If the purpose of rankings and titles is to bring order and respectability to the sport, then they need to reflect what?s actually going on in the sport?
Having dragged myself out of bed at 3 p.m. after an all-night romp at a Mexican strip club (and then an after-party or two), I?m working under the assumption that the other writers at this site have beaten me to the punch when it comes to pieces involving actual relevant boxing news.
So, I?ll just bite into some amusing bullshit.
A few weeks back, there was some inner brouhaha at Golden Boy-owned Ring Magazine and its accompanying RingTV website over Canelo Alvarez and his status as their middleweight champ. Apparently, the editorial board, headed by that nice older lady with the ponytail (whose name escapes me at the moment), had voted to strip Alvarez of their magazine?s pretend title after his failed clenbuterol tests led to a suspension by the NSAC. The decision, however, was overturned by new publisher and former Golden Boy spokesperson Stefan Friedman.
Three nerds at Ring Magazine griped. Three nerds with blogs griped. Nobody else gave a damn.
But now, apparently feeling the pressure from unreturned staff Facebook messages or scaled-back LOLs in personal correspondences with said staff, Friedman has relented.
?After a closer study of the efficacy of hair-follicle testing; re-looking at our past and current drug policies; and speaking with those who have been affiliated with Ring Magazine for decades,? Friedman wrote, ?I have decided to abide by the Editorial Board?s vote to strip Canelo Alvarez of the Ring Magazine Middleweight championship.?
Alvarez now has 90 days to return his cardboard belt?at his expense?to the Ring Magazine treehouse headquarters or face a fine of up to a nickel a day.
What does all of this mean to boxing?
Absolutely nothing.
Saul Alvarez was the real middleweight champ like I?m the primo ballerino at the Bolshoi.
Forget that silliness about title lineages. The sacred, historical lineage at middleweight only goes as far back as Bernard Hopkins (and, even then, Hopkins never really ?beat the man who beat the man?). If the purpose of rankings and titles is to bring order and respectability to the sport, then they need to reflect what?s actually going on in the sport. Alvarez was a non-committal middleweight, fighting at catchweights, who happened to beat another non-committal middleweight in Miguel Cotto.
Alvarez beat the man who beat the man (in the Cotto-Martinez-Pavlik-Taylor-Hopkins lineage), but did that one win suddenly make him the REAL champ? Of course not.
Gennady Golovkin may have parlayed his thirst for big money bouts against junior middleweights into a lifelong free ride, but he has the best r?sum? at 160 at the moment and is, therefore, the most accomplished fighter in the division. To name anyone else the ?real? champ is silliness bordering on stupidity. It?s like saying that the ?real? world champs are the Boston Red Sox and not the winners of the World Series because the Red Sox won their regular season series with the Yankees and the Yankees are, historically, the most decorated, most successful franchise in baseball history. Nonsense.
What the folks at Ring Magazine (and those guys at the equally ridiculous Transnational Boxing Rankings Board) try to do is not so much preserve lineages, but establish them?based on their own whims and wishes. It?s fantasy league shit, really, put together by groups of writers (of varying levels of knowledge) behind a veil of secrecy. And because all of this?again?is based on whims and wishes, there?s no real basis in reality. That makes it possible to strip or not strip fighters based on the positioning of the bunched up panties in their cracks on any given day.
But getting back to the case of Canelo Alvarez, specifically?the bossman at Ring Magazine will leave it up to the Editorial board to determine when/if Alvarez gets put back into the middleweight and pound-for-pound rankings. (Oh wow, he got cut from the pound-for-pound rankings, too? Wow?that?s some tough love shit right there!)
In the meantime, the brain trust at the Bible of Boxing plans on assembling a group of experts to form an advisory board regarding their drug and PED policies in an effort make them more ?current and more robust.?
I?m not sure how ?current and robust? you can make a policy when, as we?ve seen, it?s all about staff and publisher whims and wishes, anyway. But if all of this nonsense keeps the ?experts? busy and out of everyone?s hair, then I guess this is a good thing.
Just as Applebee?s hands out crayons and coloring pages to kids so as to occupy them long enough for the grownups to eat, all of this pretend champion nonsense may keep some dangerously sloppy boxing minds from pumping even more garbage into the Universo Pugilistico.
But, now back to the really important stuff.
Why do I have a pocketful of bleach blonde hair in my shirt pocket and what the fuck is this gooey stuff all over my house keys?
