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Message: [QUOTE="SWC75, post: 3036209, member: 289"] "A guy you've heard of vs. a guy you've never heard of" is a lousy business model. The use of the "undefeated" record as an advertising tool is problem #1. All an undefeated record means is that you haven't lost yet and so you don't know what to do to avoid it. Guys like Joshua are used to opposing fighters looking for someplace to hide and don't know what to do when the other guy comes after them. Carmen Basilio lost 10 fights and had 5 draws before his first title fight and now the Hall of Fame is in his home town. He learned what he needed to know to become a great fighter. Thank you, opponents. The cross-cutting of boxing by slicing divisions in half, (the flyweight division, which lacks depth anyway, is cut into three pieces) and by having four different ruling bodies, each making money by sanctioning "World Championship" bouts creates 'fiefdoms' for the many 'world' champions to defend against less than the best fighters. Now they have interim, super, emeritus, silver, diamond and even 'eternal' champions, just to be able too use that word in their advertising. Then there are the promoters, who don't want their fighters fighting those of rival promoters. Now we have fighters "signing" with TV networks who want similar exclusivity. The fights people want to see will be even harder to come by. And MMA, who gives the public what they want, will get a greater and greater share of the market. What boxing needs is an annual tournament in whole divisions, (Flyweight, Bantamweight, featherweight, Lightweight, Welterweight, Middleweight, Light heavyweight, Middle heavyweight, heavyweight and Super heavyweight). Pick the top 8 fighters in each division and have the quarterfinals in the spring, the semi-finals in the summer and the finals in the fall. If someone actually set that up, the current fighters would not participate, of course, because their managers, promoters and the other "suits" would lose power. But the public would surely find it more fascinating than this mess and the next generation of fighters and even the current ones would eventually be part of it because that's where the money would be. If you build it, they will come... [/QUOTE]

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