[BigBoyBrackey]

Most of the threads on here, including mine, focus on boxing's past, from Chris Conn's early 18th-century musings to numerous universes set in the days of our youth.

While looking through a number of current ratings while mulling the Mayweather-Pacquiao disaster, I started thinking that I've been largely ignoring one of the many terrific aspects of the game -- the multitude of present-day ratings.

To rectify that, I'm going to be running a series of tournaments, one for each weight division, set in the here and now. I'd planned on simming Pacquiao-Mayweather, but am too pissed at both of them and especially their promotional teams to do that right now. Instead, I'm going to start with the welterweights, figuring that by the time they meet, I'll look at that fight as what could still be instead of what should have been.

I'm still working out the details in my head of how this will all work, but it will be something like this ... I decided against a traditional single-elimination tournament, due to the flukiness factor. Instead, inspired by Showtime's Super Six, I'm going to go with a round-robin format. The number of fighters will vary by division. I'm going to start with the welters and a 16-man tourney, but due to the number of similar-quality fighters once you get past the top 12 or so, there will be a fight-in tournament.

I'm looking at 23 welters in all -- 15 that I choose and eight to fight it out in a single-elimination qualifier for the last spot. The round-robin tournaments will lead to box offs among the top two or four finishers -- not quite sure about that one yet.

Here's where I'm at:

IN
Floyd Mayweather
Manny Pacquiao
Shane Mosley
Miguel Cotto
Antonio Margarito
Joshua Clottey
Andre Berto
Carlos Quintana
Luis Collazo
Isaac Hlatswayo
Yvacheslav Senchenko
Zab Judah


MAYBE IN/NEED RATINGS?
Jan Zaveck
Luciano Abis
Rafal Jackiewicz
Shamone Alvarez

POSSIBLE QUALIFIERS
Delvin Rodriguez
Kell Brook
Jackson Osei Bonsu
Tadashi Yuba
Michel Trabant
Alfonso Gomez
Viktor Plotnikov
Rock Allen

IN LIMBO
Ricky Hatton
Paul Williams

If anyone has ratings for the four (Zaveck, Abis, Jackiewicz, Alvarez) so listed, or can point me to them if they exist somewhere else already, it would be greatly appreciated. Odd thing is, I can find them in the photo threads, but not their ratings.

As for the 'in limbo' heading, I thought about putting Hatton in since it seems likely that he'll be back at some point, and welter would seem the likely division, given his conditioning history. That said, I feel like I'd have to adjust his ratings if I use him. He's got a 1-vs-knockdown/0-vs-knockout rating at junior welter and a 2-0 at welter, suggesting the ratings were done before he ran into Mr. Pacquiao. Making him something like a 3/2 and lowering his hp from 9 to 7 at welter seems like it would better reflect his abilities for the purposes of this tournament's premise. Or maybe I should leave him out entirely ...

(NOTE ABOUT RATINGS: Nothing I ask about or mention here should be construed in any way as a criticism of the ratings or the people who compiled them. Everyone involved did a terrific job and deserve copious thanks from all of us who use them. As I go through the active fighters, it's sometimes tough to tell when they were last updated, as mentioned above in the case of Hatton, and whether I should adjust them before using them to best represent their up-to-the-moment abilities.)

Similarly, Clottey is a 6 in the database, and the record in his bio is 33-2. So if the rating covers his career to that point, it doesn't account for his wins over Shamone Alvarez, Jose Luis Cruz or Zab Judah, nor his split decision loss to Miguel Cotto in June.

Paul Williams is another guy I'm not sure what to do with. He'd certainly make the welter field more interesting, but hasn't fought at 147 since June of 2008 and seems unlikely to do so again. My initial thought was to include fighters in no more than two weight divisions, and he'd probably be best suited to 154 and 160 at this point. PWill, do you have any thoughts on the matter?

I'm also torn on Margarito. I hate to include him, as loading gloves is about the most despicable thing a fighter or trainer can do. If I use him, should I make some effort to account for the plaster? Lowering hp and adjusting 3/2 point punches, maybe?

Other than those mentioned above, I'm planning on deferring to the database team (particularly since I'm a pre-novice when it comes to such matters) and leaving everyone else alone at this point.

My plan is for this to be less writing-intensive than the Page uni (which I'm going to keep going full speed) or earlier threads (which I hope to return to from time to time), particularly given the 120+ fights required for a 16-man round-robin, while becoming more familiar with more modern-day fighters.

I'd welcome any input (especially the ratings mentioned above) as I set this up. And if you think I've left anyone out, please let me know.