The IBF - Love 'em For Enforcing Their Rules or Hate 'em for Their Terrible Rankings

[Tom Cruise]

You need both, but I guess it starts with enforcing mandatories. Without it you have nothing. But if they're enforced then guys have an incentive to work their way up the rankings. Obviously ludicrous mandatories are a negative but that only shows that both sides are necessary.

No matter what you look at it you end up coming back to the same point though, that the organisations themselves are an absurdity and they can never be part of any lasting solution.

Do you not think?

I think the bar is so low at the moment that if one of the orgs wakes up and starts acting like a proper sanctioning body they could make themselves the title/rankings to follow.

Whats needed is for the body to look at their long term legitimacy in the sport, rather than chasing short term profit.

Imaging 3 of the Orgs were acting like they do now but, say, the IBF starts: Enforcing rules strictly, not whoring out their ranking places to the highest bidders, staying consistent, only having one champ per division etc.

Why would anyone bother following who holds the other titles, or what the other orgs rankings are? The IBF would be all we would need.

It would take time for casuals to catch on, but they would eventually.

I much prefer that idea to something like the PBC.

[ИATAS]

Both. The poll options sums it up perfectly - love that they follow rules but it sucks their ratings are ass.

[original zero]

Because the IBF enforces their rules, top fighters often prefer to fight for organizations that are willing to bend the rules for top fighters.

Makes sense. If you're a big star, do you want to fight for the org that will give you preferential treatment or do you want to fight for the org that treats everybody equally?

So that is why the IBF rankings are the way they are. Those are the fighters willing to fight for the IBF and follow IBF rules.

[Tom Cruise]

Both. The poll options sums it up perfectly - love that they follow rules but it sucks their ratings are ass.

The ref in your sig took that lowblow like a champ

Balls of steel

[bojangles1987]

I'll give the IBF this, they are the least scummy of the sanctioning organizations. Unfortunately, that's like saying a guy who beats his wife within an inch of her life is better than a guy who kills his wife.

[BrometheusBob.]

The fact they enforce their rules probably makes their rankings seem worse than they are compared to the other bodies.

The fella who plugged his rankings website a little while back showed that the IBF is far from the worst. Though they are still crap. If they had legit rankings they would be by far the best org on the planet and would get big praise from fans and media alike.

In general i prefer that they enforce their rules, but maybe they could do with modifying their rules in certain areas (for example, giving new champions a bit more time fight their mando's, or recognizing rematch clauses).

I see that their strictness allows less marketable fighters a chance to make their way up the rankings and be sure that the IBF will back them when they get to the eliminater/mando position (see Julian Williams).

The frustrating thing is how easy it is to arrange decent rankings.

On CHB forum they have fan made top 15's (+champs) for all the divisions. It gets updated monthly and is infinitely better than any sanctioning orgs. I actually refer to their rankings more often than Ring or TBRB if I want to see where a fighter is ranked.

If you start enforcing mando's and eliminators based on sound rankings you actually start to get decent fights made and the right men holding the belts.

Good posts

The IBF definitely needs some rules rejiggered and rankings done properly and then they would be fine. Right now I'm tired of their **** - Kell Brooks whack mandos, the travesty of Charles Martin vs Glazkov being for one of Fury's titles... GGG/Wade felt like a tipping point to me even though it's not the worst thing that they've done.

This isn't to say that the other orgs are much better. Broner vs Allakhverdiev being for a belt felt like a bad joke.

[deanrw]

The IBF rankings are different, but the method they use to get guys into positions is good. They have guys fight for the right to be ranked 1 or 2. Then the make the champ fight them. It keeps things flowing.

Now the one issue is quite a few of the guys who make it up there generally are fringe guys and prospects as the more known guys cannot be bothered to fight eliminators.

Many of the IBF's top ranked guys are eyebrow raising, but I love how they keep it rolling. All these other orgs let their guys sit on their belts and leave contenders waiting and waiting.

[MrRolltide91]

This what y'all wanted.


Champions to fight their mandatories

[MrRolltide91]

Because the IBF enforces their rules, top fighters often prefer to fight for organizations that are willing to bend the rules for top fighters.

Makes sense. If you're a big star, do you want to fight for the org that will give you preferential treatment or do you want to fight for the org that treats everybody equally?

So that is why the IBF rankings are the way they are. Those are the fighters willing to fight for the IBF and follow IBF rules.

This is true

[OnePunch]

because the ibf enforces their rules, top fighters often prefer to fight for organizations that are willing to bend the rules for top fighters.

makes sense. If you're a big star, do you want to fight for the org that will give you preferential treatment or do you want to fight for the org that treats everybody equally?

So that is why the ibf rankings are the way they are. Those are the fighters willing to fight for the ibf and follow ibf rules.

this is spot on.....