Jake-N-Da-Blog: Edition 1 - The Paper Title Chase

Otherwise, we're left with the cluttered mess going on today.

The most convoluted issue is in the lightweight division. Presently at lightweight exists a linear champion (Joel Casamayor), a unified titlist (Nate Campbell, with three of the four "major" alphabet titles) – yet there are still four people calling themselves a world champion.

There's Casamayor and Campbell of course. Then you have David Diaz, whose next fight will probably get more profile than any lightweight bout in 2008. That's because he has the honor of defending his alphabet strap next month against the sport's most bankable fighter below 147 in Manny Pacquiao.

Don King's media relations department sent out a revealing press release last weekend, that there was a fourth titlist at lightweight in Jose Alfaro, who was set to defend his title Monday night in Tokyo, Japan.

This just in… Jose Alfaro is no longer a lightweight titlist. But don't get your hopes up fans – the talent pool didn't narrow down to three. No, the Nicaraguan conceded his crown via 3rd round knockout loss against Yusuke Kobori.

Nate Campbell is the super champion to the title Kobori claims, as well as the interim title Casamayor carries along with the linear championship and his magazine belt. He's expressed a willingness to take on all comers, and would no doubt jump at the opportunity to face both, if only to get rid of two mandatories.

Here's the sad part- both fighters can price themselves out of a Campbell fight, defend against whomever, and so long as they make their respective mandatory defenses, they can hold onto their claim as champs.

Confused? Try this one on for size.

Ricky Hatton returns home to England and the junior welterweight division this weekend, where he defends his linear championship against fringe contender Juan Lazcano. The bout will be his first at the weight since last June, when he stopped Jose Luis Castillo with a body shot (y'all must've forgot!) in Vegas. It was also Ricky's last win, having since suffered the first loss of his career after running into the check hook heard 'round the world against Money Mayweather last December. That punch merely produced the first of two knockdowns, but for all intent and purposes brought about the end of the fight.

No shame in Hatton losing outside of his weight class, and against the very best in the game. He's still the junior welterweight kingpin until another 140 lb fighter knocks him off of his perch. Maybe it's Juan Lazcano. If not, then Paulie Malignaggi gets a crack at the Brit later this fall, assuming he gets by Lovemore N'Dou for the second time in as many tries.

But here's the rub: Hatton's handlers are already viewing a Malignaggi fight as Ricky's chance to – get this – become a "three-time junior welterweight world champion."

OK, follow the bouncing ball on this one.

In addition to the linear crown Ricky snatched from Kostya Tszyu three years ago, he also collected an alphabet title in the process. After collecting another ABC strap five months later (knocking out Carlos Maussa), Hatton decided to give welterweight a try in 2006, where awaiting him was beltholder Luis Collazo.

In accepting the welterweight assignment, Ricky was forced to give up his junior welterweight straps (though not his linear crown, which he would return to twice defend).  Enter Juan Urango, who would call himself "champion" after scooping up a vacant 140 lb. strap by way of highly controversial decision against Naoufel Ben Rabah.

Order was restored a few months later, when Hatton would defeat Urango to win back the title he never lost in the ring. Only he gave it up less than two months later, already eyeing a big money fight with Jose Luis Castillo.

Ben Rabah would once again enter the title picture, and would once again fall short. This time it was on the legit side, suffering an 11th round stoppage against N'Dou last February.

N'Dou's time as paper champ was short-lived, dropping a virtual shutout against Paulie Malignaggi four months later.

Got it? If not, don't fret. Any way you slice it, the Hatton-Malignaggi winner is the linear junior welterweight champ. Why? Two reasons: 1) Hatton's already the champ. 2) Even if the claim was up for grabs, Hatton and Malignaggi are the top two junior welterweights in the world.

Sometimes things have a way of working themselves out. Like last November, when Joe Calzaghe defeated Mikkel Kessler in a battle of the world's two best super middleweights.

Three belts were unified, and a linear champion was crowned in what was the division's biggest fight since Roy Jones-James Toney 14 years prior.

So what went wrong? Calzaghe decided to test the light heavyweight waters. Good for him, bad for the rest of the super middleweight division.

With Calzaghe's departure comes a slew of vacant title matches. Kessler was already regarded as a super champion by one sanctioning body, which meant a regular champion HAD to be crowned. That would become Anthony Mundine, who defeated Sam Soliman far more convincingly than was the case in their first meeting six years prior. This time around it was Mundine scoring a one-sided ninth round stoppage over his countryman, and has reigned as "champion" ever since.

Three defenses would follow, with the fourth scheduled for next Tuesday – against Soliman, the third time the two will fight.

News of this fight angered Danish promoter Mogens Palle, who guides the career of Kessler and assumed that his charge was automatically entitled to an immediate title shot at their convenience. Never mind that the fight had been scheduled for months, and that Kessler had just recently been named Mundine's mandatory challenger; Palle was displeased, and dammit, Kessler would fight for a title one way or another.

So it came to the surprise of many when it was announced that Kessler's next fight – next month against undefeated but untested and unheralded countryman Dimitri Sartison – would be for the very same title.

The news was even more surprising to German promotional outfit Sauerland Event, who insist that their fighter, Danilo Haussler, was wrongfully passed over in the mad paper title chase. Sauerland now insists that one of two things needs to take place: either Haussler gets a title shot first, or is given a step-aside fee in order to allow the Great Danes to first collide for the vacant title.

The only problem: the title isn't yet vacant.

The sanctioning body involved in this mess released a statement last month claiming that the Mundine-Soliman III winner agrees to immediately defend against Kessler.

All of this while Calzaghe, still the division's linear champion, hasn't ruled out a return to the weight. Rumors have surfaced of a possible showdown against linear middleweight king Kelly Pavlik, who would move up in weight for a crack at his second divisional championship in as many years.

The sad part in all of this is that so many are content to chase paper titles and seek the path of least resistance in retaining such baubles. Meanwhile, the welterweight division now boasts two titlists who are hell-bent on clearing out the division while awaiting its "leader" to actually defend against a fellow welterweight.

Those two would be Miguel Cotto and Antonio Margarito. Both are alphabet titlists now, though chances are there will only be one strap at stake by the time the two meet in a potential Fight of the Year candidate this coming July.

Normally, it's the job of the division's true king to defend against all comers, yet it's been Cotto and Margarito doing all of the heavy lifting. Between the two, they have faced six of the eight remaining fighters in BoxingScene's Top 10 welterweight rankings, with Luis Collazo and Andre Berto the only two of the lot who've yet to meet either fighter. The bouts (Cotto vs. Carlos Quintana, Zab Judah and Shane Mosley; Margarito beating Joshua Clottey and Kermit Cintron, and narrowly losing to Paul Williams) haven't exactly been spread out, in fact all have taken place in a span of less than eighteen months.

Yet in a situation where you can actually make a case for two titlists legitimizing their claims as world champions, their July fight will "merely" be for the consensus choice as the top challenger to Floyd Mayweather's championship.  Never mind that, while Cotto and Margarito sign to face the best of the rest, November will mark two years since Money has last faced an actual welterweight.

With standards like that, it's easy to see why nearly every other non-linear champion is far more willing to participate in the great paper title chase.

Jake Donovan is a member of the Boxing Writers Association of America and the Tennessee Boxing Advisory Board. Comments/questions can be submitted to JakeNDaBox@gmail.com.