Fighters who have held all four belts at once?

[original zero]

The WBO being a requirement to be "undisputed" is a recent development in boxing's history. It's been about ten years at this point.

When Bernard Hopkins was undisputed middleweight champion, the WBO was not required. But a plan was put together for a double header with Hopkins defending the undisputed title and De La Hoya challenging for the WBO title on the same show, with Hopkins & DLH unifying a few months later if DLH won. DLH wins a completely bogus decision to keep the plan in tact.

Then Hopkins beats DLH to become the fight ever WBC/WBA/IBF/WBO champion. Hopkins loses to Taylor.

To this day, they remain the only two WBC/WBA/IBF/WBO champions in history, in any division.

Sadly, it's a series of events that resulted in people believing the WBO was now necessary to be undisputed champion. So GGG isn't given credit as undisputed even though he should be.

[Cheek busting]

To my knowledge, Bernard Hopkins held all four in 2004 when he stopped DLH for the WBO Middleweight crown, adding to the IBF title he'd held for almost ten years, the WBC title he won off Keith Holmes and the WBA(there was only one WBA title back then) he won from Felix Trinidad. So until he faced Jermain Taylor the very next year, boxing had one undisputed middleweight champion- very short-lived of course.

The closest now is Golovkin and Kovalev. However, if they never get there, don't hold it against them. They not only have to win the titles by actually beating the belt holders. They also have to get those fights made which can be hell. I bet even when he beats Jacobs, Jacobs will still be the WBA regular champion, although they said they'd start doing away with such trinkets. The sport is a real mess with belts.

Good post - thank you. After checking boxrec, it appears your historical lineage is correct regarding Hopkins.


Yes - it must be extremely hard to win all four belts. Sometimes you'll have a boxer who is clearly one of the top-3 in the division, but for whatever reason, one of the organizations has him at like 11, or 13 or some shyte... My guess is their promoter didn't pay up on time.


Heh, also, imagine all the sanctioning fees you'd have to pay!

[Cheek busting]

The WBO being a requirement to be "undisputed" is a recent development in boxing's history. It's been about ten years at this point.

When Bernard Hopkins was undisputed middleweight champion, the WBO was not required. But a plan was put together for a double header with Hopkins defending the undisputed title and De La Hoya challenging for the WBO title on the same show, with Hopkins & DLH unifying a few months later if DLH won. DLH wins a completely bogus decision to keep the plan in tact.

Then Hopkins beats DLH to become the fight ever WBC/WBA/IBF/WBO champion. Hopkins loses to Taylor.

To this day, they remain the only two WBC/WBA/IBF/WBO champions in history, in any division.

Sadly, it's a series of events that resulted in people believing the WBO was now necessary to be undisputed champion. So GGG isn't given credit as undisputed even though he should be.

Another great post with detailed history of the lineal title.

This is great knowledge right here.

[Tony Trick-Pony]

Good post - thank you. After checking boxrec, it appears your historical lineage is correct regarding Hopkins.


Yes - it must be extremely hard to win all four belts. Sometimes you'll have a boxer who is clearly one of the top-3 in the division, but for whatever reason, one of the organizations has him at like 11, or 13 or some shyte... My guess is their promoter didn't pay up on time.


Heh, also, imagine all the sanctioning fees you'd have to pay!

This is what I wonder about. Does a fighter who holds all four pay four sanctioning fees? If so, I feel for GGG and Kovalev. Haha.

[Larry the boss]

Is there any boxer now, or in pugilistic history, that has held all four titles at once?

Or maybe before the newest one (wasn't it sometime in the 80's), was there a fighter who held all three major titles?

I can't think of one recently who has; Wlad held all but the WBC (but his brother had it while he had his, so that's pretty close) A side note - Wlad also had the IBO, a title that is highly respected in Europe, and Australia, but not so much in USA.

Personally, I think the IBO is legit, because their rankings are generated by objective criteria (well, I guess the criteria is subjective, but it's objectively generated/ranked/ordered by a computer), rather than subjective human-choosing.

But for purposes of this, we'll keep it simpler, and just say there are four major organizations - WBA, WBC, IBF, WBO.

If I had to say which one of the major four is the biggest joke, and most worthless, I'd go with WBA. Lol they have like three different belt-holders sometimes (Interim, Regular, Super).


Kovalev also has three of the four (WBA, WBO, and IBF) - he most recently defended them against Andre Ward. Stevenson is holding the WBC hostage.

[Larry the boss]

To my knowledge, Bernard Hopkins held all four in 2004 when he stopped DLH for the WBO Middleweight crown, adding to the IBF title he'd held for almost ten years, the WBC title he won off Keith Holmes and the WBA(there was only one WBA title back then) he won from Felix Trinidad. So until he faced Jermain Taylor the very next year, boxing had one undisputed middleweight champion- very short-lived of course.

The closest now is Golovkin and Kovalev. However, if they never get there, don't hold it against them. They not only have to win the titles by actually beating the belt holders. They also have to get those fights made which can be hell. I bet even when he beats Jacobs, Jacobs will still be the WBA regular champion, although they said they'd start doing away with such trinkets. The sport is a real mess with belts.

???Kovalev has 0 belts

[Pigeons]

After beating Pacquiao, Mayweather simultaneously held 5 belts (WBA, WBC, WBO Welterweight and WBA, WBC Junior Middleweight).

Currently, Ward and Golovkin are one belt away from holding all 4.

[Tony Trick-Pony]

???Kovalev has 0 belts

Haha. That didn't take too long.

[iamboxing]

Naseem Hamed held the WBO, IBF, WBC and technically the WBA (if they hadn't stripped Vasquez just before the fight)

[asgarth]

Unification DOES trump a mandatory. Not sure what you're referring to here.

I was referring to the guy above who said that calzaghe had to vacate his ibf belt in order to unify with kessler