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Sanctioning bodies have spoiled boxing. Here's how to fix it
The first time I covered a professional boxing match, I was in college, in either 1979 or 1980. The main event that night was for some title or other.
I was seated at a table on the apron of the ring. After the ring announcer introduced the two fighters, the referee held the belt up to show the fans what was at stake. He then handed it to the person sitting next to me, who placed it on the table.
I wanted to read what was on the front, so I turned it to face me. In doing so, the metal face plate fell off. The belt was so old, it was difficult to read all of the writing on it. Much of the words had been worn away.
That was my first introduction to sanctioning bodies.
And it’s gone downhill in the roughly 40 years since.
Sanctioning bodies aren’t the only problem plaguing boxing, but they represent a massive threat to the credibility of the sport.
The WBA is in the eye of the hurricane now because of the controversy surrounding the scoring of the Gabriel Maestre-Mykal Fox fight Saturday in Minneapolis for the interim welterweight title.
On Thursday, WBA president Gilberto Mendoza told Yahoo Sports that he’d asked the Minnesota commission, which oversaw the fight, to change the result of the fight to a no-contest and to declare the title vacant.
Mendoza also told Yahoo Sports that he expects to have a written plan finalized sometime Thursday that will detail procedures for eliminating the flood of titles the WBA has created and hands out.
That is a good start, but these are my suggestions that would make boxing better and give fans more confidence in the product.
Adjust the rankings
The IBF, WBA, WBC and WBO are regarded as the four major sanctioning bodies in boxing. Each has their own champions and rankings.
One of the things they don’t do is rank champions in the other organizations, and that leads to a host of problems. Each has the right to have independent rankings, but the more uniform the rankings are, the better for the sport.
And the best way to accomplish that is to have all fighters ranked by all sanctioning bodies, even champions. Let’s take a look at welterweight, where the champions are Errol Spence Jr. in the IBF and WBC, Terence Crawford in the WBO and Yordenis Ugas (super), Jamal James (world), Vergil Ortiz (gold) and Manny Pacquiao (champion in recess) in the WBA.
Crawford is the No. 2 pound-for-pound fighter in the world. But he’s not ranked by any of the other three bodies. Spence isn’t ranked by the WBA or the WBO. Ugas isn’t ranked by the IBF, WBC or the WBO.
If the rankings included the champions, you’d have the champion of one organization being the mandatory challenger for the champion in another far more often. And that would lead to more unification fights and more bouts between the best in the world.
Encourage unifications
Why is the Super Bowl the highest-rated sporting event on U.S. television? Because it is the two best teams in that season competing for the ultimate prize.
When you do that in any sport, people watch.
But in boxing, people don’t know who the best is because the titles make it difficult to know. If there are unifications and we regularly have, say, the WBA-WBO champion facing the IBF-WBC champion, that would make for more recognizable and popular champions as well as for more lucrative fights.
Keep sanctioning bodies out of officiating
The sanctioning bodies should be kept completely out of the officiating process. In the U.S., the state and tribal commissions have the sole authority to appoint the referees and judges.
But in states where there is not a lot of boxing — and Minnesota is an example of this — they often rely on the recommendations of the sanctioning bodies.
There needs to be a firewall there that keeps them totally out. We need to inspire more confidence, not less, in the results. If the public believes the sanctioning bodies have input into the results, it lessens the confidence in the performance of the officials.
Eliminate all extra titles
There should be one world champion offered by each sanctioning body in each of the 17 weight classes. Eliminate super champions, franchise champions, gold champs, diamond champions and every other kind of champion and you’ll increase exponentially the name recognition of the belt-holders.
Appoint a board to regulate disputes
All four bodies should agree to an independent three- or five-man board that would regulate disputes that arise. Allow no one who ever has worked with a sanctioning body to serve on the board.
Appoint ex-regulators or attorneys who have worked in the sport to the board to fairly and expeditiously mediate disputes.
Policy on interim titles
Not all interim championships are bad. Even with the belts as devalued as they have become because of the sanctioning body shenanigans, fighters routinely make more when they fight with a belt.
An interim championship fight is 100 percent appropriate when a champion is ill or injured and is going to be out a lengthy time, say nine months.
In that case, it’s unfair to put the division on hold. Create an interim title for situations like that, with the stipulation that when the champion is healthy and ready to compete, he or she defends against the interim champion next.
Interim champs should never be long-term things nor exist when there is a champion, but use them in situations such as that.
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