Boxer's official record - what does that really mean?

[aicheligad]

At the top of the BoxRec site there is written ''Boxing's Official Record Keeper'' but is that true?. Some fights are not being included despite being fully sanctioned bouts for, to say the least, weird reasons and I will give an example. So, maybe something like ''official record'' does not exist? But then, do ''official results'' exist? Maybe, at least in theory, one organization (say WBC) can recognize different records than for example IBF?

Last month, there was an event organized in Poland, it was shown on the public channel (which is also country's top sports channel in terms of viewership), in the main event there was a fight of Kamil Łaszczyk (undefeated fighter who defeated Tevin Farmer early in his career) but the results of this event are not being added to BoxRec database despite the fact untelevized events in say school gym in Tijuana or in an basement in Ghana are being added on a regular basis even if no one ever seen these fighters. It happened to another event in Poland as well, shown on another popular channel, organized by different promoter. So why is that?

In 2013 AIBA decided that amateur and professional boxing shouldn't be run and sanctioned by the same organization (In Poland it was Polish Boxing Association).

So, due to this decision, one of the Polish Boxing Association members, Krzysztof Kraśnicki, founded the Polish Professional Boxing Department (PWBZ), which is an private-owned organization that sanctioned virtually all pro boxing events in Poland until 2019 and has been recognized by the international boxing bodies.

Then, promoter Andrzej Wasilewski founded the Polish Boxing Union (PUB). Officially, he said that the new body is necessary to improve the level of organization of events and judging. But, in fact, it was due to his conflict with the PWBZ.

What was the conflict about? Adam Balski, undefeated Polish CW fighter decided to move to Wasilewski's stable but his previous promoter stated that he still has a valid contract with him. PWBZ decided to not to sanction Balski's fights on the events made by his new promoter until the conflict between the two promoters gets solved.

Before the foundation of PUB, Wasilewski's events in Poland during the conflict were sanctioned by... Austrian Boxing Federation!

Leszek Jankowiak, the best known Polish boxing referee is one of the founders and vice-president of the recently founded PUB. At the same time, he is the only Polish official BoxRec's editors, responsible for adding the results of the events to BoxRec database.

Due to promoters conflict, some events in Poland are sanctioned by PUB and some by PWBZ - Jankowiak, who clearly isn't neutral, adds only the events sanctioned by PUB.

Promoter Mateusz Borek, whose events are being sanctioned by PWBZ explains that the European Boxing Union (EBU) wrote a letter to all promoters that the only respected and recognized by them organization to sanction bouts in Poland is the PWBZ and therefore fighters that will fight on the events sanctioned by PUB will automatically get suspended by them. He plans to organize EBU title fight for his fighter Kamil Łaszczyk next year. But fighters are not willing to come to Poland if the fights are not being added to BoxRec database. That's understandable.

The PUB president, Jarosław Kołkowski, states that PWBZ, despite being the sanctioning body for virtually all boxing events in Poland since 2013 and was recognized by all the international organizations, it was never formally and legally registered. Not as the sport organization nor as the economic activity or whatever.

He also stated that Jankowiak can't add PWBZ-sanctioned events to BoxRec even if he wanted to because BoxRec is not recognizing PWBZ anymore (supposedly due to previously mentioned doubts about it's legal status).

So BoxRec, which calls itself ''Boxing's Official Record Keeper'' recognizes different organization in Poland than the EBU (which is kinda part of WBC).

Who, in this situation, is losing the most despite not even being responsible for this situation? The fighters, of course.

Boxing is a very strange sport (I mean especially it's organization), is there any other sport with promoters and organizations conflicts such as in our beloved sport?