Key takeaways
- Current Fights Now ingestion covers official men's publications; the schema retains gender for a later separate women's intake.
- Rank number 1 is not automatically a mandatory-challenger designation.
- Full, interim, vacant and source-specific title states must remain distinct.
- Boxing histories are retained, but the promotion-ranking movement badge is not currently calculated for these entries.
Four publishers, four source formats
The bodies publish through different technical formats and revision cycles. That difference matters when checking a date, correction or designation, so Fights Now stores body, gender and publication date with each snapshot instead of scraping the names into one generic table.
| Body | Current source form | Important handling detail |
|---|---|---|
| WBC | Current official ratings PDF discovered from the ratings page | The PDF publication date identifies the snapshot |
| WBA | Official current web tables | Explicit designations such as OC are retained when published |
| IBF | Official public ratings REST resources used by the site | A mandatory_date is a due date, not a named challenger |
| WBO | Current men's ranking report plus official champion publication | Explicit Next Mandatory data can identify a designation |
The current coverage limit is men's publications
The present collectors import the official men's ranking publications supported by these sources. Gender is part of the data key, but that does not mean a separate women's intake is currently live. Until that intake is implemented and validated, an absent women's table on Fights Now must be described as unsupported coverage rather than an empty official ranking.
The current pages also do not provide a complete historical ledger for every body. Fights Now retains official dates when present and otherwise builds observed history prospectively. A missing historic champion, title-change date or challenger is not reconstructed from news articles merely to make the sequence look complete.
Champion labels require exact handling
A full champion, interim champion and vacancy describe different states. Sources can also publish a title-won date, defense count, previous champion or body-specific title wording. Fights Now retains only the fields the body actually publishes and does not manufacture a date from a later report.
A multi-body champion may appear in several official tables. That is evidence of several source relationships, not permission to add rankings together or create a new universal title. Equal division names from different bodies remain separate snapshots.
Mandatory is not a synonym for number one
A high rank can lead to an eliminator or title opportunity, but mandatory status needs an explicit source field. In the current intake, WBA's OC and WBO's Next Mandatory field can name a challenger. An IBF mandatory_date is stored only as a due date. WBC's LAST COMPULSORY history field does not name the current mandatory challenger and is not exposed as one.
| Published evidence | Safe conclusion | Unsafe conclusion |
|---|---|---|
| Rank #1 only | The boxer is first in that body's numbered list | The boxer is automatically mandatory |
| Explicit named mandatory field | The source designates that challenger | Every other body shares the designation |
| Mandatory due date only | The source publishes a timing obligation | The field identifies an unnamed opponent |
Publication corrections and retained history
Monthly snapshots are retained. Re-fetching identical material does not duplicate its entries, while a corrected version replaces only the entries belonging to that same publication. A genuinely distinct monthly list remains a separate snapshot. Current-title changes close the prior observed tenure without inventing a loss date.
This boxing model can return current or historical snapshots, but it does not currently expose the previous_rank and movement fields used by the separate promotion-ranking pipeline. Readers can compare dated boxing publications themselves; the interface must not label that as the existing movement detector.
Why boxing ranking names remain name-only evidence
A sanctioning-body publication often supplies a name without a stable athlete profile ID. Those rows remain name-only and are never attached to a canonical fighter through fuzzy matching. Sporting-importance matching uses exact accent-insensitive normalized names, and ambiguity should reduce confidence rather than force a link.
For the same reason, several bodies contribute only a small consensus bonus in sporting importance. Their numerical ranks are not summed. A championship bout still needs an explicit championship flag; merely matching a current champion does not create championship-stakes points.
Sources and further reading
Primary or directly relevant publications used to check this guide. External publishers control their own pages and update schedules.