The heavyweights are a joke

[The Wire]

Does anyone else think the fact that two of the three major belt holders only won the belts because they were interim champs and the champ vacated is a bit ****? Shouldnt they have had to have fought the leading available contender before being able to call themselves heavyweight champion of the world? And Chris Byrd shouldnt even be champ having been beaten by his last three opponents. Plus the WBA belt should have been declared vacant after Toney failed his drugs test. Let's get the elimination tournament rolling so Toney, Brock, Harrison or W Klitschko can restore some kind of pride to the division.

[kbpoetree]

Does anyone else think the fact that two of the three major belt holders only won the belts because they were interim champs and the champ vacated is a bit ****? Shouldnt they have had to have fought the leading available contender before being able to call themselves heavyweight champion of the world? And Chris Byrd shouldnt even be champ having been beaten by his last three opponents. Plus the WBA belt should have been declared vacant after Toney failed his drugs test. Let's get the elimination tournament rolling so Toney, Brock, Harrison or W Klitschko can restore some kind of pride to the division.

yuuup, i've been sayen that the division is soft and weak for a while now..no excitement, no dedication,just a bunch of soft ass wooses

[Mr. David]

Actually, the winning of all three of the major belts, assuming you're not including the WBO, came from vacancies.

As you correctly noted, Hasim Rahman won the WBC interim title when he outpointed Monte Barrett, and then assumed the actual title when Vitali Klitschko retired. Nevermind that Klitschko picked up Lennox Lewis' vacated belt, at that.

You were also proper in that John Ruiz uglied it out over Rahman to win the WBA interim belt, assuming the actual belt when Roy Jones Jr. returned to light heavyweight.

But Chris Byrd picked up the vacated IBF in December 2002, beating Evander Holyfield to pick up a belt that Lennox Lewis gave up.

If we really wanted to finish things up, we'd mention the WBO, which Lamon Brewster won a vacated version of. Sanders had beaten Wladimir Klitschko for it, but dropped it (due to inactivity, I think), giving Wlad and Lamon their match in April 2004.