BoxRec

"Boxrec Once the End All Be All for Fight Records & Information Needs to Be Called Into Question!" (Source: RINGSIDE REPORT)

Now if you are interested in boxing, a boxing commentator, someone who writes about boxing or a boxing nut, your bible is BoxRec.

It appears though, that it is far from accurate. On the 25th of April this year, and on the 15th August, Sam Allan fought Marty Kayes and then Chris Wood whilst on the 15th August Sandy Robb faced Jody Meikle. All three contests were in Scotland, the first night in Wishaw, the second in Paisley. Further investigation found other anomalies including a June 2017 contest including Lee Churcher and Matt Scriven in Nottingham.

So what? Well you might ask because some fighters could be quite happy to see some of their losses expunged in this way or lose some of the bad stuff to look better to promoters…

Well… OK, Nottingham, Wishaw and Paisley are hardly MSG or Las Vegas but these are professional boxers. Their future performances will be matched by reference to their records and the paying public are always close to becoming a baying public when mismatches are made.

BIBA have now raised this issue once again with other boxing authorities and commissioning bodies again and in August 2016 they alleged that there are even fake fights listed. Incredibly BoxRec seems to be only accepting the records of BBB of C sanctioned events and not from other bodies who have a legitimate place within the industry. We are not talking about a few this is alleged to include over 100 boxers from European, African and Asian countries.

Amazingly after this has been raised to other work and regional level bodies including the WBC and EBU, there has been no official or unofficial response. The IBF seemingly have advanced some of the boxers whose records have not been updated on Boxrec. Is that not dangerous? Will this not lead to mismatches? What can happen then?

And why have the sanctioning bodies and BoxRec been silent? Is it because the competing agencies responsible for our sporting fabric are trying to retain control, refuse to share information and chock it up because of their self interest and self regard rather than the common weal and common goals?

There does appear to be a dysfunctional fight going on and it would be nice to know how the bigger boys in the sport see things but they seem to be keeping it all ever close to their chests. BIBA are using Fight Fax and promoting its use by others as the accurate way of checking records.

Right now I have taken the view that all needs to be proven rather than shouted from the rooftops but this is an issue to which I shall return as it appears to be quite simply dangerous; how long before a tragedy strikes?

Surely as a sport we take things like records seriously? We might gripe and may moan about the number of sanctioning bodies but it is surely time to just deal with it. As Terence Crawford and Julius Indongo are due to get in the ring to unify for the first time the four belts in their division it seems that the only way to get unity is to have a fight. I wonder who at the head of each body would win if we made it stripped to waist and no nipping…

Thoughts?

I interviewed a boxing judge in Europe and he told me that some professional fights are not listed on BoxRec because the commission that has jurisdiction does not sanction it. He also told me that corruption is sometimes involved when a commission chooses not to sanction an event. An event also may not be sanctioned because the promoter does not have the money to pay the commission fees. Since that part of the interview was not relevant to my purpose for writing the article, I could not include that portion of the interview in the article because it was very long and even after editing would take at least an hour to read.

Since Fight Fax is considered to be the official records keeper, I thought that it was always correct. BoxRec told me that Fight Fax is not totally correct, but I questioned inconsistencies on female boxer Bonnie Canino's record after I interviewed her. BoxRec updated her record, but not totally according to what Fight Fax has for her record. Even after I showed BoxRec her Fight Fax record, they wanted verification from Internet sources.

If a boxing writer really uses BoxRec as his bible, he needs to be called into question. Last thing I'd want is a boxing writer that is merely a BoxRec warrior, ffs. Boxing journalism is pretty horrible, but this is laughable.

Mexi-Box wrote:If a boxing writer really uses BoxRec as his bible, he needs to be called into question. Last thing I'd want is a boxing writer that is merely a BoxRec warrior, ffs. Boxing journalism is pretty horrible, but this is laughable.

Most boxing writers use BoxRec. One reason is because Fight Fax charges $10 per record. I don't get paid as a boxing writer and I think most writers do not either. However, I have sometimes ordered records from Fight Fax, especially when I need to verify results of fights. Even television networks sometimes use BoxRec when they show records on the TV screen. Boxing journalism is horrible for the most part because mostly the writers are just fans and not really writers. Most of them probably don't edit their own work and often the editor of the website is so busy that errors do not get fixed. Almost everyone in the boxing business relies on BoxRec. Thomas Hauser even wrote an article about it and he's a real boxing writer. Boxing writing is being somewhat replaced by videos, although people still appreciate a well-written article. Even the articles that are well-written still sometimes have one or two grammatical and/or spelling errors. I hardly read boxing articles anymore because most of them are horrible, I have to admit. Boxing writing in newspapers has not been as prevalent and there are not many jobs available for the few boxing magazines that have survived as a result of the Internet. I'm actually going to retire from boxing writing in a few months because there is no money in it for me and it is hard to devote so much time and effort to something that does not pay. Because there is usually no pay, the writers are mediocre to poor. Quality writers usually do not work for free. All I'm looking forward to is possibly getting inducted into the Florida Boxing Hall of Fame next year or some other time in the future. I've given so much time and money to this and received no compensation. I used to be an editor of a website and one of the writers eventually got a job writing for Ring Magazine. That will never happen for me because I criticized them publicly.

This is an issue which came up in another thread, Boxrec reporting of certain title holders is incorrect because BIBA shows are using WBF titles among others so Boxrec are not reflecting those results but are when WBF titles are contested on non-BIBA shows.

I agree with a previous poster, I had to use Boxrec when I ran my own boxing website for several years and when writing freelance articles, paying to access Fightfax is not a viable option...

If only there was a disclaimer on the footer of every single page on BoxRec that says data many be inaccurate or incomplete...

alarmakool wrote:If only there was a disclaimer on the footer of every single page on BoxRec that says data many be inaccurate or incomplete...

...that's a bit of a cop out to hide behind

Everybody uses Boxrec, sadly not so many use Fightfax now, the information is not as good and its $10 for 3 records.

I don't see it is Boxrec's fault if it misses bouts or counts bouts that are fake. They can only work with the information supplied. I think Ali Raymi did not exist or at least he never had 26 proper fights, but everybody counted those fights and when I talked to Anibal he said the fights were real. AR made the ratings of all the sanction bodies so everyone got fooled. I don't see its a boxrec problem. Record keeping is never 100%.

Because Boxrec are ignoring BIBA they have missed out a 'world' heavyweight title fight that has been submitted to the Guinness Book Of Records.
See here: http://www.boxbiba.com/?page_id=3205

Frankly some of these I'm amazed there's a way to keep record of. I've watched cards in Thailand for instance, and the only fighters I can decipher fighting are the main eventers, and that's only because I'd heard about them earlier in the week, and knew what title was gonna be at stake.

The undercard guys. There's no way in hell I could ever even figure out what these guys names are even as I'm watching it. Most other foreign broadcasts I can make head or tail of it a little better than that.

All things considered I'd say their record keeping is fantastic. Nothing can ever be 100%, but a lot of that is down to shoddy record keeping from the commission that was supplying the data more than the record keeper itself.

I think it's a fine service, and a great deal of the fights are verifiable. It's not often at least in the countries with good, well run Athletic commissions that so many things slip through the cracks.

Lennox wrote:Everybody uses Boxrec, sadly not so many use Fightfax now, the information is not as good and its $10 for 3 records.

Are they having a sale? I pay $10 for 1 record.

No system is going to be perfect. THey can't possibly keep track of every event, so they have to rely on getting the info relayed to them.

SteveO wrote:Because Boxrec are ignoring BIBA they have missed out a 'world' heavyweight title fight that has been submitted to the Guinness Book Of Records.
See here: http://www.boxbiba.com/?page_id=3205

Just calling something a world title gives it little weight.

Zelenoff calls punching someone in a gym a world title fight, should boxrec track that too?

BitPlayer wrote:

SteveO wrote:Because Boxrec are ignoring BIBA they have missed out a 'world' heavyweight title fight that has been submitted to the Guinness Book Of Records.
See here: http://www.boxbiba.com/?page_id=3205

Zelenoff calls punching someone in a gym a world title fight, should boxrec track that too?

No, don't be silly but Boxrec should endeavour to list every professional contest that takes place (when sanctioned by a commission) regardless of whatever 'minor title' is on the line.
Why pick and choose?
The example contest I linked to above will probably be included in the next Guinness Book Of Records, yet will be absent from the boxers records on this website!