxxxx 3 Ruiz 3 Hammer
14) Molina 3 xxxxxxx 2 Duhaupas 3 Browne
15) Takam 3 xxxxxxx 3 Molina 3 Chisora
--- --- --- ---
47 45 47 Your call

Notes:

1) The IBF ratings like Boxrec show their top rated fighter as No. 1 rather than as champion leaving number 1 reserved for the No.1 contender. This leaves no one in 15th slot so based on the other scores I’ve arbitrarily awarded two points for the missing place.

2) The Ring only list their top ten. Their ratings are generally good except for their insistence on rating Tyson Fury as champ. How long does he have to remain inactive before they no longer regard him as the top man ? I have awarded them 13 out of 15 for the missing positions for comparison purposes, which is probably a little harsh. There again 2 points for Fury is probably overly generous.

3) IBF and IBO continue to rate W Klitschko despite his retirement. I’ve awarded 3 points because there is no doubting his quality and he has fought a lot more recently than some “active” fighters rated here.

Conclusions to be drawn:

1. Despite the absurdity of the continuing presence of Bermaine Stiverne as number one contender, the WBC ratings are generally pretty sound and the best of the four.

2. As I would expect the WBA ratings are bloody awful and it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that ability of the boxers ranks very low on their selection criteria.

3. We have joint winners, IBO and Boxrec, so I decided to do a more in depth comparison. Firstly I took Klitschko, Wilder and Parker out of the reckoning because they don’t appear in both sets of rankings. IBO don’t show other champions and Boxrec rightly don’t show Klitschko as he’s retired.

What is extremely curious is that once these fighters are removed, the two sets of rankings are extremely similar, in fact if two students put forward exam papers as closely related as these, there would be fingers pointed about collusion or copying. Maybe the similarities are an endorsement for computerized boxing ratings ... hmmmmm.

They are identical down to Eric Molina in 15th place. The next 5 in both cases are Takam, Whyte, Wach, Haye, Chisora in slightly different order. The next 8 pairings are identical with the exception of Teper and Adamek who are each immediately above or below the other.

It is only positions 30 – 40 where there are genuine differences. If I don’t have a strong opinion about the likely winner I’ve called it a draw (even though that is the least likely result) purely for the sake of neutrality, and those I judge to be winners are in UPPER case … so here are the final ten …

IBO Boxrec

Rudenko 0-1 KUZMIN
Kabayel Mansour
Bryan kabayel
Gjergjaj 0-2 RUDENKO
Wallin bryan
WASHINGTON 1-2 solis
SCHWARTZ 2-2 pianeta
ZHANG Z 3-2 fujimoto
Solis 3-3 DINU
Pianeta 3-4 JENNINGS
Fujimoto 3-5 NEGRON

So there we have it Boxrec by decision and the new …

[davie]

The ones that come from magazines and websites have the advantage over governing bodies.

The governing bodies have rules which does not permit them to list certain fighters on the basis that they hold titles with another governing body.

There may also be rules in there about dropping fighters down the rankings after losing the title to stop them dropping straight into a mandatory spot (Note Klitschko does not appear in the WBA ranking after being the mandatory for that belt)

[candyslim]

It's true but nobody forces them to ignore the holders of other belts do they?. If you are going to disregard some of the best fighters in the division on the basis that they're the other organizations' champion, then you are simply undermining the credibility of your own rankings.

All the governing bodies do it so they are not different in that respect, but as you say that makes their rankings inferior to those of the independent sources, I can't argue with that.

[halfamill]

How about transnational boxing (tbrb)? They have 50 boxing experts representing 20 countries and six continents. Which is much more than Ring's 9 member panelist. Several boxing websites have adopted their rankings. They also keep track of the true lineal champion ever since Ring made it easier to win their championship.

[candyslim]

Good call halfamill I looked them up and I can't fault their top ten. I mean it doesn't necessarily coincide with my choices but there is nobody in their top ten that you couldn't make a case for their being there. Shame they only seem to rate ten fighters in each division. I won't be straying from Boxrec as my go-to site for records and rankings any time soon.

[Lackeos]

I tend to treat the IBO, Ring, Boxrec, ESPN, and the fightnews composite ranking as all being relatively decent, imperfect ratings and go-to sources if I want to cite an objective ranking source. The main 4 ABC rankings are all universally awful.

[candyslim]

Given how damaging having Stiverne at number one and mandatory challenger would be to the credibility of any governing body, I was actually surprised how relatively sensible the WBC's other placings are. Not that I'd want to give those money grabbing bar-stewards any kind of recommendation, but they are way superior to those of the WBA. Not setting the bar very high I know

[RScarf1]

I tend to treat the IBO, Ring, Boxrec, ESPN, and the fightnews composite ranking as all being relatively decent, imperfect ratings and go-to sources if I want to cite an objective ranking source. The main 4 ABC rankings are all universally awful.

Fightnews no longer does their own rankings. They only show the rankings of the four major sanctioning bodies on their website.

[tiny_acres]

Given how damaging having Stiverne at number one and mandatory challenger would be to the credibility of any governing body, I was actually surprised how relatively sensible the WBC's other placings are. Not that I'd want to give those money grabbing bar-stewards any kind of recommendation, but they are way superior to those of the WBA. Not setting the bar very high I know

No worse than Hughie Fury as the wbo mandatory.
All of the ratings suck but the wbo is the worst ratings

[candyslim]

Given how damaging having Stiverne at number one and mandatory challenger would be to the credibility of any governing body, I was actually surprised how relatively sensible the WBC's other placings are. Not that I'd want to give those money grabbing bar-stewards any kind of recommendation, but they are way superior to those of the WBA. Not setting the bar very high I know

No worse than Hughie Fury as the wbo mandatory.
All of the ratings suck but the wbo is the worst ratings

Well Tiny, you obviously don't have to agree my appraisal but I have no axe to grind against any of the alphabet boys in particular (I'm not prejudiced, I hate everyone! ) but WBO came out second to last and a lot better than WBA ...

WBA WBO

CH) Joshua 3 Parker 3
01) Ortiz 3 Fury 1
02) Ustinov 1 Hammer 1
03) Oquendo 0 Pulev 3
04) Charr 0 Schwarz 1
05) Povetkin 3 Breazeale 3
06) Miller 3 Miller 3
07) Pulev 3 Ruiz 3
08) Whyte 3 Povetkin 3
09) Bryan 1 Fujimoto 1
10) BJ Flores 0 Whyte 3
11) Wallin 2 Ortiz 2
12) Hammer 3 Zhang 2
13) Martin 3 Kabayel 3
14) Fujimoto 2 Wallin 2
15) G Jones 0 Mansour 3

WBA 30 WBO 37

Feel free to take issue with any of these scores, I'm listening.

[tiny_acres]

Given how damaging having Stiverne at number one and mandatory challenger would be to the credibility of any governing body, I was actually surprised how relatively sensible the WBC's other placings are. Not that I'd want to give those money grabbing bar-stewards any kind of recommendation, but they are way superior to those of the WBA. Not setting the bar very high I know

No worse than Hughie Fury as the wbo mandatory.
All of the ratings suck but the wbo is the worst ratings

Well Tiny, you obviously don't have to agree my appraisal but I have no axe to grind against any of the alphabet boys in particular (I'm not prejudiced, I hate everyone! ) but WBO came out second to last and a lot better than WBA ...

WBA WBO

CH) Joshua 3 Parker 3
01) Ortiz 3 Fury 1
02) Ustinov 1 Hammer 1
03) Oquendo 0 Pulev 3
04) Charr 0 Schwarz 1
05) Povetkin 3 Breazeale 3
06) Miller 3 Miller 3
07) Pulev 3 Ruiz 3
08) Whyte 3 Povetkin 3
09) Bryan 1 Fujimoto 1
10) BJ Flores 0 Whyte 3
11) Wallin 2 Ortiz 2
12) Hammer 3 Zhang 2
13) Martin 3 Kabayel 3
14) Fujimoto 2 Wallin 2
15) G Jones 0 Mansour 3

WBA 30 WBO 37

Feel free to take issue with any of these scores, I'm listening.

I think we can both agree that they all suck.

[candyslim]

I'll drink to that

[Lennox]

I'll drink to that

If these dont come out best I promise to pack them in.

www.premierboxingorganisation.com/heavyweight-200

Boxrec & IBO are the same now except IBO take the champions out.

[candyslim]

Not quite the same Lennox - see opening post conclusions.

Wow, your offering is a bit of a poser. There's nothing that I would take great exception to in their top 15 so using my original very undemanding scoring system you could make a case for awarding maximum marks .

On the other hand they have Hammer at 6, Duhaupas at 8, Wach at 9, Teper at 11, Wawrzyk at 13, and Zimnoch at 15 all pretty generous in my opinion. Maybe that doesn't sound so bad until you consider that Wawrzyk, whose most significant win I would suggest (other than a washed up F Botha and D Williams) was Marcin Rekowski last year, and you might wonder how he gets a rating and these guys don't : Miller, Kownacki, Breazeale , Ruiz, to name just the most obvious ones. I am starting to realize Hammer has improved a lot and my opinion of him has some catching up to do. Duhaupas was butchered by Povetkin albeit on very short notice (AP did Wawrzyk in 3 rounds too). Teper isn't IMO even the best Turkish Heavyweight in Germany (Umut Camkiran), and Zimnoch gets rated how - knocking out Michael Grant ???

If I was being really harsh I think the lowest score I could give PBO's ratings would be 41.

Of couse that's just my opinion - what do you guys think?