Can we really count on Ring Magazine champions to be real?

Diego Rodriguez

25.11 - Since Ring Magazine has decided to create its own ranking system and its own recognized champions, I have been relieved of all the alphabet garbage that continues to make no sense to anybody these days. Ring Magazine has made a positive effort to announce its own champions without any of the corrupt governing bodies forcing who the champ is these days. Since the unification bout between Evander Holyfield and Lennox Lewis, only more confusion has come to the game-how on earth did John Ruiz end up being the number one contender for Lennox Lewis?

And it only made things more unclear when Hopkins defeated Trinidad and when Tszyu unified all three titles in the ring; the WBA was fast to award a "super champion" belt to Hopkins and Tszyu, both, leaving the WBA world title again vacant for someone else to be called champ. Well, for the most part we accept Ring Magazine's rankings with open arms; they seem to be the only people who really care what is going on behind the scenes.

However, this year we have announced two new Ring Magazine champions, but we did so with a lot of doubt. Marco Antonio Barrea and Erik Morales both fought in a rematch to clear up the smoke from the controversy of their first bout. Ring, at the time, had announced that it would present the title to the winner of the fight. After the decision was announced, I was in shock! I had scored the fight 7 rounds for Morales, 4 rounds for Barrera, and 1 round even-I had Morales as the winner, but the judges seemed to feel different about the fight. Even after the bout, plenty of doubt remained. I had assumed that Ring Magazine would award this title to the winner of the fight, but instead, they gave it to Barrera.

Another fight with the same kind of drama was the Castillo vs. Mayweather fight, and the same thing happened again-many people felt that Castillo won the fight, but it was, of course, given to Mayweather. This leads me to think, "What is it with all of this belt holder stuff?" How can Ring Magazine fix this little bug in the system without letting it get out of hand? The only solution to this is for Ring Magazine to have its own unofficial judges, there to score the bout, and to live by those decisions period.

I know that this idea sounds a little radical, but if you think about it a little, if this does not happen, then we will continue to doubt the title holders yet to come; that means that Ring Magazine would have to honor a draw when it appears to be a clear win. Take, for example, Lewis vs. Holyfield 1, the judges in that fight saw it a draw; knowing that many judges are just as corrupt as a few promoters and managers, we need another source to score fights so that the true winner will be awarded the Ring Magazine championship. Creating its own panel of judges is one way Ring Magazine can live up to what they are trying to do in boxing.