If we get a unified HW champion, what comes next?

[Holler]

First off, there's already a unified champion and that is AJ. What you are talking about is undisputed, i.e. no more legitimate belts up for grabs.

Yeah sorry my mistake, should've read undisputed.

Second, it's not so long ago that Wlad held 75% of the belts, paid the sanctioning fees and the orgs did their mandos the way they usually do when there's an undisputed champ = one after the other.

So I see no reason why AJ wouldnt hold onto those belts, especially with the prestige it brings in the division. He might drop one or two along the way but I doubt it happens straight away.

I can think of a couple of reasons. Primarily because it ties your hands somewhat. You're depending on the orgs delivering you the right opponents and sometimes they don't.

With so many belts you're effectively on a mandatory only track. Which may stop you taking lucrative fights that help move your career along in a better direction. For example, AJ may want to take on a Chinese fighter in order to grow his brand in Asia or take a domestic money spinner like Haye. I also think if you release some of the belts and let others fight for them you build your eventual fight with them also...

[juggernaut666]

Well should Wilder win we wont get the actual relevant fights thats for SURE !

Joshua leading the division will seek out the toughest challengers thats already PROVEN _


If Klitchko had a handful of belts i dont see why Joshua cant .


I suspect Wilders team of incompetence will struggle multi tasking ?


Give me Joshua anyday over the other clowns !

[RJJ-94-02=GOAT]

All excuses fighters use to justify ditching belts when the truth is that they don't want to have to go in tough every fight. Keeping the belts unified is easy. The problem is that you might lose and now someone else has the unified belts and not you.

The sanctioning fees are overstated. The orgs have fee caps, you can negotiate even lower, and some orgs take a lower percentage when you're unified.

The belts don't stay unified because the fighters don't want to lose. Plain and simple. We had a nice stretch in the 80s and 90s with a series of undisputed heavyweight champions, but the title was a hot potato because everyone was going in tough and the title only splintered because Bowe blatantly ducked Lewis.

Would have been easy to keep the belts together. Wouldn't have been easy to beat Lewis. Big difference.

The sanctioning fee’s are exorbitant there’s no debating that.
https://www.boxingscene.com/crawford-indongo-pay-over-100k-apiece-sanctioning-fees--119327

Boxing is a business and it all comes down to money. A lot of fighters vacate belts to either increase the percentage they take home from their purse or to seek greater financial opportunities. A modern example of this is Tim Bradley vacating his WBO title in order to have a third fight with Pacquiao. There are other situations where a fighter vacates a title to seemingly avoid a mandatory or challenger like the Bowe WBC saga, but this again also inviolved financial reasons as well. Bowe wanted ridiculously overpaying for the Lewis fight, Lewis’ team and the WBC did not agree with his demands so he threw it in the trash...
Lewis even found himself in a comparable situation when he vacated the IBF title cause he was looking for more favourable pay days. (Plus Don King offered him a brown envelope of considerable value)

[soul_survivor]

Yeah sorry my mistake, should've read undisputed.



I can think of a couple of reasons. Primarily because it ties your hands somewhat. You're depending on the orgs delivering you the right opponents and sometimes they don't.

With so many belts you're effectively on a mandatory only track. Which may stop you taking lucrative fights that help move your career along in a better direction. For example, AJ may want to take on a Chinese fighter in order to grow his brand in Asia or take a domestic money spinner like Haye. I also think if you release some of the belts and let others fight for them you build your eventual fight with them also...

AJ can still make voluntary defences, like Wlad did before him but the advantage of having all the belts is that he can fight all the top guys. I can't imagine a big enough money spinner not rated by Ring, WBA, WBC, IBF or WBO.

[N/A]

The sanctioning fee’s are exorbitant there’s no debating that.
https://www.boxingscene.com/crawford...g-fees--119327

Exorbitant is an opinion and I don't argue opinions. If you feel it's exorbitant, I respect your view. But the 10% each guy paid out to the alphabelts was a worthwhile investment. Idongo made the biggest money of his life specifically because all of the belts were at stake. 10% well spent.

Boxing is a business and it all comes down to money.

Of course. Which is why the belts do't stay unified. Not because it's hard to keep them unified, but because it's harder to remain champion if you keep them unified.

Guys like Klitschko and GGG put sport before business and wanted to accumulate the belts, even if it would have been safer to stick with one or two. More power to them.

[Scipio2009]

Imagine writing all that and then realising that it's the WBA mandatory being forced (Povetkin is the #1 in the WBA and WBO, but the WBO was called last year, Parker fought Fury before Joshua).......

Oops...

My mistake then, lol. Still doesn't change the point I was making; with the last currently owed mandatory out of the way with a Povetkin fight, there's no reason for the undisputed heavyweight championship to be broken apart because of the owed mandatory defenses all basically lined up to be orderly handled for at least the next two years for whoever emerges with all of the belts after Wilder-Joshua is settled.

[Just looking]

Wladimir was able to keep 3 belts with two fights a year. Fighting three times a year is enough. Furthermore, sometimes a fighter can be mando to more than a belt as it is the case with Povetkin right now. With good management they can make it happen more times

[Vinnykin]

My mistake then, lol. Still doesn't change the point I was making; with the last currently owed mandatory out of the way with a Povetkin fight, there's no reason for the undisputed heavyweight championship to be broken apart because of the owed mandatory defenses all basically lined up to be orderly handled for at least the next two years for whoever emerges with all of the belts after Wilder-Joshua is settled.

blah blah blah.... ovetkin gets the WBA done, and the WBO. We still have an IBF to be called at the end of the year, which will be Whyte or Pulev.....

2 years?

What are you even talking about?

[UNBIASED BOXING]

I would love to see the winner of Usyk/Gassiev move up to heavyweight and fight the undisputed champ. That would be pretty exciting. Usyk is 31 and Gassiev will be 25 in October, so if Usyk wins (he's the rightful favorite I would say) it needs to happen, ASAP. On the other hand, Gassiev could possibly continue to improve and we could see him as a legitimate threat at heavyweight.

[Teetotaler]

Doubtful. The only one that has the balls to strip anyone is the IBF. And their mandatories suck