What is wrong with the sport and how can it be saved?

Boxing is on its knees its barely even a sport anymore. We have fighters getting screwed out of decisions on a weekly basis, promoters who want to keep it all in house or feed their fighters stiffs while they claim to be a World champion but have no intention of fighting a World class fighter. The fighters who go along with it are just as bad. TV companies who talk about the state ofthe sport and all the titles but they keep giving us these mickey mouse title fights. More importantly we have no body governing the whole sport all we have are sanctioning bodies, commisssions and boards who are solely interested in money and not whats good for the sport. They also have a habit of making the rules up as they go along which the EBU and BBBoC have shown in recent weeks. We have fighters demanding drug testing be more stringent and fighters refusing to comply with the idea.

I'll start with fighters getting screwed. Teddy Atlas has been banging on about this for years. Judges don't get bribed with brown envelopes of cash they get 5 star hotel suites and their bills paid for them for the weekend by promoters. Atlas says he has seen judges and referees sitting having a meal with a promoter the night before a fight which these guys are judging or reffing involving that promoters fighter. Imagine this happened in football it would be front page news if Alex Ferguson was sitting having a meal with Howard Webb the night before he refereed a Manchester United game.

Nothing can seemingly be done about this. These commissions make up there own rules and there is no one to govern them. Las Vegas hosts most of the big fights in the sport and they only use judges who live in Vegas and some of these guys are in their 70's and have had a series of dodgy decisions involving more than 1 promoter. All around the World its the same. Dodgy decisions with fighters clearly getting shafted but nothing gets done about it.

Promoters know they can put a decent fighter up against nobodies and get them a title that way. They can then continue fighting stiffs hoping for a big payday or they just keep milking it. There is an astounding 81 versions of World titles going around at the minute split between 4 bodies (IBF, WBA, WBC and WBO) . The IBF look the best of a bad bunch with only 1 interim champ but don't get to excited their list of champions includes Tavoris Cloud, Daniel Geale, Randall Bailey, Carl Froch, Corneilius Bundrage, Billy Dib, Juan Carlos Salgado, Leo Santa Cruz and Jeffrey Mathebula although he is about to fight Nonito Donaire so I would cut him some slack but they are all nothing more than token title holders. The other bodies are no better in fact they are probably even worse.

The 2 biggest promoters in the USA Golden Boy and Top Rank refuse to work with each other. They only want to work with anyone when their man is guaranteed the win. The promoters in Britain are the same. They have a similar problem in Japan the promoter who looks after Takahiro Ao the 130lbs WBC champ won't work with the promoter who promotes the other Japanese 130lbs champion Takashi Uchiyama. This has also scuppered any hope of an all Japanese super fight between Koki Kameda and Toshiaki Nishioka.

Tv companies don't help the situation. Sky did a piece on Ringside a while back about all the belts in the sport but then they go and hype Froch v Bute for a 'World' title. I'm sorry but if you are calling yourself a champ at 168lbs and you haven't took your belt off Andre Ward then you are having a laugh. Showtime and HBO are just as bad. Showtime did a bantamweight tournament to bring some clarity to an excellent division (their words not mine) they never had the best fighter at the weight involved but he was moving up and his promoter would never agree to it so it was fine. They then go and show a bantamweight 'world' title fight between Leo Santa Cruz who has beat no one and Vusi Malinga who was even worse. HBO take the biscuit mind you. The advertised Macklin v Martinez for the real middleweight championship of the world (again their words not mine) but they still have no problem showing Chavez Jr fights and saying they are for the Middleweight title. The TV compaines are in a no win situation though because what HBO refuse Showtime will OK and vice versa. ESPN do a good show but they don't have the money to put on the sort of shows HBO and Showtime can.

In Britains its even worse our biggest promoter had to go and set up his own channel because the biggest broadcaster in the country has strangled the sport almost to death andthen gave up on it. Terrestrial TV isn't interested apart from channel 5 who only seem keen on around 6 shows a year and all they show is the main event and Chris Eubank Jnr. I love boxnation as a channel for a boxing fan its great there is so much on Sky would never have shown but I do understand it is a channel for boxing fans and it does marginalise the sport even more but it's not as if Frank Warren had any other options.

Some good fighters don't get the fights they deserve because they have no profile and are to dangerous. We used to have the black murderers row guys who couldn't get a fight because they were black and good now we have guys who can't get a good fight because they are good but have no profile like Sergio Martinez, Lucas Matthysse and Erislandy Lara.

Personally I feel without a body that governs the whole sport then nothing will change. The guys at the top are clearly making enough money or we would have had change by now.

Is there any other issues you feel are holding back the sport from shining like it could and what should be done to resolve the issues? Who's to blame?

Maybe you feel everything is good and you think I'm mental let me know.

Firstly: Scoring. It has become terrible. Reform this aspect first
I used to think we needed one sanctioning body, but I would just settle for one now where they have an honest ranking system, 1 belt each and force fighters to take on their mandatories.
Top Rank and Golden Boy would then be forced to work together where their fighters were mandatories for a belt the other promotional company has.
Competative matchmaking is key too

What would you do with scoring because I can't think of anything better than we have if corruption wasn't rife throughout the sport I'm not sure scoring would be a big problem.

If the TV companies and media still recognise the other sanctioning bodies then that won't solve the problem it will just stay as is because they will go the sanctioning body that will let them keep it in house.

One thing I think is actually ok is the quality of matchmaking these days, at least above lightweight. In most divisions the right fights have been happening. Fans tend to want fights immediately but if you allow for a year or two window then I think at HW, CW, LH, SMW, MW (seemingly in the near future) then most of these divisions have a Ring champion and produce the right fights. Obviously at welter and light welter there have been Pac/Mayweather and Khan/Bradley that didnt come off and should have, but even still there have been decent matches.

Would largely agree with the rest of your points. Personally I have felt that change should start with the commissions. Greater cooperation amongst the big commissions and attempts to recognise and address the problems. Something that could be seen as a precursor to a global body with representatives from each of the major commissions - California, New York, Nevada, UK, Germany, Japan for example. If these guys could sit down, look at the problems facing boxing and start looking at collective solutions - i.e refusing to sanction fringe titles, outlawing "silver/regular" champions, draw up rules that sanctioning bodies have to adhere to, quality of judging reviews etc then it would be a start.

It's too late imo, it's going to be an impossible task to pull boxing out of the hole it's in and here's why

- Scoring System- how can it be changed? Seriously, would educating judges make a difference, the judges know the rules but still makes awful decisions

- Governing Bodies- How will we get rid of them? why would the WBA fold or decide to work with the WBC, they just won. You can't just cant get rid of one, it's not fair when they have as much right as the others

- Promotion- Once again it's the job of the promoter to make the fights, they hold the money for purses so if they want to make a fight, they can do what they want. How can you force a Goldenboy and top rank fighter to fight each other, defeats the object of having a promoter in the first place and you can't give rid of a promotional banner

-Network coverage- boxing isn't a mainstream sport anymore, between inactivity, awful match making and lack of superstars it isn't going to improve anytime soon. We need a Muhammad Ali to reignite the sport and that looks less likely year after year. The days of 'everyone in the world' held in suspense during Ali-Foreman is gone. Not even manny-floyd will get that much attention compared to that fight

We can sit here saying do this and do that but the chances of them happening is tiny

It's not asking bodies to shut themselves down do it for them. Don't recognise the other 3. Pick one who will co-operate with the major bodies and will try and stop some of the mismatches we see for World titles.

In Japan they don't recognise the WBO as a major organisation.

Thing is - super six is one of those - you'll miss me when i'm gone things. It comes and things are grand then it goes and the emptiness of the sport is highlighted even more.

Japan not recognising the WBO doesnt really do anything now though when everyone else does. It just makes fights even harder to make.

I think the best route to go down is to simply undermine each and every sanctioning body. They are all irrelevant for the most part now. If all the Commisions just withdrew recognition on them and didnt sanction their belts then it would damage them severely. If they got together and hired an independant body, approved by each major commission and operating in accordance with rules established by the commisions then the junk belts might be undermined to the point where they are not recognised.


The sport has basically always struggled with regulation from day one. It needs cooperation and to build towards a global body with extensive powers and control in this day and age. Instead each Commission seems to be run rather amateurish, isolated and self serving which gives promoters and now meaningless santioning bodies far more control than is healthy.

The problem is waiting for the governing bodies to do anything is akin to expecting turkies to vote for Christmas, everything sensible they could do which would be of genuine benefit for the sport such as merge, dump interim and super diamond belts or reduce the number of divisions would radically reduce their revenue from sanctioning fees.

Have said it before but any change has to be TV driven, showed it over here when we had WBU, WBF and intercontinental belts being contested every other week, eventually someone at Sky said enough was enough and they vanished overnight. However as you have already alluded to not so easy to do in the States because if HBO start playing hardball with a promoter or promoters am sure Showtime will be only to happy to home any disgruntled victims, thus acheiving nothing.

However you now wonder if the TV companies have the energy or inclination to put things right, sky are already reigning coverage back in this country and you do have to wonder if American TV will continue to think the sport is worth the hassle when they have MMA waiting in the wings to drive the PPV market.

Like others have said though am not sure the sport has not already gone too far to come back, even fans seem to just accept nonsense as OK, the two best fighters in the world can't be bothered to fight each other? C'est la vie, we'll still shell out to watch them against however else they can be bothered to fight. Two thugs can't get a licence in their own country to cash in on behaving like idiots? Not to worry as long as their is a loophole we can all applaud.

Good article by the way kev, depressing but good.

I think TV is going to have huge influence but I cant really think of any other way other than having a global goverance body. I dont think TV would make effective masters of the sport because there interest in primarily money and rating, not the long term health of the sport. In many ways TV is to blame for the saturation of titles as it is now thanks to trying to sell every fight as being for some kind of championship.

A global organisation with the long term health of the sport at the heart of their interest is the only real solution I think. I think the first step towards this would be to have a summit of all the biggest boxing commissions and try and elect a global body from its members, cooperate and form a united front. Then they can look towards solving the problems and eradicating the current sanctioning bodies which would be acheivable if they all stuck together and pulled in the same direction.

Rowley cheers mate.

I tend to side with Manos on this one without a Worldwide governing body who have the best interest of the sport at heart and not money nothing will improve imo. Look at the top 10 for each of the 4 major governing bodies and there is no consistency between any of them even at weights with few decent fighters.

Boxing is a strange sport to govern because it doesn't have set fixtures or tournaments like almost all other sports. Forcing the best to fight the best by rejecting match ups and refusing to acknowledge the governing bodies who are on the take would be ideal but it will never happen unless the guys at the top stop making so much money.

Got to agree about the one governing body, but just can't see it happening. You solve so many of the problems in the sport if you do this. With one governing body Manny and Floyd would have fought as without doing one of them would not be able to call himself world champion, Dmitry Salita or Tommy Karpency would not get world title shots as they would not get anywhere near a top fifteen and certainly not to mandatory status because there would be too many good fighters challenging for world titles but if the situation in the sport at the minute is not enough to get the powers that be round the table one does have to wonder what exactly it would take?

You need to take money out of the pockets of the guys at the top. TV execs, promoters, governing bodies, sanctioning bodies and fighters by not buying PPVs or tickets for shows.

In the modern age with social media people can get there voice heard more than ever. The problem is as long as these guys are making money they wont listen.

rowley wrote:Got to agree about the one governing body, but just can't see it happening. You solve so many of the problems in the sport if you do this. With one governing body Manny and Floyd would have fought as without doing one of them would not be able to call himself world champion, Dmitry Salita or Tommy Karpency would not get world title shots as they would not get anywhere near a top fifteen and certainly not to mandatory status because there would be too many good fighters challenging for world titles but if the situation in the sport at the minute is not enough to get the powers that be round the table one does have to wonder what exactly it would take?

The annoying thing for me is that it is actually doable. The problems facing them would be difficult to tackle but I cant see why the 6 or 7 biigest Boxing Commissions cant sit down and at least start talking and trying to cooperate?

If they at least tried and failed I wouldnt mind but they are the ones that are supposedly charged with the interests of the sport but they let it fall into disrepair and dont visibly appear to anything to help the sport other a cursory med check on fighters, issueing licences and being told what to do by the big promoters and sanctioning bodies.

Another thing that could force change other than the fans voting with their feet, which I don't think anyone else has mentioned, is the top boxers in the sport. Beyond wishfull thinking I know but if say Pacquiao, Mayweather, the Klitschkos and the other main pay-per-view draws were to effectively go on strike and campaign until a series of demands were met (e.g. standardised drug testing) then this could starve the bodies of money pretty quickly. They could still carry on fighting but refuse to fight and pay for the belts. These guys have effectively risen above belts anyway. Pacquiao vs Bradley and Mayweather vs Cotto are two of the biggest fights of recent months but I haven't got a clue what belts were on the line and couldn't have cared less, although I'm willing to accept that this could just be ignorance on my part! Unfortunately I doubt anyone could ever get enough of the top boxers together to put aside ego for the good of the sport

alma wrote:Good point patientfist. Belts are largely irrelevant. It's the names that sell the fight these days

I can never agree with this. Belts still have a big place in boxing today, after all, how many big name fighters out there who have never held a belt? The answer is none. You're not even going to get the chance to fight Manny or Floyd unless you have built up your reputation by at one time having a belt.

I do like the idea of having one belt per division and mandatories but how many boxing fans would be happy to see Floyd making a mandatory against Selcuk Aydin his number one challenger? During the 80's when Leonard, Hagler, Hearns had their titles they made mandatories but fans today don't seem to have any patience, they expect every fight to be some sort of marquee match up or they start complaining. One title per division also means that some of the so called big fights that we see these days would end up being nothing more than regular title defenses. Cotto and Calzaghe for example might never have been world champs if there was only one title per division. No more big unification fights either. I can live with that but how many others can?

Atila wrote:

alma wrote:Good point patientfist. Belts are largely irrelevant. It's the names that sell the fight these days

I can never agree with this. Belts still have a big place in boxing today, after all, how many big name fighters out there who have never held a belt? The answer is none. You're not even going to get the chance to fight Manny or Floyd unless you have built up your reputation by at one time having a belt.

I do like the idea of having one belt per division and mandatories but how many boxing fans would be happy to see Floyd making a mandatory against Selcuk Aydin his number one challenger? During the 80's when Leonard, Hagler, Hearns had their titles they made mandatories but fans today don't seem to have any patience, they expect every fight to be some sort of marquee match up or they start complaining. One title per division also means that some of the so called big fights that we see these days would end up being nothing more than regular title defenses. Cotto and Calzaghe for example might never have been world champs if there was only one title per division. No more big unification fights either. I can live with that but how many others can?

They would have been forced to face the best at their weight to become champs all fighters would which is surely the way it should be. It might also bring good fighters together who never consider fighting each other because one is based in America and the other Asia. Broner v Uchiyama would be a great fight but it's easily avoidable so why bother they can both hold belts and claim to be champs. There is a lot of so called champs going around who haven't beat a world class fighter yet and that is a joke. I don't consider all 4 title holders at each weight a champion only the 1 I consider to be the top man. IMO there is 17 real champions in the sport and the rest are having a laugh.

Seanusarrilius wrote:Firstly: Scoring. It has become terrible. Reform this aspect first
I used to think we needed one sanctioning body, but I would just settle for one now where they have an honest ranking system, 1 belt each and force fighters to take on their mandatories.
Top Rank and Golden Boy would then be forced to work together where their fighters were mandatories for a belt the other promotional company has.
Competative matchmaking is key too

How do you reform scoring though?

You and I watched the same fight at the same time on the weekend (I also rewatched it) and we scored it totally different. Neither of us have been paid off by Arum and, I'd like to think, both are fairly impartial/independent however we viewed the fight almost completely opposite. The same could be said of two other posters (who are fairly universally respected in their views normally) in Chris and Fists.

Very good post and very good debate. I'm working so can't rumble in fully but agree with a lot of what Sugar is saying. Good work!

That's a great point TopHat. The only thing I can think of, that has been mentioned several times on here before, is greater use of awarding 10-8 rounds when they are one sided. What do you do when there are no clear cut domination rounds where this could be applied?

10-8 rounds should be seen more often. I try and never score an even round I tend to think that in 3 minutes someone will have done something that warrants the round. But then you have the situation where one fighter clearly wins a round and its scored 10-9 and then in the next round the other fighter scrapes a close round and they get a 10-9 as well.

I don't know what would be any better than the 10 point must system we have now though.

Surely the 4 main sanctioning bodies could come together and arrange a tournament where their title holders all fought for unification eg:

WBC v WBA
IBF v WBO

Winners face each other to determine the champ.

If any title holder refuses to take part they are stripped and drop out the rankings and the next avaliable contender takes part.

Also if one of the winners of the 1st round drops out due to injury ect, the two losers fight for that belt with the winner going on to fight the other 1st round winner in the finial.

Do a different weight each year so they get a good few years of sanctioning fees making them more inclined to do it and new contenders each time it comes around.

Surely the TV exposure and money would be massive for this!

i mean just looking at say the LHW division now.

If you had
cloud v shumenov
cleverly v dawson

if anyone drops out or refuses have campillo v pascal or something to decide who goes in.

lets say that sets up a Dawson v Cloud fight for LHW supremacy and cleverly shumenov to pick up runners up places, you would have to think it would be a massive success and create a unified champion and a star.

And because its only belt holders taking place there are still big fights for the winnder....Pascal, Campillo, Erdi, Hopkins ect.

Would only require 2 fights on the part of participants aswell so would be a long drawn out process like the super six

I can see your point but not all titles holders even deserve to be in the top 10 in that division. A hell of a lot certainly don't deserve to be in the top 4 in their division.

Take 154lbs as an example the 4 main belt holders are Zauerbek Baysangurov, Cornelius Bundrage, Floyd Mayweather and Saul Alvarez. No way do the first 2 deserve to be in the ring with Canelo or Floyd.

True but as a exercise to clean up the alphabet soup it still makes sense.
Lets say mayweather vacates as doesnt bring enough money....even maybe canelo,it would free up people like lara and kirkland to fight for a place and then it does become meaningful.
Or just let the rest fight it out you get a champion from it and a worthy contender to those guys.

another situation similar is WW
bradley, magglinagi, bailey and floyd.

none of those guys really are on floyd or pacs level or probably even ortiz/berto level. Well if floyd dropped out it leaves a place for ortiz/berto/brook and then it oes become meaningful, the winner would be ranked no 3 at the weight and be the unified champ...makes for a natural fight with the big boys.

I do understand what your saying that in certain weightclasses it would be undermined but I still think something as simple as this would solve a ton of problems in the sport and create more stars in the sport

It would still be justifying all these belts and sanctioning bodies and that is my problem with it.

I've been mulling over how we could improve the scoring...

5 judges instead of three
Each judge scores each round in three areas: aggression, ring control, punches landed
Scores are recorded for each aspect so effectively each judge is scoring every round out of 30
The highest and lowest scores are removed from each category in each round and the remaining three scores in each category count

I think this offers much more transparency and would eliminate some of the issues we see as any judge falsely marking down a fighter for a particular aspect of the scoring would be blatantly obvious and because the lowest and highest scores are removed from each category/ round, any anomolies would hopefully be eliminated.

not perfect but I think it would help clarify a judges reasoning and would hopefully show why a fighter won or lost in the judges eyes.


(Edit: it'll never happen. Nothing will happen, certainly not in the near future as the people that control boxing still make a lot of money off it, despite the decline in popularity, so there's no reason for them to change it as they're too short-sighted)

That would make it almost impossible for fans to score fights which would take a hell of a lot of enjoyment and debate away from fans.

I can't see boxing recovering but don't see it getting any worse, as it can't!

It will never be mainstream again apart from 2-3 fights a year which get attention.

It will retain it's hardcore fans and local towns and cities will get behind their fighters but I think a few low-key domestic fights on Channel 5 is as much as we can ask for.

It's just seen as a joke now by outsiders due to al the dodgy matters going on.

My dad isn't in to boxing at all but when there is a big fight and I tell him about it or let him know i'm watching it etc his usual reply is "what's the point it's a fix anyway!"

I always say it's not every fight and is rare but after this weekend my dad said on Sunday morning "as usual another fix, why do people still bother watching it?" There wasn't much I could say in response!

Another friend of mine who is not in to boxing much but has watched the last 2 Pac fights and the Floyd/Cotto fight. In these 3 fights he's witnessed 2 robberies and an entertaining fight which was tainted with Boxnation's pathetic commentary. My friend certainly wasn't converted into a fan!

The main thing is judging more than anything. If the decision's are at least right then the game can start to improve but can't see anything happening soon.