One Title=No ducking

[Tony Trick-Pony]

With big fights that never were such as well, the obvious one today and many others including Lewis-Bowe, I believe this is where having one title is paramount.

While some would say that the best want to fight the best no matter what, what about solid fighters who are cowards? Having one title forces them to step up or go without a title. Ducking can always go on, but one title makes it a lot harder if a fighter wants to make any money.

GGG could not be ducked any longer. The Wilders and Furys would either get a shot or even better, fight each other before getting a shot which could get rid of the rabble. Mayweather could hold the 154 pound belt without defending it.

Also, the guys who won the title would have better chances of being somebody. They can say they were champion of it all at one time.

[Cut Man]

I agree the should be one belt for each weightclass and I would be better for Boxing.

But how would the change be made. You have WBO, WBA, WBC, IBF are all organisations with employees who want to make money off the sport. How are you going to get them to merge or get 3 organisations to bow out?

[K-DOGG]

People keep asking how to get boxing back into the mainstream. One way is to have more exposure for would-be fans. Putting fights back on national television is a good start; but another problem is the confusion surrounding the wold championship.

Not so long ago, there was only one world champion per division....and there were only eight weight classes; but that change was probably a change for the good. Having four fighters per division claiming to be "the champ", however, was not.

To me, the solution is relatively simple. As of now, whenever you win one of the belts, the other three magically erase you from their rankings. If the four sanctioning bodies were required to continue to rank fighters who won belts for other organizations, unification would become..."mandatory" eventually....and all of those lovely employees still get to keep their jobs.

There.....problem solved.

[Grimmer]

One title shrinks the scope of the sport. Quite largely too.

4 titles is fine, if the other sanctioning bodies would make unification fights mandatory after so many defences.


If there were no huge unification clashes the sport would be worse off, imo

[bigjavi973]

imho the belt organizations just need to get together each year and have a type of "tournament of champions".... make it a yearly thing too that way they get no ideas.

[Tony Trick-Pony]

One idea is to drop the "world" out of the title. Have them all be regional titles except for one of course. Say the IBF(since they don't seem to have all these super and diamond titles) is the world title while the other cover certain regions around the world. Say the WBA becomes the ABA(Americas), the WBC becomes the EBA(Western Europe/Africa) and the WBO becomes the ABO(Asia, Eastern Europe, Australia). Just call one title the world title.

[Tony Trick-Pony]

One title shrinks the scope of the sport. Quite largely too.

4 titles is fine, if the other sanctioning bodies would make unification fights mandatory after so many defences.


If there were no huge unification clashes the sport would be worse off, imo

As an example, I can ask you "Who's the middleweight champion?"

You could reply "Cotto."

To which I say "Oh. I've heard about GGG. I thought he was a champion. My bad."

And you say "Oh well he is."

"Oh? He's not a middleweight?"

"Yes, he is a middleweight."

"But if Cotto is middleweight champion, how can GGG be a champion, too?"

"Well, Cotto has the WBC and Ring titles while GGG has..."

Casual boxing fan's eyes glaze over...heavy blinking...turns the conversation toward the SuperBowl where they will have guess how many?

One champion.

[SalimShady1212]

Also adds more prestige to being a world champion.

[K-DOGG]

One idea is to drop the "world" out of the title. Have them all be regional titles except for one of course. Say the IBF(since they don't seem to have all these super and diamond titles) is the world title while the other cover certain regions around the world. Say the WBA becomes the ABA(Americas), the WBC becomes the EBA(Western Europe/Africa) and the WBO becomes the ABO(Asia, Eastern Europe, Australia). Just call one title the world title.

Now that's bloody brilliant!

I've often thought "regional" titles would be the key to determining "mandatories, box-offs and a clear path to actually earning a title shot.

Nice one.

[Weebler I]

Not sure how one title equals no ducking. What if the champ doesn't want to fight the next guy?

I'm no boxing historian but isn't that the reason these other titles came to prominence in first place?