Ring decides not to put welterweight championship on the line for Margarito and Mosley

by Scott Christ on Dec 26, 2008 6:39 PM EST in Boxing News Analysis

The Ring has decided against putting the vacant world welterweight championship on the line for the January 24 fight between WBA titlist Antonio Margarito and Shane Mosley, the magazine's No. 1 and No. 3 ranked fighters.

According to The Ring's rules:

Championship vacancies can be filled by winning a box-off between The Ring's number-one and number-two contenders, or, in certain instances, a box-off between our number-one and number-three contenders.

Currently, Miguel Cotto is ranked No. 2. The championship was vacated by Floyd Mayweather, Jr., when he declared himself to be retired. Mayweather had beaten Carlos Baldomir, who had beaten Zab Judah.

I think The Ring should re-evaluate these things. When folks talk about the confusion of having so many "champions" in the sport, I like to tell them that The Ring's titles are all you need to pay attention to. I'm a firm believer that their champions are the only true champions, even in controversial circumstances like we had after Joel Casamayor retained the lightweight strap with a joke decision against Jose Armando Santa Cruz.

The problem there is that 10 of 17 divisions are currently headed up by the great pound-for-pound fighter known only as Vacant. Heavyweight, super middleweight, junior middleweight, welterweight, junior lightweight, featherweight, bantamweight, junior bantamweight, flyweight and strawweight are all without a champion, and most of the fights that could be made (#1 versus #2) are just not going to happen.

I've said before I think the magazine should open it up for No. 1 to face anyone in the top five for the vacant championship -- why not? I suppose you can argue that it cheapens the value of the championship, but if there is no championship, what's the value, anyway?

After all, the championships are up for grabs when a champion fights anyone -- Santa Cruz was a challenger for Casamayor, and Marco Antonio Rubio will be challenging middleweight champ Kelly Pavlik in February. If Rubio upsets Pavlik, he's THE middleweight champion. He's ranked #8 contender by the magazine.

Nothing will change -- as is the story of everything in boxing, it seems -- but it's food for thought. If the folks at The Ring really want to make their championships important, it'd be nice to have, y'know, champions.

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Nah I disagree, it’s gotta be 1 vs 2. I think its much better to have a vacant championship then to just fill it for filling its sake. Cotto and Margarito (assuming he gets by Mosley) are going to duke it out again later in the year after their respective fights and they’ll both be head and shoulders above the other guys in the division. The fact that Cotto has that win over Mosley already, even if Margarito has beaten Cotto, means that Cotto has more of a right to be fighting for the title then Mosley does.

by Angry Fight Fan on Dec 26, 2008 8:03 PM EST reply actions

I can agree with that

And I definitely understand the 1 versus 2 sentiment, but they do allow 1 versus 3, and I think this is a case (with Cotto as the in-between having just lost to Margarito) where you can make the exception. It didn’t happen and life goes on.

Still, trying to convince the casual fans that the title that matters is the Ring title — and again, I firmly believe in this — is so hard to do when there aren’t any champions.

And I don’t want to fill just for the sake of filling, either. I don’t see what’s wrong with Margarito-Clottey (1 v. 4) or Margarito-Mosley (1 v. 3) for the vacant championship. They’re both top guys at 147. At 168, Mikkel Kessler could fight Jermain Taylor (1 v. 5) and fill the vacancy. At 130, you could have Edwin Valero against Soto, Juarez, Baloyi or Fana.

Thing is, I think these are all worthy championship fights. I think Margarito-Clottey is more of a “world championship fight” than Pavlik-Lockett was, and Lockett had a chance to win the strap that night.

In so many cases, 1 versus 2 is just not going to happen. Why have championships no one is going to hold? I don’t want to cheapen anything — I just want them to have actual value. The heavyweight crown has been sitting vacant for years.

But of course, if Margarito beats Shane, Margarito-Cotto II will be for the vacant strap, like you said. I took that into account, too, and I respect the decision The Ring came to.

Bad Left Hook
Camden Chat

"I decided to become a basketball fan this year and it’s not working out so well because the Wizards SUUUCK. So then I shifted to hockey. That’s pretty fun except there are a lot of flashing lights and horns and shit at the game."

by Scott Christ on Dec 26, 2008 8:33 PM EST up reply actions

and welcome to the site, by the way

Bad Left Hook
Camden Chat

by Scott Christ on Dec 26, 2008 8:33 PM EST up reply actions

Thanks for the Welcome

Thanks for the Welcome, I’ve read the site for a few months. I’ve been trying to expand my boxing reading from just fightnews and ESB which years ago were the best sites but I find have slackened off a bit in recent times.
I agree with you 100% and if you check the blog I write I constantly emphasise that the ring title is the title and none of the others are anywhere near as important as them. But I’m very old school when it comes to titles. Basically in my opinion you have to win the title in the ring by beating the current champion, or clean out all the guys who have a decent claim to that belt.
Margarito is a strange case because the first Margarito-Cotto fight would have been for the title if Williams had moved up already but with Williams’ win over Margarito, there was another guy with a strong claim to the title and he had to have his shot before anyone else could call him the champ. If Margarito-Mosley was for the title I wouldn’t have claimed because it’s a bloody good fight between two of the top three guys, but I can see why they didn’t make it for the title because if they cross the line they set (in that only 1 vs 2 can be for the title) then they might just go down that slippery slope that all of the ABC titles have gone down.
I actually think that the fact that the titles are so hard to win gives them their value. Everyone of those champions has either earned the belt by cleaning out all of the pretenders to the thrown, or they’ve beaten someone who has. As frustrating as it is to have that many vacant titles, I’d rather have that then have the situation where one of the 5th ranked guys gets the title then defends it against garbage without facing the other top guys like whats happens with so many of the ABC titles.

ps- as far as the Heavyweights go, not one of them has any right to call themselves the Heavyweight Champion of the World. Especially these guys need to fight each other to prove who is the best because they’re all that bad.

by Angry Fight Fan on Dec 26, 2008 10:51 PM EST reply actions

Cotto-Margs I

That was actually 1 (Cotto) versus 4 (Margarito). The top four at the time was Cotto, P-Will, Shane and Margarito, so it couldn’t have been for the title, either.

Of course we wouldn’t even be here with the welters if Floyd Joy hadn’t “retired.”

Bad Left Hook
Camden Chat

by Scott Christ on Dec 27, 2008 6:25 PM EST up reply actions

Fill the gaps

Got to Agree SC- Joe Fan needs to know who the Champs are. Whats it matter at this moment in time apart from the current Ring Belt Holders?. Hardcore Fans might bitch about being linear passing of hands and one must take on number two etc but i think if you just matched up the best possible-top5 is ideal- get it over and out the way. Fans can see a Champ NOW. Things will work out in the end.

Mainstream is brought to you ..
Underground you got to go there...

by dinkman on Dec 27, 2008 11:09 AM EST reply actions

Doesn't bother me at all at the moment.

I wouldn’t be surprised if Margo forces Shane into retirement.

Watching Manny Pacquiao fight live--great...
Watching Manny Pacquiao shadow boxing on the roof of an abandoned building--priceless

by CRAZEDANG1280 on Dec 28, 2008 6:14 PM EST reply actions

Do you not think that the whole Mosley/drugs situation played a major part in this decision?

Looks to me like the Ring didn’t want to take the chance that Toni gets beaten and they have a named Ring champion who is at the epicentre of a storm which doesn’t look like completely subsiding for a good while yet.

Does the fact a boxer doesn't switch weight divisions during their career detract from their overall P4P ranking?

Cos I'd take Hagler over most heavies in history, P4P, and also over "6 weight world champion" Oscar De La Hoya, and Marvellous Marvin never really messed about with his weight, did he?

by Chaos100 on Dec 30, 2008 8:18 AM EST reply actions