The Mayweather/Mosley bout over the weekend got me searching through Yahoo.com for news about the results. While I was there, I noticed something odd. I don’t know much about boxing so this may be a really stupid question, but how come Mayweather is ranked #2 even though he’s undefeated? Has he been fighting mostly no-names and low-ranked boxers all these years? Wouldn’t someone have thought to put him against a #1 sometime during his career? And shouldn’t an undefeated guy be #1 over Pacquiao who has 3 losses and 2 ties in his career?
Even more confusing, Mayweather is listed as having no titles.
Wait, so in addition to him not being #1, he’s never fought for a title at all? Didn’t Tyson get a shot at the championship after only like 20 something fights? So it can’t be simply because he hasn’t worked his way up or that he hasn’t fought enough people.
And I caught over the radio some talk about why Mayweather fought Mosley instead of the big fight everyone apparently wants to see vs. Pacquiao. Pac is afraid of needles and doesn’t want to take a blood test and Mayweather won’t fight him because of that
WTF? Aren’t these guys part of some league or organized boxing commission? How can a fighter refuse to undergo a test? And why are people letting the fighters decide who to fight? To a non-boxing fan like me, that’s as ridiculous as letting the Lakers decide who they want to play against.
Why should fighters decide who they want to fight against? Shouldn’t it be determined by rankings? “#1, you’re fighting #2 in a month, the end” How does boxing work with fighters deciding who to fight?
Boxing is not organized. The commissions sanction fights and make suggestions, but a boxer can fight whoever he wishes.
Ranking are also suggestions, and in the past (and probably today) were subject to a lot of behind-the-scenes negotiating up to and including kickbacks (probably no longer, but who knows?).
The ranking authorities also tend to come and go and splinter and rejoin. It’s pretty much a chaotic system.
I don’t know the details of this particular ranking, but it could simply be that the people doing the ranking told boxer A to fight boxer B, and he refused, taking a bigger payday for fighting Boxer C. So the ranking authority didn’t give him the #1 ranking.
As for titles, you get one from defeating the champ (or are anointed by the boxing group if the champ retires or refuses to do as they tell him). If the boxer never fought in a title bout (and boxing has a long history of champions ducking good boxers), he’s not a champion.
Rankings and belts aren’t relevant to a fighter at Mayweather’s level - He’s the greatest pound for pound fighter in the world. As a result, he can do what he likes and dictate who he fights, up to a point. The whole world of boxing is braying for him to fight Pacquiao, so he will have to make that fight at some point - it would not be tenable for him to duck that one. No one cares, though, whether he holds the wbc or wba welter weight title - he’s beyond that.
At the levels below, then rankings and belts are important, albeit a complete mess of competing sanctioning bodies. Getting fights made is as much to do with the marketability of a fighter as anything else - history is replete with examples of very skilled but boring fighters who were basically avoided their whole careers because they weren’t a draw.
A good example (of the antithesis) of this is David Haye. He came up the ranks and won the world cruiserweight title a couple of years back - he is an extremely charismatic and marketable guy who keeps himself in supreme shape, and being British has a substantial market of fans who will pay to watch him fight. As a result, when he moved up to heavyweight - the marquee division of boxing that is enduring a decade-long malaise of charisma-free fat bastard champions, he was fast-tracked into a title fight more or less straight away (think it was his second hwt bout). He will probably fight Wlad Klitchko later this year in a big fight not because he’s #whatever and the Klitchko’s # whatever +1, but because that is what the market of boxing fans is demanding.
Mayweather has won several titles, but gave them up when he moved up in weight classes and could no longer defend them. He’s been WBC Superfeatherweight, Lightweight, Super Lightweight, Welterweight, and Superwelterweight champion.
The Mayweather - Mosely fight wasn’t a WBA title fight because Mayweather didn’t want to give up part of his purse to WBA to promote the the fight and make it a title fight. He feels like he’s proved everything he needs to prove without the title, and decided he’d be happier with the money than with the title.
The boxers will have to meet the medical and physical requirements of the state boxing comission of whatever state they fight in - the requirements that Mayweather is demanding are above and beyond the requirements of the state boxing comission, which he can get away with because he’s a top draw. It wasn’t just that Pac was afraid of needles, Mayweather wanted Pac to take a blood test as close to the fight as 48 hours, which Pac didn’t want to do because he felt it would sap his strength for the fight. He offered instead to take a blood test immediately after the fight, Mayweather then offered a cutoff of 14 days prior to the fight, Pacquiao wanted 24 days, and now Pac appears willing to consider mayweather’s 14 day offer. Negotiations for top fights arent unusual - fighters will negotiate split of the pay-per-view revenue, maximum weight limits within the weight class, even the brand of gloves they will use.
This is one of the ways boxing differs from nearly every other sport - a pro boxer’s entire career will be fewer fights than the number of games a pro athlete in another sport will play in a single season, so a lot of thought is put into what fights to take. Boxers aren’t generally compelled to take a fight, and trainers and fighters can be pretty canny on when to take a fight and when to pass on it. Say you’ve got an offer to fight a guy making his pro debut, but you find out he’s a southpaw that has given righties fits and also has an undefeated amatuer record of 50-0. Even if you have more pro experience, this may be a guy you want to pass on, for now at least.
At the top of the profession where Mayweather and Pacquiao are, there’s even more at stake because they’re not just fighting for their record or the purse, they’re fighting for their legacy. This fight will be boxing history, so neither fighter wants to get into the ring until they’re confident that they’ve secured every advantage for themselves that they can.