Yes, she is the BEST right now in the division she fought for the title in. But that designation is not as noteworthy when the greedy gov bodies have as many weight classes as they do considering that there are so few “PROS” in womens boxing. They also make less per rd due to shorter rounds and fight less often. When they do they take whatever they can most of the time because there are so few fighters to choose from, living on the same continent. So on top of the 2 min round rules, and that you can expect almost never to have a KO (their combined records were 50-3 with 12 kos) the mismatches are rampant even when you get to title fights. So you usually know going in Short rounds, who will win, no KO, and even if there are knockdowns, less time in the rd to follow up and get a KO. I think most of us can respect the women as much or even more for putting in all the same work and doing it with less pros to choose from to fight, travelling further and getting fights on lesser sized shows. But this again is because the governing bodies, are too greedy so they keep all the same weight classes knowing that less women CHOOSE to become boxers, and they keep shorter rounds knowing that there is no empirical scientific proof of a material negative result for ladies fighting in 2 min vs 3 minute rounds. We could have a much larger discussion on how women who do experience brain damage or other serious injury in boxing do so mostly to the higher degree of mismatches because the greedy governing bodies won’t consolidate divisions. At minimum weight (Senesisa Estrada) there are only 98 fighters in the world. (only 5 in the US). Seneisa has 10 of her 20 fights vs fighters with losing records but that’s actually pretty good for the course. Some champs can achieve that if moved right between 10-15 fights and more than half will have losing records and/or records with multiple losses or very little experience, # fights.
So it’s not that men cannot equally appreciate that a women won a title. But we know it’s equivalent to diluting 4 divisions into 8 or 10, and winning the title in less fights, with lesser quality opponents, with less KO’s. All too predictable. Also because of less tv time we don’t get to learn much about the fighters coming up. The response would be that it’s not the ladies fault. TRUE. They have no leverage except for A) the dominant champions who get the most coverage like Claressa Shields to speak up (like she does) and B) for many more female fans to put their money where their mouth is and support the sport financially. I expect one of these two things to happen. At least networks/promoters are televising womens fights, and the RING mag just started listing the female rankings. That’s a start. Things tend to move slow, and the ranking bodies will be the last to make changes if it hurts their bottom line. But I say they are shortsighted because women’s titlefights and womens fights in general are for very small purses. If they consolidate divisions, and amend rounds to 3 minutes, there will be at least a nominal increase in KO’s, which will add a few more women’s fights to cards, and that will add a few more women’s eyes to watch the sport. More $ means a little bit increase in female purses. Also longer rounds will mean the younger fighters will all get a little bit more # per round. It won’t be a large effect but you could have a small increase in # women who box, who watch, and how much they get paid. For all the things that women go through, the vast majority would make the cost/benefit analysis and come to the conclusion that consolidating women’s boxing divisions makes sense, and the slightly larger weight range in weightclasses would not make a difference. It’s a win/win for fans, boxers, promoters, and gov bodies. But gov bodies are acting like banks, being unnaturally risk averse and caring first about their “fees”, instead of how having a much larger business to draw those fees FROM means you make more in the long run. And this isn’t even a RISK for gov. bodies, because they aren’t loaning out money. All they do is sanction a fight and the more women you have competing in divisions means there are always more women waiting to challenge for a title or to unify titles.
Also if we want to see more fighters coming up perhaps there could be a show monthly with prospects who fight, with good matchmaking (no mismatches at least on paper) similar to Shobox the new generation. It would not be expensive to produce, and even if they start out doing it “COVID style” in a bubble, those boxers would still get tv time and we would learn about prospects coming up. Not just seeing them in a “1 and done” situation if they lose their first title challenge.