Only one Champion.

[Sugar Adam Ali]

American team sports have playoffs...

Sports certainly have a way of declaring a champion, but that champion is either one of many or they are champion for a limited period of time (one year/season or until the next World/Olympics comes around). Boxing diehards suggest a real champion is such until he/she loses.

To be the man, you have to beat the man. WHOOOOOO- ric flair

[New England]

American team sports have playoffs...

Sports certainly have a way of declaring a champion, but that champion is either one of many or they are champion for a limited period of time (one year/season or until the next World/Olympics comes around). Boxing diehards suggest a real champion is such until he/she loses.

historically, fighters have been dropped from rankings for inactivity.




this is clearly another case where your opinions look silly and impractical to everybody else, and you're not going to recognize it.



what are you advocating for, exactly? the current system? those rankings mean very little, and i'd be surprised if you didn't know that.


you want a merit based championship and you still want it split? i really don't understand how that would work.


in the event of a vacancy, the #1 and #2 ranked fighters fight. otherwise, you follow a lineage. it's obviously not perfect, but it's been the best system we've seen so far.




these guys fight. there's a direct means of figuring out who is the better fighter. i can't see why you'd find issue with one fighter being declared the best, and people appreciating him for it. that's what the sport is. the winner moves up, or to the peak of the sport, and the loser does not. that's what the fighters want to do [other than make money.]

[Humean]

Point is we shouldn't compare it to any other sports, albeit maybe MMA.

It's a one on one sport in a lone division, there's no Heavyweight A division then Heavyweight B division. Everyone's got their fair shot, why would the guy who works the hard and wins the belt be called one of the world champions? This is why so many bouts don't happen.

But there is a limitation on how many fights, the boxing equivalent of matches/events, that can take place. Boxing is indeed different but it is precisely this difference that makes having only one champion unfeasible. Now the fact that other sports do not work like diehard boxing fans think boxing should work shows that the diehard boxing fans notions of what a world champion consists of is highly dubious.

The point of competition is to determine who is the best, ultimately that is what a champion is. However professional boxing just cannot possibly satisfy that requirement the way diehard boxing fans want it to. Therefore what is wrong with more than one champion? After all other sports have them without any problems.

If the problem with multiple champions is all the good fights that fail to materialize, and it is a problem, then it is worth pointing out that the same problems can arise with one champion, such as when a champion holds the title hostage and refuses to fight worthy opponents.

[Humean]

historically, fighters have been dropped from rankings for inactivity.




this is clearly another case where your opinions look silly and impractical to everybody else, and you're not going to recognize it.



what are you advocating for, exactly? the current system? those rankings mean very little, and i'd be surprised if you didn't know that.


you want a merit based championship and you still want it split? i really don't understand how that would work.


in the event of a vacancy, the #1 and #2 ranked fighters fight. otherwise, you follow a lineage. it's obviously not perfect, but it's been the best system we've seen so far.




these guys fight. there's a direct means of figuring out who is the better fighter. i can't see why you'd find issue with one fighter being declared the best, and people appreciating him for it. that's what the sport is. the winner moves up, or to the peak of the sport, and the loser does not. that's what the fighters want to do [other than make money.]

I'm not advocating anything, i'm saying that diehard boxing fans notions of there only being one champion is not as common-sensical as they think.

In an ideal world it would certainly be great if the very best in each division fought each other and we could have one champion but we cannot be in that ideal world for a variety of reasons. One reason is that fighters cannot be expected to fight every week or month which is what it would likely take for such a system to work.

[Scott9945]

I would much prefer to have one champion in each division. It gives the sport more credibility. Having multiple champions reminds me of the old territory days of pro wrestling where every circuit had their own world champion.

However, people would be naïve to think that less champions wouldn't mean less boxing on TV. Networks don't want to pay major bucks to advertise a fight between contenders. They want to show world title fights. And without television coverage boxing's status gets very shaky.

[New England]

I would much prefer to have one champion in each division. It gives the sport more credibility. Having multiple champions reminds me of the old territory days of pro wrestling where every circuit had their own world champion.

However, people would be naïve to think that less champions wouldn't mean less boxing on TV. Networks don't want to pay major bucks to advertise a fight between contenders. They want to show world title fights. And without television coverage boxing's status gets very shaky.

this is why the "belts" still exist. it's also a hell of a lot easier to promote a "world title" fight in a casino than it is to promote a 12 round, nontitle main event.

they make the promotors, networks, casinos, sanctioning bodies, and even the fighters more money.

[BKM-2010]

We can't compare Boxing or any other combat sport to other sports, especially not to team sports. I'm glad you're able to enjoy this era of 10.000 alphabet titles, OP, because i'm not. I just have to tolerate it because it's doubtful that this will ever change.

[Humean]

I would much prefer to have one champion in each division. It gives the sport more credibility. Having multiple champions reminds me of the old territory days of pro wrestling where every circuit had their own world champion.

However, people would be naïve to think that less champions wouldn't mean less boxing on TV. Networks don't want to pay major bucks to advertise a fight between contenders. They want to show world title fights. And without television coverage boxing's status gets very shaky.

That is a good point. I have heard it said many times that the multiple champions system that we have is a major reason for the 'decline' in interest in boxing, that it gives boxing less credibility and therefore puts people off the sport. I think it should be obvious that boxing has declined in mass appeal for other reasons but if what you have said is correct then it is conceivable that the multi-champion system has actually had the opposite effect and has helped keep the sport going.

[Humean]

We can't compare Boxing or any other combat sport to other sports, especially not to team sports. I'm glad you're able to enjoy this era of 10.000 alphabet titles, OP, because i'm not. I just have to tolerate it because it's doubtful that this will ever change.

What I predominantly enjoy are the fights. All the discussion of who is, or is not the champion, or who ranks historically above who, are all secondary to the actual fights.

[BKM-2010]

What I predominantly enjoy are the fights. All the discussion of who is, or is not the champion, or who ranks historically above who, are all secondary to the actual fights.

I argue that more fights would be made, better fights, fights that would make more sense if every had one champion. So these alphabet titles hurt Boxing in more ways than one.