Im serious, why not just as a collective unit of fans just choose one of the titles and be like, thats the one that matters, the others are nice and all, but meaningless. Im sick of people saying that boxing is flawed because of the 4 legit titles etc...Tons of sports have multiple titles and are very successful and popular, but its because the fan base is knowledgeable and chose which title to truly value.
NCAA Basketball- up until the early 60's the NIT and the NCAA tourney were competitors. The winner of each could claim to be national champions and CCNY once was able to participate and win both in one year. However, as time went on fans determined that the NCAA tourney was the legit title and now teams dont even accept and NIT big unless not invited to the NCAA tourney.
College football champion determination is a joke. It would be like if psychotic fan p4p lists determined champs and they didnt even fight.
Nascar has like 4 different cups, but everyone knows which one is the best.
If fans just bit the bullet and were like, Ok, WBA thats the top belt, and I know the Ring helps with this some, but the Ring is the equivalent to the BCS in college football. Its better...but its still crap. It would force more people to fight because it would condense the best fighters in a group all striving to achieve the same goal. Bigger and more meaningful fights would occur and sure the other belts would be there and thats great, but use those as rewards for lesser fighters or for guys coming up to make a big of a name for themselves, but really only treat one belt as the one. Fans could literally decide this. Theres never like a decree with these things, fans/media generally just kind of gravitates there.
not only that but I think the log jam of people wanting to hold onto to their rankings for that one belt could create less fighters when you think about it
say for example the #2 ranked fighter for that one belt gets there after a long road to it. My guess is that he is not going to want to fight anyone below him for fear of losing his place in line because they stand a good chance of fighting for the title after the #1 ranked fighter gets their title shot
multiple belts for the most part is silly but it does serve a purpose in loosening up things more
Because some fighters will always want the easiest way to the 'world' title.
You'll get the consensus best fighter in a division fighting for belts which you might not consider to be the best belt. How do you pick a belt to recognise when at say at Featherweight there are atleast 3 fighters that can lay claim to being the best FW all holding different belts (John holds a belt within a belt) in Gamboa, John and Lopez.
I would love for this to happen, but until the fighters start agreeing to go for only one belt then it isn't. In sports like Nascar you have almost a guarantee the best will face the best and so you can pick a major cup etc.
People just don't need to pay attention to the titles. If they want one legit title, that would be Ring magazine, whose champion is in higher status than other champions. I really don't have any problems with the 4 titles. More fighters and fights get more exposure to the public with 4 titles. If there were only one title, young prospects would have to wait for a long time to get a shot for a title. But with 4 titles they can build up their name, using their belt get the fights they want, so by the prime age they would have big following. As example DLH and Trinidad became champions at very young age and held the titles for a long time. When they had unification fight, that was big event, we wouldn't had that if like both of them were fighting without title with unknown fighters.
Also Velazquez is the champion in UFC, Overeem is the champion in StrikeForce. Which fight would be big: Velazquez fighting his challenger Dos Santos,who is not familiar to the public or Velazquez fighting Overeem, two champions fighting each other?
Good original post, and good reply above.
I think it's something every boxing fan has wondered, and thought about, but for me personally, I agree more so with Instinto. Yes, it would be easier to recognise "The True champ" if there was only one title, but the truth is, that if that was the case, we wouldn't have anything to argue about!! XD
People just don't need to pay attention to the titles. If they want one legit title, that would be Ring magazine, whose champion is in higher status than other champions. I really don't have any problems with the 4 titles. More fighters and fights get more exposure to the public with 4 titles. If there were only one title, young prospects would have to wait for a long time to get a shot for a title. But with 4 titles they can build up their name, using their belt get the fights they want, so by the prime age they would have big following. As example DLH and Trinidad became champions at very young age and held the titles for a long time. When they had unification fight, that was big event, we wouldn't had that if like both of them were fighting without title with unknown fighters.
Also Velazquez is the champion in UFC, Overeem is the champion in StrikeForce. Which fight would be big: Velazquez fighting his challenger Dos Santos,who is not familiar to the public or Velazquez fighting Overeem, two champions fighting each other?
JAB is waiting for you, son.
I mvoed on with that, i sent him 3 facebook pms because I wanted to talk bad about his family and he never responded. I figured he died of a heart attack.