Rockhard...
since you clearly didn't take ANY TIME to "REALLY" look at the IKF Rankings, We will fill you in on a little FYI..

You said;
"If it were, why would the IK rankings have guys with 1 or 2 fights, both losses, ranked?"

Well, sorry to inform you but you are very wrong here!!
NO FIGHTER without a win has a "NUMBER" Ranking "ANYWHERE" in "ANY" of the IKF Rankings. It's clear you looked at someone elses rankings because any fighter with "NO WINS" to his record ALWAYS has an "X" Ranking. If you took the time to look closer you would have noticed this.

And as far as Champions not being challenged, believe it or not this happens in EVERY RULE STYLE and in EVERY ORGANIZATION! The "ONLY" time you see champions getting challenged is when they have a trainer that's also a promoter, and even than you don't see it too often. Ask Leg kick about Eric Regan for example or Dave Marinobel. Both Middleweight fighters and World Champions yet NO ONE has EVER Challenged either of them for their titles. Think this is only true in Full Contact?? Take some more time to research this before stating what you fee l is fact. Better yet, we'll help you. Look at this page and see when these World Champions won their title and you will notice than very few of them were ever challenged for the title once they won it;

http://www.ikfkickboxing.com/IKFMPWChampions.htm

Now of course this is just the IKF. At least we tell everyone when a fighter won their World Title. NO other organization even offers that, EVEN MUAYTHAI Organizations!

What MuayThai or Leg Kick Champions won a World title and have NEVER been challenged for it?? PLENTY. Heck, we'll just do the research for you;


MTR: Enn Fairtex of Fairtex USA/Thailand, never challenged

MTR, IR, FCR: 3 Time World Champion Ali Hallak of Australia, never challenged

MTR: Vasily Shish of Belarus, never challenged

MTR & IR: 2 Time World Champion Danny Steele of USA, never challenged

FCR: Paul Biafore of Canada, never challenged

MTR: Khunpon of USA/Thailand, never challenged

MTR: Matee Jedeepitak of USA/Thailand, never challenged

MTR: Vladimir Autamonov of Russia will defend his title for the first time this Fall.

IR: Fernando Calleros of USA, never challenged

MTR: Dmitry Shakuta of Belarus, never challenged

FCR: Anthony Bartinelli was scheduled to defend two weeks ago but an injury pulled him out of the fight

MTR: Kongnapa defended against Shakuta and won, retired his title, and came back at a heavier weight and won, has yet to ever be challenged for it.

FCR: Dave Marinoble of USA, never challenged

Rudi Ott of USA just won an IKF San Shou World Title 2 weeks ago.

San Shou: Cung Le of USA, never challenged

MTR: Chris Wright of England, won IKF, ISKA and WKA World titles, has yet to be challenged for ANY.

FCR: Dennis Alexio, you know the story here.

FCR & IR: Rick Roufus of USA, never challenged

MTR: Duke Roufus of USA, retired having never been "Challenged" but did promote an event to defend it.

MTR: Matt Skelton of England, defended his title once with success.


So WHY have they not been challenged, or so few? Go back to the thread that talks about "Whats the Point"
http://message.axkickboxing.com/index?action=dispthread&topic=5431&junk=1031419506.17822

The main reason is, most want to win a title but don't want to challenge someone who's already won one. They would rather fight someone who's not won a World Title hoping they would get an easier fight. And with all the ABC backyard organizations out there, we all see this is exactly what is happening with our sport... So SAD, but true...

And again, this is not just in the IKF, look at ALL the organizations, 80% of their World Champions have never been challenged let alone promote a defense, ESPECIALLY the Heavyweight and Super Heavyweight fighters who are doing K-1. At least our IKF world MTR World Champion Matt Skelton has defended his IKF World Title once and won.