Rigged or Ranked? The Politics Behind Boxing’s Top Spots

By Billie Sloane, IFL TV

Ask ten boxing fans who the real number one is in any given division, and you might get ten different answers. Not because they all see the sport differently—but because the rankings themselves often feel like a bad joke.

In a perfect world, rankings would reflect merit. Wins, performances, activity, opposition—sporting logic. Instead, boxing gives us a mess of conflicting lists, suspect surges, and mysterious disappearances. Fighters leapfrog others without fighting. Champions defend against opponents no one’s heard of. A guy who hasn’t fought in a year still somehow sits in the top five.

So let’s ask the uncomfortable question: are rankings built on competition—or on connections?

The Illusion of Order

At first glance, rankings offer a sense of structure—a ladder for contenders to climb. They suggest that if a fighter keeps winning, they’ll earn a title shot.

And to be fair, that’s sometimes true. We’ve seen prospects grind through the domestic circuit, then rise through the ranks with statement wins. Fighters like Teofimo Lopez, Naoya Inoue, and Dmitry Bivol proved their worth the hard way.

But too often, that’s not the norm—it’s the exception.

Because for every fighter clawing up on merit, there’s another being parachuted in through promotional muscle.

Promoters, Politics, and Padded Records

Let’s not dance around it—rankings are frequently influenced by who signs your cheques.

A promoter with the right connections can get their guy into the top 15 of a sanctioning body with a couple of regional titles and a few strategic wins. The fighter might never have faced a world-level opponent, but with the right packaging and enough "international" belts, suddenly they’re a “mandatory challenger.”

Meanwhile, the guy who’s been in the trenches, beating top 10 opposition and taking risks? He’s sat on the sidelines, wondering how someone who’s never fought a top-30 opponent got the title shot he’s been chasing for three years.

Why? Because one fighter’s signed to the right promoter—and the other’s not.

Let’s not forget how murky things get with multiple sanctioning bodies. The WBA, WBC, IBF, and WBO each have their own rankings, their own rules, and in some cases, their own political agendas. There’s no unified standard. That means fighters can be number one in one organisation and completely unranked in another.

It’s chaos with a spreadsheet.

Lack of Transparency, Lack of Trust

And here’s the real killer—fans see through it.

The moment a fighter appears in a top ten without earning it, or when a governing body magically “elevates” someone just before a big-money fight, fans feel it.

The trust erodes. The legitimacy cracks.

Because rankings are supposed to reflect who’s next in line. But when they're used as marketing tools instead of merit-based lists, the sport loses credibility.

And let’s be real—how many fans actually believe that everyone in a sanctioning body’s top 15 could beat the guy ranked 16th or 17th? How many could even survive three rounds with the number one contender from another organisation?

So, Who Really Deserves the Top Spot?

That’s the maddening part. Sometimes we know. The eye test tells us. The resumes tell us. The fights tell us.

But the rankings? They tell us something else.

They tell us who’s connected. Who’s managed carefully. Who’s more valuable to the business than to the sport.

And yet, fighters still chase those rankings—because flawed as they are, they’re still the golden ticket. A top-15 spot makes you eligible for a title. A top-5 ranking puts your name in the conversation. That little number next to a fighter’s name can change their life.

But when that number is bought, not earned, what does it really mean?

Fixing the Ladder

Boxing needs reform. Badly.

Unified rankings. Transparent criteria. An independent global panel of analysts and ex-fighters, unconnected to promotional outfits or sanctioning bodies.

Will it happen? Probably not.

Because the current chaos serves those in power. And when the politics of boxing reward the connected over the courageous, the ones who suffer most aren’t just the overlooked fighters.

It’s the fans.

Because if you can’t trust the rankings, how do you trust the matchups? The titles? The narratives?

So next time someone says, “He’s ranked number one,” ask yourself—by who, and why?

Because in this sport, number one doesn’t always mean best. Sometimes, it just means best positioned.