Honest ratings in boxing

 

The problem in boxing is that the ranking system is so corrupt that many good fighters never get a chance to fight for a world title, while less talented others get their chance and a good payday to start with.

Here's a ข่าวมวย on why this is and will always be a problem in the sport of boxing.

In 1981, there were two distinct groups of boxing writers; The Boxing Writers Association and the International Boxing Writers Association. I was the vice president of both.

The Boxing Writers Association was made up almost entirely of New York City-based boxing writers and former New York City boxing writers, who were then involved in public relations for various promoters. All members, including press officers, were voting members, and the group voted each year for boxing awards such as Fighter of the Year, Manager of the Year, James J. Walker Award --- For a service prolonged and meritorious to boxing, etcetera etcetera.

Conflicts of interest caused by press officers pushing their bosses' fighters, and even their own bosses, for various awards were taken on in an obvious and blatant way. One year, the late Murray Goodman, one of the nicest men in the industry, openly lobbied his boss Don King for the Walker award. Hey, even old Murray had bills to pay.

Later, Marc Maturo, a boxing writer for the Gannett newspapers in Westchester, founded the International Boxing Writers Association. Marc actively recruited boxing writers from around the world to join this new group, and Marc's main purpose in forming the group was to create the world's first and only honest ranking system in all eight major weight classes. Certain members of the Boxing Writers joined the International Boxing Writers, but the former group treated the new group as traitorous traitors. I mean, who were we to think that we could improve the sports of boxing? The stalwart members of the old group told me that boxing writers exist only to report the news, not to create the news itself. Well, excuse me.

Marc recruited Mike Katz, then from the New York Times, and Steve Farhood after KO Magazine to be the ratings chairmen. The classification committee consisted of 30 boxing writers from around the world. We had voting members from as far away as Japan, Australia, Germany, England, Italy, and France. The fighters were rated from one to ten; number one gets ten points and number ten gets one point. You guys have the idea folks, this was 1981. There was no internet and fax machines were far away and few in between. So the ratings were done by mail and over the phone when possible.

On the first day of each month, the ratings came out and were published by Associated Press Wire Services. They were made available to all newspapers in the country subscribed to the AP Wire service.

The problem was, nobody cared, and hardly anyone in the boxing world wanted honest grades anyway. I will cite two examples: The International Boxing Federation, led by Bob Lee, held its first annual convention in 1982. Promoters Dan Duva from Main Events and Mickey Duff from England liked our qualification system so much that they pressured Bob Lee to You will use our ratings, thus giving your new organization the much-needed credibility.

Guess what? Lee said thank you, but no thank you. Lee said he had his own rating committee. At that moment I knew that something was rotten in the FIB. Recent FIB research seventeen years later focuses on Lee's FIB classification system. No wonder here.

The second incident involved HBO, and its then president, Seth Abraham who sounds like Truman Capote. Marc Maturo and I made an appointment (an audience?) With Abraham in his offices overlooking Central Park. They ushered us into Abraham's office and Marc started launching the classification system. Before Marc could get two sentences out of his mouth, Abraham excused himself and left the room. Minutes later, an HBO lackey walked in and told us to leave the premises immediately. We were told that Abraham thought the purpose of the meeting was to make a comment on His Highness and not to drop our stupid qualifications. Abraham didn't have the courage to kick us out of his office himself.