Governing bodies and title belts

joepenguin

Governing bodies, world title belts, mandatory challangers, purse bids, eliminators that dont necessarily decide anything... The joys of boxing!!!

As most of us know many of the world bodies are more like businesses than anything nowadays simply marketing their products to the wholesalers (the promoters/fighters/managers) who in turn use said product to their customers (us).

The latest gadget on the market is the wbc "diamond title" Its a title for catch weight fights among elite boxers, the niche is boxers who wont fight at a catch weight as there is nothing at stake. The wbc are looking to launch their new product at the manny-cotto fight. Manny seems like a potential customer.

This leaves us with more problems than it solves but lets look at the problems at hand first:

The fact that there is 4 recognised governing bodies awarding titles

The fact that of the 4, 3 of them are offering 2-3 titles per division with super, ordinary and interim titles.

The other one of the 4, the ibf strip champions left right and centre for not facing their mandatory challengers that no-ones ever heard of.

The fact that there is about 25 other bodies out there awarding titles.

The fact that the ibo while having one of the best systems sometimes have below par champs and challengers. They are however looking like making the big 4 into the big 5.


So what can we do about it?.... Nothing!! (suggestions and action plans welcome though!!! ) or pitch in a few bob each and set up the wbbc
world boards boxing council. :rolleyes::D take the rest of them on!!

So who do you think is the most ligit org? do you prefer the ibfs approach or the wba awarding multiple titles.

They can have a recess, super, ordinary and interim champ in each division if they want.

What classifies a fighter as world champ to you. take super middleweight division for example where calzaghe was the clear number one but left everything vacant.

joepenguin

A few related links:

List of world bodies:

http://www.andworldboxing.com/div.htm

The wbc diamond belt info

http://www.wbcboxing.com/WBCboxing/Portal/cfpages/contentmgr.cfm?docId=2325&docTipo=9&orderby=docid&sortby=ASC

I say go for it. I know its a ridiculous idea but come on... after 3 world champions per world it doesnt get any more ridiculous. Never mind 7-8 champs with 25 lesser champs per division. At least there is effort put into this title and it will look great above the mantle piece!!!

f1dan

I used to say the ring title but ever since golden boy took it over I can't take it as seriously

T-K-O

http://www.boxingscene.com/?m=show&id=21473

Gotta love the belts

colly10

How can someone vote for the WBC after the create this stupid new diamond belt, the ring title is the most credible in my mind but obviously far from ideal. These belts ruin boxing and top fighters are fighting far less because of them (why fight, im already world champion). If there was one belt the top fighters would be mad to fight for it and it would result in great fights in the WW division.
Boxing is far too corrupt and ruins itself :mad:

gary nevillevil

WBA for me as its the founder of Boxing but at a push all belts mean alot and the more belts the better for Boxing as a whole.

colly10

gary nevillevil wrote: »

the more belts the better for Boxing as a whole.

How exactly?

f1dan

colly10 wrote: »

How can someone vote for the WBC after the create this stupid new diamond belt, the ring title is the most credible in my mind but obviously far from ideal. These belts ruin boxing and top fighters are fighting far less because of them (why fight, im already world champion). If there was one belt the top fighters would be mad to fight for it and it would result in great fights in the WW division.
Boxing is far too corrupt and ruins itself :mad:

The idea of the diamond belt isn't a bad one. The problem is that the other sanctioning bodies will just create their own diamond belts and suddenly we have 16 champs per division with all this interim, regular, super and diamond crap.

T-K-O

The should be only one. Period.

ODD-JOB

I agree , only 1 belt should be available !

The definition of the words "World Champion" is completely diluted, and there is never a clear defined champion unless he holds all of the 'big 4' .

I think most fighters aspire to the title of "p4p" these days.

On a seperate topic , I think 'Catch-Weight' should be totally banned .
This is going to become a much more frequent thing i fear .
The rules are in black and white , with small weight increments deviding the devisions.

One must wonder should Pac beats Cotto , is Pac the true holder of the of the WBO welter weight title ???
Since Pac refuses to fight at 147, which is the clearly marked limit of the devision.

cowzerp

I voted WBA as its the original and in theory should be the real World champion belt, but lets be straight there here to stay, the real champion in my opinion should have a title and have beaten high ranked fighters and should be decided by the people in the know-THE FANS.

ODD-JOB

I think the WBA was/is very corrupt , and this is what brought about the other organisations .

The ring title isnt worth much , as it is owned by a boxing promotional company and couldn't possibly have a neutral stance .

Big Ears

colly10 wrote: »

How exactly?

While he's wrong that all belt means a lot, the last thing he says 'the more belts the better for Boxing as a whole.', is actually the answer(although maybe not for the reason he thinks) and people don't see it.

You see the more World titles that become available the less value we place in them. So I hope people start 'recognising' the IBO, WBF, WBU whatever, because once they do people will eventually only look for the real champion or clear #1 guy in that division. They'll stop caring who the WBC,IBF etc champs are, because it won't make a difference.

Going back into even the bareknuckle days there was always various fighters with a 'claim' to a World title and not that different from nowdays where you would often find 4/5 men claiming to be World champion. However the difference between now and then is that fighters in the past had to enhance their claim and try and defeat the claim of others. They were eager to establish themselves as the true World champion.

However now it's not uncommon for fighters to defend their claim(eg WBO title) and not seek to enhance it at all, because there are people who will act like they are a World champion. How can you be the true World champion when you've 3/4 other guys with as good a claim as you.

This WBC Diamond championship has not been made because fighters won't fight at catchweight because there's nothing at stake(although it's a nice try by the WBC to avoid claims of saying it's for the money).

Elite fighters have already proven they can fight with no belt(except maybe the Ring or what is considered a minor title like the IBO) and people will still have as much interest to see it. This is because the WBC feel that they've an opportunity to make money from these contests, by being able to award a World title at any weight they want for any fight they want.

I'm slightly annoyed at those who have selected the WBC above any others, I can't help but feel those people are quite ignorant.......but we all have our opinions. The truth is none of the alphabet titles matter anymore than the others.

As for the Ring title, it only has significance because that most of the time when a fighter is the linear champion he happens to hold that belt, but because that's not exclusively the case the title can be taken with a pinch of salt just like the others.

Recently it seems the sanctioning bodies people like to consider the top 4 have gotten even worse. The WBA are almost insisting on 2/3 champions in every division, the IBF are far too strict on mandatories and thus are constantly stripping champions(leaving less than worthy fighters fighting for their belt).
The WBO have 5 interim champions with another 2 fights scheduled for an interim championship and the WBC have 4 interim champions, another bout scheduled for an interim title and recently stripped a champion because he decided to unify and this was deemed by the WBC, a 'bad precedent'
The fighter was Tim Bradley and this was officially the reason he was stripped, after winning a WBC/WBO unification fight he was told by the WBC he had two weeks to either drop the WBO belt or they'd strip him.

Now if anything that makes the WBC the worst out of all the sanctioning bodies, because as I said earlier it's not that different now that from the past with various people claiming to be World champion. The difference now is these claimants don't fight each other, and the WBC has clearly made a message of intent with the Bradley v Holt fight that they don't want them to either.

As business models it seems all sanctioning bodies are doing fantastic for themselves at the moment, maximising profits and probably earning more than ever even in an economic downturn. However for boxing it's not going to get better till things get a whole lot worse.


Real boxing fans will always know who the real champions are, the general public well they'll just know the generic champions.

unknown13

IBF; Rankings pritty decent but is a bit of a hinderance when it comes to unifications.
WBA; Decent enough but these "Super" and "Ordinary" is a joke, got a bit of corruption in it aswell ie. Holyfield / Valuev and Gevor/ Sturm.
WBC; Probably the best one, like there stance on the Super 6 but this Diamond title is why I don't think I would vote for it.
WBO; Terrible shouldn't be a World title.
The Ring; GBP are controlling it, so I wouldn't trust it as a sanctioning body.

Vintagekits

gary nevillevil wrote: »

WBA for me as its the founder of Boxing but at a push all belts mean alot and the more belts the better for Boxing as a whole.

Eh.....three "champions" at multiple weights!

Champions in recess, Super Champions, Regular Champions and Interim champions - the WBA is a disgrace!

eagle eye

f1dan wrote: »

I used to say the ring title but ever since golden boy took it over I can't take it as seriously

Why?

As far as I'm concerned its the only real title now. There is a possiblity that it might change with a promoter owning but that has not happened.

Vintagekits

eagle eye wrote: »

Why?

As far as I'm concerned its the only real title now. There is a possiblity that it might change with a promoter owning but that has not happened.

Do you consider it a little tainted due to the potential conflict of interest with regards GBP factor?

eagle eye

Vintagekits wrote: »

Do you consider it a little tainted due to the potential conflict of interest with regards GBP factor?

No, not at this time. I'm not saying its won't happen but until such time as it does its the only rankings I'd have any respect for.

At the current time, GBP have most of if not all the top boxers on their books, when we see some new guy come along thats got nothing to do with them, then we will get to see if things have changed.

joepenguin

eagle eye wrote: »

No, not at this time. I'm not saying its won't happen but until such time as it does its the only rankings I'd have any respect for.

At the current time, GBP have most of if not all the top boxers on their books, when we see some new guy come along thats got nothing to do with them, then we will get to see if things have changed.

I think the conflict if interest in the immediate future is that golden boy fighters in the top 5 will get a fight with the ring champion a whole lot easier than non gbp fighters which will eventually lead to it tainting the title.

In fairness to them their champions are usually the best fighters in their classes.

joepenguin

The IBA have stepped in and said they would pay Cotto and Pacquiao to fight for their belt.

http://www.examiner.com/x-2850-LA-Boxing-Examiner~y2009m8d10-WBO-sunk--IBA-looking-to-sanction-Pacquiao--Cotto-and-line-their-pockets

Jones is fighting Lacy tonight and if himself and Green win they will fight for the ibo cruiserweight title even though i cant see either of them coming in too far north of 180. Cruiser limit is 200.

Who knows, the could even see if they could fight for the wbc 183.5lb diamond title, lol.

Having said that I think its a relatively good idea this diamond belt, it will be by far the fanciest of the trinkets which will look amazing on the wall.

Imagine how much a replica would cost!!! :eek::eek:

Anyone willing to give an estimation.