[Brooks TVB]

Have fun on vacation. Nice to see my man is winning.

[Jeff1787]

Five week vacation....very exciting!!

[kenyan_cheena]

Originally Posted by Romdawg88

Sweet, that sounds like it's going to be nice vacation hope you enjoy yourself. As for the IBL, I'm looking forward to the big introduction. I can't wait to see who'll be in the tournaments. I think it's safe to say that you've done a hell of a job on the "get to the tournaments quickly" front. This uni has been moving along on a really nice pace.

Originally Posted by Brooks TVB

Have fun on vacation. Nice to see my man is winning.

Originally Posted by Jeff1787

Five week vacation....very exciting!!

Thanks, guys. I'm sure we'll have a fantastic time over there.

As for the tourneys, there will be a few surprises but not too many. As I said when I cancelled the original IBL, there were TOO MANY great fighters in it. That's unrealistic to how things work in real life. The middleweight division will be the most talented in the league but that aside there won't be a huge amount of highly-rated fighters in the other divisions.

[Ian Lord]

Originally Posted by kenyan_cheena

The middleweight division will be the most talented in the league but that aside there won't be a huge amount of highly-rated fighters in the other divisions.

Of course it will be, I'm in it

Have a great holiday KC.

[kenyan_cheena]

Gonna take me a little longer than I thought to get the fields sorted out for the IBL tourneys. I've got most of the fighters picked for the higher weight divisions but as you would have noticed from the posts so far I haven't focused a great deal on the cruisers, bantams and flyweights. I'll probably make most of the guys in those divisions fictional and use the RFG to create them.

In addition, the act of assigning starting career records and career stages to all the fighters on the spreadsheet will take some time. I have just finished allocating each of the 56 middleweights to the tourneys and will be getting to work on the welters and feathers next. Hopefully the big unveiling should be ready by Friday USA time, possibly earlier if I find extra time to work on it.

[Claybor]

Take your time, I can wait.

[kenyan_cheena]

4 divisions down (mw, fw, lhw, ww),
5 to go (hw, cw, lw, bw, fly)...

[Beno999]

damn i wish i had the abilty to structure and play out stories like this i have the imagination just not the ability to put it down on paper like you do so evidently well kenyan, very very well done to ya mate this is probs my fav universe to read about.

[kenyan_cheena]

Originally Posted by Beno999

damn i wish i had the abilty to structure and play out stories like this i have the imagination just not the ability to put it down on paper like you do so evidently well kenyan, very very well done to ya mate this is probs my fav universe to read about.

Thanks for the kind words, beno. There's a bunch of planning that I did before actually kicking this universe off, so that helps a lot. My belief with this uni and my previous HBF/IBL one is that if I'm not going to actually tell a story that will keep those reading it interested it's a waste of time. I'm trying hard to make it something that I would really like to read myself if someone else was writing it.

I started writing up the next post even though I haven't completed the lists of entrants for all the tournaments yet. Hopefully it'll be posted by Friday evening USA time.

[kenyan_cheena]

The New York Age

SUNDAY, 14 MAY, 2006

IBL TO RE-INTRODUCE
15-ROUND WORLD TITLE BOUTS

Story by James Reynolds

The International Boxing League staged a lavish dinner and presentation last night at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, during which the entrants for its upcoming tournaments were revealed. The event was hosted by the organisation's president and MGM owner James Molk and attended by every member of the IBL staff, numerous sporting and entertainment personalities, media and close to a hundred of the boxers who will be competing in the league. The evening featured fantastic live performances both together and separately from R'n'B diva Beyonce and pop music legend Prince aswell as a side splitting stand-up routine to start the night from comedian Chris Rock.

While the public is now aware of exactly who will be taking part in the IBL's tournaments one of the big surprises came when Molk stated that the league plans to re-introduce something that's been missing from boxing for seventeen years: 15-round world title fights. The International Boxing Federation were the last of the big sanctioning bodies to stage them back in 1989 but Molk announced that every single IBL world title fight will be held over fifteen rounds. He acknowledged that the issue would be a contentious one but stated that every fighter had been made aware of the league's intentions before signing a contract and none of them had voiced objections.

"There's never been a greater spectacle in sport than a fifteen-round World Championship fight," Molk said passionately. "I often think back fondly on some of the classic title fights I witnessed growing up and it excites me to think that our organisation will be returning the sport to those great days."

The IBL used a lottery draw much like in football's World Cup to determine the schedule for the tournaments. The opening round of bouts are set to take place over five weeks starting on Monday the 5th of June with the welterweight division's Inter-Continental Championship tournament kicking things off. The league has done a remarkable job of signing some of boxing's most talented fighters with no less than twenty champions from the WBA, WBC, IBF and WBO named as entrants in the tournaments. Molk was joined on stage by several of them including heavyweights Ken Norton and Terone Haynes while the draw was held. It goes without saying that the evening was a spectacular success, one that will only increase the pressure that the sport's other governing bodies have been feeling ever since Molk introduced the IBL to the world back in January...

[Beno999]

Haha cant wait for it all to kick off, just hope it all goes smoothly for the IBL they are bringing boxing back to its roots!

[kenyan_cheena]

I know I said all the entrants would be revealed in the next post but it would have been a ridiculously large post doing it that way. It would also have been unrealistic for a newspaper to actually publish the whole schedule so what I will do is post the schedule in a seperate post which will be in the form of an IBL press release.

Think of that last post as an appetizer.

[kenyan_cheena]

Sorry, folks. It's taking longer than I expected to get the list of entrants done. I've completed six divisions and have only CW, BW and FLY to finish but need to find some time to sit in front of my PC with the game open to pick the fighters for those divisions. I'll get a chance to do that this time tomorrow.

[Romdawg88]

No worries on the delay KC, making up the tournaments is a pretty big task so I understand it taking you some time.

[kenyan_cheena]

Originally Posted by Romdawg88

No worries on the delay KC, making up the tournaments is a pretty big task so I understand it taking you some time.

Thanks, Romy. I've cut and paste the brackets for the six divisions that are set into a notepad file so I'm literally 2/3rds of the way there. I just have to come up with the fields for the other divisions and it'll be ready. It's not an understatement when I say it'll be one really gigantic post.

[kenyan_cheena]

Just about done selecting all the fighters. I used the all-time rankings on boxrec while at work yesterday and today to get some names and it helped quite a lot. I then checked them against the database here on the site to see if they were in the game.

I just have to finish placing the flyweights into the tourneys, cut and paste their brackets and I'll be ready to post the whole thing. It should be on here by this time tomorrow.

[Romdawg88]

Sweet, thats good news to hear. I bet you're thrilled to finally be done with the brackets.

[kenyan_cheena]

Originally Posted by Romdawg88

Sweet, thats good news to hear. I bet you're thrilled to finally be done with the brackets.

Yep, it's ended up being a helluva lot more work than I thought it would be. I even started wishing I'd just gone with a straight 32-man world championship tourney for each division instead but I think that it'll be more exciting with four different tourneys per division going on.

[Jeff1787]

Definitely looking forward to this.

[kenyan_cheena]

Originally Posted by Jeff1787

Definitely looking forward to this.

Not long to wait now.