Only one Champion.

[ShoulderRoll]

The fans will always declare who they think is the champion, belt or no belt. It is the fighters who actually win the belts, surely it follows that they are happy with it. Who then is being deprived of the 'specialness' of it, you? me?

Under the system I propose the champion is always the guy that proves himself superior to all others. Popularity will have nothing to do with it.

The fans would certainly be entitled to have their favorites though. They can support Arthur Abraham in Germany for example and allow him to make a good living, but despite that he could never claim the mantle of world champion unless he beat Andre Ward.

[joeandthebums]

If the champion has acquired a large fan base then he does not really need the title. He will go for the money. Once you have won the title then you have won it. On one hand you can keep a prestigious title and 200k, or on the other hand you can get 1 million. Which would you choose?

That's a terribly strange view of it all and unlikely. I can't think of a single champion who vacated their title when it was only one champion per division.

I would keep the title, fight for the 200k, then use that prestigious title to top up my million $ flat fee by taking the lion's share of the fights gate/ppv/rights.

[Humean]

Under the system I propose the champion is always the guy that proves himself superior to all others. Popularity will have nothing to do with it.

The fans would certainly be entitled to have their favorites though. They can support Arthur Abraham in Germany for example and allow him to make a good living, but despite that he could never claim the mantle of world champion unless he beat Andre Ward.

You cannot possible have that first part, how can you have boxers who only fight 1-4 times a year possibly proving that? Plenty of top contenders will be past their peak before they get a shot at the title.

Well what would be different from now then? Abraham supporters will just call him a champion even if he does not have a belt around his waist. He will be a claimant, this is the way boxing has always been.

That's a terribly strange view of it all and unlikely. I can't think of a single champion who vacated their title when it was only one champion per division.

I would keep the title, fight for the 200k, then use that prestigious title to top up my million $ flat fee by taking the lion's share of the fights gate/ppv/rights.

They didn't need to back then, Frankie Carbo and the like told the champ who he was fighting!

You would fight for the most lucrative fights and those would not necessarily be ones where you were fighting the mandatory challengers. If you felt you had 6 fights left in you, why waste one or two large purses on one of two low purse fights against mandatories? The salient point here is that the fans want to see good fights and the fans will always decide themselves who the 'real' champ is and that is the way it has always been. In light of that then what is the problem with having multiple champions?

[Rossman]

There should be a federal commission that refuses split titles. They could give each of the sanctioning bodies a seat at the table and make one title. Take the sport away from greedy organizations and promoters that have ruined it.

There are many world champions, but only one world. What if there were four NBA's and each had their own championship. There would never be a true champion in basketball.

[Humean]

There should be a federal commission that refuses split titles. They could give each of the sanctioning bodies a seat at the table and make one title. Take the sport away from greedy organizations and promoters that have ruined it.

There are many world champions, but only one world. What if there were four NBA's and each had their own championship. There would never be a true champion in basketball.

The NBA is a national league/organization/competition!

[Scott9945]

There should be a federal commission that refuses split titles. They could give each of the sanctioning bodies a seat at the table and make one title. Take the sport away from greedy organizations and promoters that have ruined it.

There are many world champions, but only one world. What if there were four NBA's and each had their own championship. There would never be a true champion in basketball.

Who would fund this commission? And if it is federal, what authority would they carry in Germany or the UK? If you take the sport away from promoters, who is going to make the fights happen?

Your ideas are well intentioned, but they are impossible to implement in the era we live in now.

[soul_survivor]

I wasn't forgetting the ranking system in tennis and golf, I already mentioned it in this thread!

Surely one difference in tennis is that none of the players are ever claiming, at least not publicly, that they are number one.

Anyway as I have already said in this thread of course the number one ranked tennis/golf player desires to get to that number one position but not more so that winning each of the four majors. The number one ranked position comes as a consequence of performance in the four majors and the other tournaments.

Exactly, as a consequence of winning the most majors and slams, you become number 1. So it works out, going against your original point that somehow tennis has multiple champions, key phrase being champion, no it doesn't. yes there are multiple winners of slams and majors but almost always, the one with the best run of wins in a season gets to the top place or maybe second ,depending on how good the previous number one was in previous years.

[jas]

If there was only one champ, pacquaio vs mayweather would have already happened

[New England]

The NBA is a national league/organization/competition!

the NBA pulls talent from all over the world. more than one in five NBA players aren't american.



you want a proportionate amount of representation from every country? how is that a competition of the best in the world?

[Humean]

Exactly, as a consequence of winning the most majors and slams, you become number 1. So it works out, going against your original point that somehow tennis has multiple champions, key phrase being champion, no it doesn't. yes there are multiple winners of slams and majors but almost always, the one with the best run of wins in a season gets to the top place or maybe second ,depending on how good the previous number one was in previous years.

The number one ranked player in golf and tennis is not usually called the world champion, the Wimbledon winner is called the Wimbledon champion, the US Masters the Masters champion etc. You could think of the WBC as like Wimbledon etc. Just as winning Wimbledon doesn't necessarily mean you are the best tennis player, winning the WBC lightweight title doesn't necessarily mean you are the best lightweight. The WBC lightweight world champion is a lightweight world champion not necessarily the world lightweight champion. The point of this thread was to show that there is nothing strange or unusual about this and therefore too many diehard boxing fans are barking up the wrong tree.

the NBA pulls talent from all over the world. more than one in five NBA players aren't american.


you want a proportionate amount of representation from every country? how is that a competition of the best in the world?

Of course the NBA probably has all the world's best basketball players in the league. I was not talking about having a 'proportionate representation' or anything of the like. The point was that the NBA is not a world organization, can you not see the difference on an organizational level between the NBA and how boxing necessarily needs to be run at the international/world level?