By Chris Beale: Since boxing began many controversies have risen about the results of fights, from Joe Frazier being stopped by his trainer when unknown to him Ali was asking his corner to cut off his gloves, to the referee stopping the fight in the final seconds of the Chavez vs. Taylor fight when Taylor was up on points and would of won if the referee didn’t stop it.

But more recently things have been getting even more controversial fights which have clearly been won by a wide margin by one fighter have gone to scorecards and won by opponents that do not deserve their win.

Manny Pacquiao is but one of the many victims of shocking scorecards. Now why in the past this would cause uproar? Now its dangerous to the sport of boxing. Boxing has competition, its market for satisfying those who like watching aggressive sports has expanded and the fact is boxing as a sport has a lot to worry about.

First off, similar but faster paced and aggressive sports like mixed martial arts have become popular. These rarely go to the scorecards and its growing as a market on a regular basis. More and more fans are turning from boxing to pay for UFC and MMA pay per views. Now I’m not saying these are perfect sports they are corruptible just like boxing but there is less chance for that to happen.

Then you have the scripted but still widely watched “extreme entertainment” of professional wrestling, younger audiences which used to watch boxing now grow up with the stars of the wrestling world giving them the same drama of a boxing press conference and entertainment for their more sadist side when they enter the ring.

Boxing meanwhile has a lot of problems. For every weight division you have four or five and maybe even six world champions (there are a few lesser known world championship belts) and they are not bound by any rules to face each other. This creates the Mayweather / Pacquiao situation where each fighter says their better both fans argue their fighter is better and no one will ever know because one side wants too much money and the other side wants a fair deal, having one world champion and one governing body would sort this problem very quickly the fighters would be forced to fight and for an amount that’s practical for both of them.

Meanwhile as I have already mentioned judges decisions are not always correct and seem to be guided by either favourable vision towards one fighter(like some of the writers on this site) or money. For example, watching back the tape of the Peterson/Khan fight, the judge who Khan questioned the actions of clearly doesn’t watch large portions of the fight and looks at his paper the entire time and when he is not looking at his paper he’s looking at the Peterson team member (let’s face it, we all know he was now) who was giving him information. I’m not saying Khan won (he wont gain any respect from me until he’s unified his division and avenged all his defeats) , he didn’t but with all the facts in place you can not say Peterson did either.

Talking of Peterson, WHY and this is a big issue, do none of the fighters in boxing have to give blood and urine tests before and after a fight, this should be a rule and should be regulated, boxers could get killed because another boxer is juiced up on something they should be and gets a little too aggressive even after the ref has stopped the fight, boxing like other sports should be randomly testing any fighter with a license and also check blood and urine samples before and after the fight.

The biggest problem in boxing is the promoters, all are out to line their own pockets and they all manipulate the rules and regulations to suit their needs, look at fighters like Deontay Wilder, the guy has an impressive record on paper yet his record has been created by fighting bums with no real chance of beating him, his promoter is afraid his cash cow is going to lose against a real fighter, so we have no idea of how good he really is yet he can make millions by fighting and probably losing when he does step up in class.

If boxing does not shape up I can see dark days ahead, boxing needs a new way of settling fights that go to the scorecards, judges don’t work, it needs one champion per division and needs to reduce the power of the promoters.