Jean-Marc Mormeck is the world cruiserweight champion. The only world cruiserweight champion.
Two days ago, he was a mere titleholder, a designation that doesn?t mean much at all. Not in a world in which Wladimir Sidorenko, Maselino Masoe, and Isaac Bustos call themselves titleholders. Not in a world in which self-serving people who consistently put their own interests before those of the fighters who pay their salaries determine that the likes of Glen Johnson are ex-titleholders.
But Mormeck isn?t just a titleholder anymore. Now he?s a champion?just like Vitali Klitschko, Johnson, Bernard Hopkins, Winky Wright, Zab Judah, Kostya Tszyu, Jose Luis Castillo, and Manny Pacquiao. Having your name included in that group means something.
If my name happens to means something to you, it means you?ve read The Ring magazine sometime in the last 7? years. I recently left one of the most enjoyable jobs that a 22-year-old kid, fresh out of college and looking to break into sports journalism, could have possibly found, but no matter how far in the rearview mirror my tenure as managing editor there may proceed to recede, I will always believe in and support The Ring?s championship policy. In a sport in which the people in positions of power seem to aspire to achieve anarchy, The Ring titles are the alternative. The alternative that?get this?actually walks hand in hand with logic.
The Ring championship policy was, and is, Editor-in-Chief Nigel Collins? baby. Since the 1920s, The Ring had told people whom the champions were, and Nigel recognized in 2001 that the time was right for the magazine to clarify matters all over again. Hopkins had just unified the middleweight crown, Tszyu had just gathered up all the junior welterweight belts, and before Jose, Gilberto, and Marian could find excuses to strip the champs, we declared them holders of a title they could only lose the old-fashioned way?inside the ropes.
Since that first issue announcing the return of Ring belts, I have exclusively employed words like ?titleholder,? ?beltholder,? ?titlist,? ?strapholder,? ?trinketclutcher,? ?baublebearer,? etc., to describe these alphabet kingpins. You?ll never see me type the words ?WBC champion.? (Unless I?m explaining to you that you?ll never see me type those words.) I?m proud to say that, unlike the WBA, I don?t consider-enko just anybody a champ.
As with anything new that starts to gain a measure of momentum, there has been backlash against The Ring championships, some of it semi-justifiable, some of it not. You?ve read quite a bit of it here on Maxboxing, in fact, and while it?s all well and good to present that opposing viewpoint, it?s best to know the facts before you criticize. And I can assure you, as someone who sat about eight feet from Nigel Collins for 40 hours a week for some 400 weeks, that he?s as incorruptible a person as you?ll find in this or any other business. It?s just plain ridiculous to suggest that allowing The Ring championships to gain acceptance would somehow open the sport up to a repeat of The Ring/Don King/ABC scandal of 1977. That?s a case of twisting reality to support your argument, rather than using reality to establish a well-considered argument. Nigel wasn?t on The Ring editorial staff yet when that mess went down, Associate Editor Joe Santoliquito was in grade school, and I was in diapers.
It has been suggested, though, that despite the almost universal respect for Nigel Collins in this business, corruption could sneak in years down the road, when someone else is at the helm. And technically, that?s a valid argument. However, it ignores the fact that the foothold gained thus far by The Ring ratings was earned through the public and members of the media seeing the ratings as credible. The people determine whether The Ring ratings mean anything. And the people will know something?s fishy if the Ricky Fraziers of the world start popping up at the top of the ratings without having beaten anyone.
Moreover, they?ll know something?s fishy the first time a fighter gets stripped of his Ring title. The IBF did it to Erik Morales for daring to make a superfight with Marco Antonio Barrera. They did it again to Glen Johnson, while the WBC simultaneously did it to Antonio Tarver, for having the audacity to give fans the best fight that could be made in the light heavyweight division. Thanks to stripping, at 154 pounds there?s a WBC titlist, a WBA titlist, and an IBF titlist not named Winky Wright. There?s been so much stripping among the alphabet boys lately that Mike Tyson is getting confused and beginning to show up at their office doors with a wad of dollar bills.
Due to their strip-happy tendencies, the alphabet gangs? credibility is at an all-time low. And thanks to their no-stripping policy, The Ring provides real value to their championships. (The only ways to lose a Ring title are by suffering a defeat in a title fight, retiring, or leaving the division in which you reign.)
If you?ve ever wondered how The Ring ratings are compiled, it?s really quite simple. Every week, the editors gather around a computer, armed with all of the results from the week gone by, and carefully go through each division, updating fighters? records and deciding whether anybody deserves to move. The ratings aren?t based on how much potential a fighter has or how talented he appears to be; they?re based on actual results?whom he?s beaten, how convincingly he?s beaten whomever he?s beaten, to whom he?s lost, how convincing those losses were. Depending on how many ranked fighters saw action in the previous week, updating the ratings can take anywhere from about a half-hour to an hour-and-a-half. And that time is taken out from the busy editorial schedule every week. By comparison, the alphabet ratings are updated no more than once a month (sometimes more like bi-monthly), and you can bet there are no discussions amongst informed minds over who deserves to be ranked where.
And The Ring ratings are compiled with a sense of humility. It?s about getting them right, not thinking the editors know everything there is to know, so there have been plenty of times when we?ve called upon outside help. Dan Rafael, formerly of USA Today and now the boxing writer at ESPN.com, is a valuable and willing resource whose mind-boggling tape collection includes fights from overseas that most of us never see. If the editors want to know whether some obscure South African fighter on a nice winning streak is worthy of inclusion in the ratings, Dan almost always has useful insights. It?s also not uncommon to place a call to our colleagues at the British weekly Boxing News if there?s a European fighter about whom the editors have questions.
Some critics of The Ring ratings have suggested that the editors have used the championship policy to drum up publicity and, in turn, sell magazines. On a certain level, that?s not untrue, though promoting the championship policy in no way requires that the rankings be compromised. Admittedly, it?s always nice to hear Brian Kenny, Joe Tessitore, Jim Lampley, or Max Kellerman mention the ratings and the titles on TV. But I?ve always felt that it would be just as effective if they called the proper fighters the ?world champ? or the ?real champ,? and never mentioned The Ring name. The whole purpose of this is for the public to know who the champ is.
It?s quite simple really: There?s only one world these guys are fighting in, so there can only be one world champ. It?s not pure coincidence that boxing?s shift over the last three decades from mainstream sport to cult sport has run parallel to the public being told there are two, three, a dozen fighters in each division who are ?world champions.? I?m not ashamed to admit that I?ve been a pro wrestling fan for most of my life, but the sad truth is that I basically stopped watching rasslin? when the WWE split their titles and started having both a Raw champion and a Smackdown champion. Two ?world? champions? Sorry, not interested.
Having multiple champs in a single weight class in boxing is like not having a World Series and leaving the Red Sox and Cardinals to both call themselves champs all off-season. You think that would be good for baseball?
A closing note: Don?t worry, not all of my columns for Maxboxing are going to be about The Ring. In fact, it may be months or years before I make The Ring my primary topic again. But with a new Ring champion just having been crowned this past weekend, the timing was perfect to celebrate Jean-Marc Mormeck and to celebrate the belt that he will soon be receiving?free of charge and free of sanctioning fees. Now it?s time for boxing fans to be free of the alphabet-imposed oppression that has threatened to kill this great sport. If Mormeck gets stripped of a belt in the next few months, ignore it. If some lesser fighter claims one of those vacant straps, ignore it. That fighter would merely be a titleholder. And it?s champions that matter.
I?M RASKIN, YOU?RE ASKIN?
Frankly, I can?t quite boast of having the same commitment to my readers that Dougie Fischer has, so I won?t be cranking out any of those 4,500-word marathon mailbags like he does. But I do have some semblance of appreciation for you guys, so I?m planning on working a little mini-mailbag?maybe two or three letters?into each column. If you want to ask about anything Ring related, fire away. If you want to ask about boxing topics not pertaining to The Ring, that?s fine too. If you want to ask which one was Milli and which one was Vanilli, how long it takes to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop, or whether I think you should switch to Geico, go for it. I just wouldn?t count on your question making it into the mini-mailbag if it has nothing to do with boxing.
I?d love to tell you that I?ll take the time to respond personally to every email I receive, but we both know that isn?t going to happen. Still, if you have a boxing question on your mind?preferably something somewhat unique or profound?drop me a line at [email protected]. The ?I?m Raskin, You?re Askin?? mini-mailbag will debut in next Monday?s column.
CONTENDER-LOVIN? CARE
As an admitted ?reality? television junkie (something had to replace pro wrestling as my guilty pleasure, right?), each week I?ll give a quick analysis of the previous evening?s episode of The Contender.
Three things I liked:
1) Seeing the boys out at the bar, bonding, the night before the fight. I wish I?d been keeping a count since the start of the show of the number of times Jesse Brinkley called somebody ?bro? or ?dude.?
2) Anthony Bonsante putting himself before the team. Boxing is an individual sport, and Bonsante did the smart thing (while creating conflict with everyone else on the show, which always makes for good television).
3) The fact that the fight ended in a knockout. The show needed one, if for no other reason than to let the non-boxing fans who watch know that the punches do indeed do damage. And that shiner under Brent Cooper?s eye was a nice bonus.
Three things I didn?t like:
1) As always, the press conference. Phony crap like this is the reason people slam ?reality? TV. Everyone knows that real media wasn?t let within 10 miles of the filming of The Contender, yet they insist on torturing us with these absurd press conferences most episodes.
2) Cooper?s scary pre-fight kiss with his girl. I thought he was going to swallow her whole face.
3) Ray Leonard telling Vin Diesel at the fight, ?I?ve always been a big fan.? Always? The guy was nobody until five years ago, so how long can ?always? be? And even more difficult to believe ? who in their right mind is a Vin Diesel fan?
Overall episode grade: A-
EMPTYING MY CLUTTERED MIND ?
?Is ring announcing that hard? Why can so few people do it well? You have three scores in front of you. You follow a basic mental flowchart to determine how you could read them in a way that builds suspense most efficiently. Then you read the scores. Simple enough. There are only so many types of decisions (unanimous, split, majority, split draw, majority draw, and the rare unanimous draw). You would think any ring announcer who makes it onto national television could master this, right?
Wrong. The latest maddening example came on the March 25 Friday Night Fights, when the normally reliable Lupe Contreras blew it at the end of the Sam Reese-Enrique Ornelas bout. Contreras read a 94-94 score, then told us the second judge scored it ?95-93 for Reese.? As he told us the third score was 98-90, for the winner by majority decision, there was something just a wee bit anticlimactic about hearing that that winner was Reese. Suspense? Who needs it? Moments later, Contreras told the crowd that ?Rosebud? was Charles Foster Kane?s sled, and that Darth was Luke?s father.
?Part of me wants to get excited about David Tua?s return to action. After all, you can never have too many heavy-punching, potentially exciting, big-name heavyweights, even when the division is strong, which we all know it isn?t right now. But I?m resisting the urge to get excited, because I remember how frustrating it was to ever expect anything out of the Tuaman. In the biggest fight of his life, against Lennox Lewis for the world heavyweight title, he came in big (245 pounds) and came up small. Same with his loss to Chris Byrd and his draw with Hasim Rahman. You wait and you wait for this massive puncher to pull the trigger, and he never does. And I?m not expecting him to suddenly start now.
?ESPN2 had a lousy Friday Night Fights show this past week (something tells me they won?t be using Andres ?No Fitter Than Ferdie? Pacheco again anytime soon), but big props to Doug Loughrey, the man who buys the fights for ?The Worldwide Leader? these days, for the main events they have coming up the next two weeks. Jorge Barrios-Mike Anchondo and Antwun Echols-Kingsley Ikeke are both Boxing After Dark-quality fights. All four guys are Ring-rated. These are the sort of main events we need more of on FNF.
?Heavyweight prospect Malcolm Tann gave a strong performance on ShoBox on Friday night (demonstrating some hellacious bodypunching, which is always nice to see from a big man), but Tann?s skinny little Reggie Miller legs worry me a bit. The featherweights in the next fight had thicker calves than Tann.
?I take issue with Showtime advertising June?s Kostya Tszyu-Ricky Hatton bout as the junior welterweight division?s ?biggest fight in years.? There was a bigger 140-pound fight just five months ago, when Tszyu took on Sharmba Mitchell, the number-one contender to his title and a challenger whom the majority of the media was picking to win. Hatton is ranked number six by The Ring, and if more than 10 percent of the media pick ?The Hitman? to win, I?ll be surprised. Will it be the most well-attended junior welterweight fight in years? Quite possibly. But Tszyu-Mitchell II meant a lot more.
