Paper champ

[Century Tuna]

This is the problem with Boxing,there are 16 divisions with 5 or more "Championship" belts people can win per division so there's at least 80 guys at any given moment claiming to be a "World Champions" when in reality,most are just Title belt holder. Being a World Champion just ain't what it used to be.

[Eff Pandas]

Agree. I've been making a distinction between a title holder & a champion for quite awhile now. Some of these guys you just can't call champions with a straight face. And some guys are clearly champions.

I don't even see success in multiple divisions as impressive a feat as I used to. I do give extra credit to the guys who've been the #1 guy in multiple divisions regardless of if they won 1 title or all of them cuz that is something special & rarer.

[Century Tuna]

Agree. I've been making a distinction between a title holder & a champion for quite awhile now. Some of these guys you just can't call champions with a straight face. And some guys are clearly champions.

I don't even see success in multiple divisions as impressive a feat as I used to. I do give extra credit to the guys who've been the #1 guy in multiple divisions regardless of if they won 1 title or all of them cuz that is something special & rarer.

how many champs do the WBA have in every weight class 3? Crazy.

[Marchegiano]

Look to lineal then. That's what it's there for.

[Century Tuna]

Look to lineal then. That's what it's there for.

but.....WBA WBO IBF AND WBC are the recognized titles

[boliodogs]

It's terrible. What is almost as bad is the complete lack of uniformity in the rankings. None of the four alphabet rankings look anything like the rankings of the other 3. A guy could be the number 1 contender for one and maybe unranked by the others. Why was that African fighting Andrade for the vacant title? Andrade is a paper champion to me until he at least beats a legit top 5 middleweight. All these weight classes and only two weight classes have been unified recently and now 140 is all split up again.

['b']

I usually narrow down most divisions as having 1 'champion' (sometimes 2) and the rest are just 'belt holders'.

[Lion81]

WBC, WBO, WBA and IBF arent going anywhere. Least they can do is slim to one champion per and push back any newcomers like the IBO.

[Real King Kong]

Agree. I've been making a distinction between a title holder & a champion for quite awhile now. Some of these guys you just can't call champions with a straight face. And some guys are clearly champions.

I don't even see success in multiple divisions as impressive a feat as I used to. I do give extra credit to the guys who've been the #1 guy in multiple divisions regardless of if they won 1 title or all of them cuz that is something special & rarer.

Yep...now we get guys who have won belts in multiple divisions, but were never the man in any of them. And people go on about it like it's some major accomplishment..."so and so, he's a 3 division champ doe".