Financial benefits of unification or one belt career

Hey Box fans, Something not altogether new has been evolving or should or I say infecting the new dynamic/paradigm of championship boxing. Let's take an average fighter from nowhere in particular with a solid local fan base, works his way up the rankings and captures a belt. Now, what makes more business sense? Build his brand by defending his particular belt, or (genuinely) going for unification bouts aiming to become unified or undisputed champion? It appears the unification/undisputed route only works if you have at least a substantial fan base, with some crossover appeal to land you the viewer numbers and ultimately the pots of gold- PPV percentages. But that's not all, as we know. Each sanctioning body will demand a fee, and if I'm not mistaken the bigger the title fight the larger the fee. Which means the more belts you attain, the more fees you pay. Now that could work out not so well if you're a somewhat no-name up-and-comer who doesn't have a KO reputation, just other skills, usually labeled as 'boring'. So I guess it comes down to this: Can you make better bank as a young champ paying fees to one body, working on diversifying your brand (merchandise, TV, Video games, apps, perfume, workout routines, whatever) waiting until you PERHAPS become a big name who initiates excitement and someone the fans demand to see before you go for the unification/undisputed route, OR; Can you make big money going for those belts (in itself ironically a way of building your brand) and chasing the ever elusive, harder and harder goal of becoming the undisputed man? P.S. I think fans do place a lot of pressure on fighters to go up against other champions in a reminiscent driven, romantic notion of wanting to see one stand out champion per division - whilst also wanting to scorn justifiable hate on the Adonis Stevenson's of this world.

Comments (2)

Ray

I think once a boxer has attain the undisputed status by capturing all the four major belts then he should drop a few just for him to have a bit of control over his career, am all for mandatories but if an undisputed champ is just fighting low level competition or using it to avoid certain boxers then he needs to drop those belt. We already know you are the man at that weight by winning all the belts.

8y ago

The problem with unifying is that you have more mandatories and less control over who you fight. There used to be big money in building to an undisputed champion, but the four belt era made it so hard to unify a division that hardly anybody bothers to try anymore. You want to get your fighter a belt and you want to protect that belt as much as possible. More mandatories = harder to hang on to your belts.

8y ago