By Cliff Rold

In this series, designed to culminate the week of the May 2nd showdown between Manny Pacquiao (48-3-2, 36 KO) and World Junior Welterweight champion Ricky Hatton (45-1, 32 KO), Pacquiao’s previous title claims in five weight divisions were examined.  Identified were three lineal titles at Flyweight, Featherweight, and Jr. Lightweight.  Against Hatton, Pacquiao goes for overall title for lineal title number four.  How historically significant would it be?

In order to answer that question, the page now turns to the other men who have made claims to titles in four, five and six weight divisions, closing looking at how their championship accolades weather the weight of history.  Those men are:

Four Division Claimants
Roberto Duran - https://www.boxingscene.com/?m=show&id=19025
Pernell Whitaker - https://www.boxingscene.com/?m=show&id=19117
Leo Gamez
Roy Jones Jr.
Five Division Claimants
Sugar Ray Leonard
Thomas Hearns
Floyd Mayweather Jr.
And the lone Six Division Claimant
Oscar De La Hoya

In closing the look at four-division title claimants, one of the most, and least, renowned to accomplish the feat are paired for examination.  They share little in common in terms of talent or the arcs of their professional careers, so what ties Roy Jones (53-5, 39 KO) and Leo Gamez (35-12-1, 26 KO) together? 

Let’s begin with Jones.

The Title Reigns of RJJ

IBF Middleweight – UD Bernard Hopkins: Robbed blind in the 1988 Olympic Gold Medal round, the ultra-talented Pensacola, Florida native Jones appeared ready to take the pro game by storm.  Instead, managerial issues with his father and the beginning of a career remarkable for its independence took hold and Jones sputtered out of the gate.  Turned pro in 1989, it took until 1992 for a fight with former Welterweight champion Jorge Vaca to get him on a serious path to titles and acclaim.  The road ended on the 1993 undercard of Riddick Bowe-Jesse Ferguson in a battle for a vacant IBF belt, left behind along with lineage of the title by James Toney, against Bernard Hopkins.  Jones won an unmemorable encounter by unanimous and fair 116-112 scores and was seen almost immediately as the top man in class by many.  Being seen as the best though is not the same as laying claim to the top honors outright and Middleweight in 1993 was an impressive field.  At the top with Jones was a Gerald McClellan who had dethroned Julian Jackson for the WBC belt.  The two would never face off.  While Jones, then and in retrospect, would have been favored, the fight never happened and, in 1993, few had a clue Hopkins would become what he has.   Forecast: Hazy in terms of lineage, but considered a strong titleholder

IBF Super Middleweight – UD12 James Toney: Through a series of non-title fights, and a lone Middleweight title defense against Thomas Tate, the build was on for a showdown with the undefeated Toney.  What fans got instead in November 1994 was the fistic equivalent of both a Mozart concert and Ishtar.  Jones clowned Toney for most of twelve rounds, but the meeting of superstars as fight was a dud.  It didn’t matter; the point was made.  Jones was the best fighter at 168 until proven otherwise.  However, again, the lineage was not his.  The lineage at Super Middleweight extended back to the 1980s and the IBF and WBA reigns of Chong-Pal Park.  During Jones 168 lb. reign from 1994-96, it left history with Frankie Liles.  Again, Roy would have been favored to win but no fight occurred.  Forecast: Hazy, but considered the division’s best fighter

WBC/WBA/IBF/Ring Light Heavyweight – KO1 Montell Griffin; UD12 Lou Del Valle; UD12 Reggie Johnson:   Longtime fight followers are aware of the various arguments about how to regard Jones as Light Heavyweight.  Rising in 1996 to win an interim WBC belt against Mick McCallum, Jones would immediately drop the title on a disqualification to former Olympian Montell Griffin in the spring of 1997.  A rematch victory that year would begin an accumulation of wins and titles which marked perhaps Jones most notable period.  He stopped former champion Virgil Hill in four and topped Del Valle and Johnson with relative ease.  What he never did was face or defeat German-based Dariusz Michalczewski, even if he’d, in trend, have been favored to win.  For those who regard Virgil Hill-Henry Maske in 1996 as a bout for the true Light Heavyweight championship, the lineal link which would pass to Michalczewski meant Jones could lay no clear claim to history’s peak.  For those who view belt collection as sufficient, an argument for lineage is available.  As had been the case at 160 and 168, Jones was largely viewed as the best at 175 lbs. and, unlike the cases at 160 and 168, fought almost everyone who mattered in class.  Save for one.  Forecast: Hazy because it’s open to debate

WBA Heavyweight – UD12 John Ruiz:   After years of flirtation with contesting the big boys, Jones finally moved up in the spring of 2003 to unseat WBA titlist John Ruiz.  It was a nice accomplishment as no one had seen a proven, quality Middleweight seriously compete at heavyweight since at least James Ellis in the 1960s and none who’d held a title at 160 had risen to take any form of Heavyweight title since Bob Fitzsimmons a century earlier.  However, in 2003, there was one real Heavyweight Champion and it sure as hell wasn’t Ruiz.  No Lennox Lewis equals no real Heavyweight title.  Forecast: Hazy, but a nice resume buffer

From Jones we turn all the way down the scale to a diminutive Venezuelan who worked his way into some exclusive company. 

The Title Reigns of Torito

WBA Strawweight – UD 12 Bong Jun Kim: In the youngest division amongst the sport’s current seventeen, Gamez holds the distinction of being the very first WBA title holder at 105 lbs.  The problem with any claim to the lineage is that the WBA joined the party as the last of three titles (the IBF rolled the division out first and then the WBC) unveiled from June 1987 until Gamez’s reign began in January 1988.  He would remain champion for only one defense before moving up three pounds and finding some serious tests along the way.  The unsettled state of the division and his short title stay never gave him a chance at much broader history.  Forecast: Hazy, but in some sense pioneering

WBA Jr. Flyweight – TKO9 Shiro Yahiro: Gamez found winning a second crown, even with just three more pounds on his frame, more difficult than his first.  The roadblock of a great fighter can be tough to overcome.  WBA Jr. Flyweight champ Myung Wuh Yuh was in the midst of a lengthy reign and, in two 1990 tries, added the first two losses to the ledger of Gamez.  A move up the scale for a try at WBA 112 lb. titlist Yong Kang Kim in 1991 and suffered a third straight loss.  Moving back down, patience proved a virtue and Gamez topped Yahiro for a belt vacated by Yuh’s retirement in 1993.  He’d add three defenses before the reign was closed at the hands of Hi-Yong Choi.  Notably, he never faced the future Hall of Famers at the top during his reign, WBC titlist Humberto Gonzalez or IBF titlist Michael Carbajal.  The two of them memorably fought each other.  That’s really all which needs to be said to understand why this would not be considered a lineal title reign. Forecast: Hazy, but he would have been fun versus either Gonzalez or Carbajal

WBA Flyweight – KO3 Hugo Soto:   Already failed in first try for a Flyweight belt, Gamez would fall short again in a 1996 WBA challenge of Saen Sor Ploenchit.  A career break in 1997 led to a 1998 comeback and success in 1999 against Soto.  As was the case at 105, Gamez would manage only a single defense but this time, he lost his belt in the ring via eighth round knockout to Sornpichai Kratingdaenggym.  The historical lineage of the title, then as now, was linked by proxy to the WBC title back to the reign of Miguel Canto.  The title was held during 1999 first by Manny Pacquiao and then Medgoen Singsurat.  Gamez wasn’t widely rated ahead of either though, as was often his case, he surely would have made a good contest. Forecast: Hazy, but worth a place on the mantle

WBA Jr. Flyweight – KO7 Hideki Todaka:   One fight removed from the Kratingdaenggym loss, Gamez would move up three more pounds for the final title win of his career in 2000.  Again, it wouldn’t stick and he was stopped in first attempted defense by Celes Kobayashi in March 2001.  As was the case at 112, the lineage happened to also be attached to the WBC’s belt traced back to the 1984 battle between Jiro Watanabe and Payao Poontarat.  That title was held first in 2000 by In-Joo Cho and then Masamori Tokuyama.  Gamez would go on to try, and fail to capture a fifth title in a fifth weight class, dropping decisions to WBA 118 lb. titlist Johnny Bredahl in 2002 and in attempts at interim WBA 118 lb. belts against former foe Todaka in 2003 and against Poonsawat Kratingdaenggym in 2005, ultimately his final bout.  Forecast: Hazy, but at least a ticket to a hell of a club

Astute readers will have picked up on what links Jones and Gamez.  They are the only men to win titles in four weight classes who arguably never held a lineal claim to any.  What that means is open to interpretation. 

In the case of Jones, it exhibits lineage as short of sufficient in recording boxing’s title, and total, history.  When there truly was, or is, a single World Champion, the business of the sport rarely fails to recognize it and the talent collides in fairly straight lines.  Many times, titles are split along promotional and regional lines, leaving some intriguing fights unavailable or not able to be made.  Jones was proof that the man is often who the people say it is, regardless of encyclopedic mandates.  At each of his three primary weight classes, he was considered the man.  At Heavyweight he was not but it’s hard to care because, well, he wasn’t a Heavyweight.  Lineage can, and should matter, but if a Jones can have the career he did without it then it’s hardly a perfect point of analysis.  Jones mattered that much more than the men history could recognize with blinders.

In the case of Gamez, we see something else.  Gamez was a good, not great, fighter but one with the toughness and perseverance to work through defeat.  He is also out of his element here.  If a Gamez, who never proved to be the best fighter in any weight class, can pull off four titles in four weight classes, then there are probably too many titles lying around.  He deserves credit for what he did because if it was easy, he’d have more company.  Still, a Venezuelan fighter capturing all of his titles from a then Venezuelan-based sanctioning body which never saw an opportunity it didn’t want to give him didn’t hurt a bit. 

These cases both say something about Pacquiao’s quest to become the first four-division lineal champion and determining the significance of the feat if he pulls it off.  They say that who is beaten and how the world perceives the fighter matters.  In Pacquiao’s case, so far, he’s beaten the right fighters and won the perception game, both elements which can add to what could be a special May 2nd.

With that, the page on four-division titlists is turned and in part five we reach for a cup of sugar.

To be continued…

For Part I of this “Real History” Series and a look at Pacquiao’s previous title claims, log on to https://www.boxingscene.com/?m=show&id=18886

Cliff Rold is a member of the Ring Magazine Ratings Advisory Panel and the Boxing Writers Association of America.  He can be reached at roldboxing@hotmail.com