By Jason Peck: The Ring Magazine once claimed that their championship policy would clear up the chaos and confusion sown by a multitude of the much-maligned “alphabet soup” titles. And people believed them. To many, the Ring is the one sanctioning body beyond reproach.
But I’ve been hearing a lot lately about who’s truly the best at welterweight – is it Floyd Mayweather, or the winner of the upcoming bout between Miguel Cotto and Antonio Margarito? Should we regard Cotto-Margarito as the battle for the real welterweight title – whatever “real” may be?
Why the confusion? Floyd Mayweather owns Ring Magazine’s championship belt at 147, the holder of the title recognized by such aficionados as Max Kellerman, ESPN and Oscar De La Hoya – the promoter who owns it. It’s time to face facts – for all their big talk about cleaning up the sport, the Ring belt inevitably fails to make a difference.
I checked the Ring website, and found only three instances where a champion can be stripped:
* For retiring.
* For moving up in weight.
* For losing the belt in the ring.
That’s it. Failing to defend against credible opposition – one of the most egregious failure a fighter can make – is not one of them.
If the Ring rankings can clear up the confusion, please explain this division. Mayweather has consistently failed to fight an actual welterweight since winning the Ring belt from Carlos Manuel Baldomir. He moved up to 154 to fight Oscar De La Hoya, then made 140-pound Ricky Hatton move up in weight so that Floyd could knock him out. All the while, Mayweather dodged welterweights like Margarito, Cotto, Paul Williams and Carlos Quintana.
And yet people still don’t get it. I can’t go more than three seconds on this website without some moron trumpeting the Ring ratings like they were carved into stone tablets, and beyond reproach like the Quran. The Ring gets to escape criticism just because it’s the Ring Magazine. Ask the average East Sider why Floyd gets away with this, and they still launch into the same tired rant against alphabet titles like the WBC, which Floyd also holds.
But they ignore the crucial fact: The Ring belt has also failed here, and perhaps failed even harder than the WBC.
That’s because the WBC could strip a fighter for failing to defend, but choose not to. Once you win a Ring belt, however, you’re not obligated to fight any worthwhile challengers.
Obviously, Ring has a reason for doing this. The alphabets continually take a lot of heat for forcing popular fighters to defend against unpopular, seemingly inept mandatories. But in a world where name recognition counts for everything, sometimes that’s the only way that fighters like that ever get their shot.
It seems like the Ring assumes a champion will always step to the plate and fight his top contender. But what if the champion doesn’t want to fight the best? What if he just wants to milk it? This magazine’s belts will inevitably be as meaningless as the others unless they lay the law down.
And no, I’m not promoting the alphabets. They’re stupid, inconsistent and need some serious work to gain real credibility. But the Ring’s claim that it can save boxing is arrogant. If the Ring’s really all about saving this sport, it’ll respond when someone asks hard questions and improve.
Until then, it’s just another problem.