17 January 2022

No changes this week. Be sure to check back next week, however, as we have several contenders doing battle in the lower weight divisions. On Tuesday, there will be a #2 contender vs. #3 contender bout at strawweight. Would we consider it a championship bout? If we did, we’d be ignoring the achievement of the #1-ranked contender, which would defy not only our purpose, but common sense. The short answer? Hell no.

Now that former #1-ranked Oscar Valdez is close to securing a fight in April with current #1-ranked Shakur Stevenson, we are being asked about the length of Valdez’s suspension from the Transnational Jr. Lightweight Rankings. Recall that Valdez exited on September 13 due to PED-related issues. The length of Valdez’s suspension is 180-days from that date. This was determined by the chairs and oversight with input from board members early in November. Valdez will therefore return to the rankings on March 12, 2022. (Whether he will return to #1 or lower given Stevenson’s win over Jamel Herring in October, is to be determined.)

In case you missed these items of interest last week: As the Transnational Boxing Rankings Board enters its 10th year, astute fans may have noted that our graphics tend to be the work of one artist. In the earlier version of our website, the title of the work on the main page was “Both Members of the Club” (1909). The title of the work above is “The Knock Out” (1907). The artist is the great George Bellows (1882-1925).

Have you noted that we do not refer to any weight division as “super” with the exception of “super middleweight”–? That’s because we refer back to the language of New York’s “Walker Law,” which legalized the sport in New York in 1920 and formalized rules and weight divisions that included jr. flyweight, jr. featherweight, jr. lightweight, jr. welterweight, and jr. middleweight. Those divisions were not accepted by the sports writers of the 1920s and 1930s. They were ignored when they weren’t mocked and by the end of the 1930s, they were no longer recognized by writers and fighters alike. Decades later, the WBS profiteers resurrected several of them for reasons more related to profit than anything else, and then overused the word “super” in renaming them.     

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Every member of the Transnational Boxing Rankings Board is a volunteer. We are on the following continents:

1. Asia
2. Australia
3. Europe
4. North America
5. South America

We represent 21 countries, including:  Argentina, Australia, Canada, Chile, Costa Rica, England, India, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Mexico, New Zealand, Norway, the Philippines, Russia, Scotland, Spain, Sweden, Thailand, the United States, Vietnam, and the commonwealth of Puerto Rico.

A resounding thank you to all of our fans and followers who recognize that boxing needs identifiable and singular divisional champions and rankings that aren’t compromised by competing interests. he