[jofre]

Ring Magazine is attempting to do the right thing. But, unfortunately it doesn’t have universal backing. It would be nice if we fans could put pressure on the most influential boxing journalists and broadcasters from our locale to create one world wide rating system administered by a panel of boxing experts chosen by their peers. The ranking system would assume a status similar to the legendary Ring Magazine’s International World Ratings. These ratings would be "the international ranking system" and would replace all other independent rating systems. Recognition of this new system by every boxing publication and broadcast medium would – I hope – force the top rated fighters to face each other in order to gain worldwide fan acceptance as lineal world champion. The elimination of all references to the alphabet titles by all boxing publications and broadcast media would neuter them. They would die a slow death by omission. Under this scenario, if a fighter truly wanted worldwide recognition as champion of his weight class he would be forced to fight the lineal champion. Moreover, neither fighter would have to pay a sanctioning fee for a title that should belong to the paying customer – the boxing public. For instance, the WBC charges 3 percent of a fighter’s purse. Why would fighters making multi-million dollar purses want to give the alphabet bandits such exorbitant amounts of money? For example, Oscar De La Hoya’s sanctioning fee to the WBC for the Felix Trinidad fight was $600,000. This is ludicrous!

I would envision each fighter engaged in a championship fight being charged a small fixed fee to cover the cost of both a championship belt patterned after the traditional championship belts of the past, and a press conference publicizing the awarding of The Lineal World Championship Belt. The award ceremony would be held in the city, state or country the champion resides and presented by a writer or broadcaster from the fighter’s locale.