Why hasn't anyone complained about this?

[RJJ-94-02=GOAT]

To be fair, I doubt I'm the only fan who doesn't give a piss about the WBO.

I don't give a **** about the Larry belt either.

The computer/boxrec belt is easily the worst, glad they're not yet pushing it as a major despite Joshua's efforts.


The WBC is the real org and the WBA is their real rival. The IBF and WBO are just splinters of the WBA riding the coattails of boxing to "legitimize" themselves but the truth is you're either Coke or your Pepsi, ain't no one got time for RC bull****. You're either Disney or Dreamworks or **** you. WBO and IBF ain't ****, idgaf who says they are.


Dig this, Jack Johnson is the first HW champion to receive a belt not made by fans or a newspaper or promoter but rather a body that's sole purpose was to keep **** fair because fans, newspapers, and promoters suck at that. His belt today is represented by the WBC. As in had he won it in 2020 the IBU(who gave him the belt) is now the EBU and the EBU recognizes the WBC as their world entity. Not no ****ing WBO/IBF bull****.

Jack Dempsey is the first WBA champion back when they were the NBA. Since then they changed their name and had two different orgs splinter from them but Jack Dempsey's belt is represented by the modern WBA.

At least the IBF has Larry, but, from Dempsey forward the WBA champions are too great for Larry and the rest of the IBF. Double for the WBC who not only reps Jack Johnson on forward but also Sam Langford, George Godfrey, and Peter Jackson under the NSC/IBU banners. Way too great to give a **** about ****ing Wlad to now or Larry to now.

So, I give a **** about the WBC and WBA. Those are the belts that represent the great champions in history. Rocky Marciano knows nothing about no ****ing IBF or WBO belt.

I stopped caring about the belts years ago tbh man, all that super and interim sh** was the final straw for me. I kinda of grew up in the 4 belt era, especially as the WBO was pretty relevant in the UK, it’s only when I look back and realise that guys like Eubank were literally just belt holders and not champions. I always felt like 4 was too many but manageable, now we can potentially have like 8-10 belt holders in each division which is just f***ing lunacy.

I pay little attention to the ABC sh** now. I just recognise who the real champion is at each weight class, whether that’s lineal or not. For example I wouldn’t have cared if Fury-Wilder 2 was for no belts we all know whoever wins that fight is the Heavyweight champion. Same with Fury-AJ if it ever happens.

[Butt stuff]

I agree but my problem is the fake outrage by them acting like they care because it's bad for the sport if PBC/FOX doesn't recognize the WBO. In reality they only care when Crawford isn't recognized. It has nothing to do with what's best for the sport.

Yeah, I wouldn't mind if the WBO went into obscurity tbh. I don't know if it is still, but for a good few years it was basically Arum and Frank Warren's fighters that were getting exclusive/unwarranted shots.

Only problem is Crawford is a legit welterweight, and he's giving credence to them. I can't even remember who BJS beat for his, and I know it wasn't anyone decent.

[The Big Dunn]

I've waited for someone to make a topic complaining like they did hundreds of times when PBC did it to Crawford.

They left Billy Joe and the WBO belt off the list the same way they leave Bud and the WBO off the list. But it's crickets because people don't really care about Fox/PBC not recognizing the WBO. They're just Spence haters.

Most of the posters that made a really big deal about pbc doing that did so because they hate pbc and haymon and want them to fail.

Anything they do is criticized and they are usually blamed when fights don’t happen.

[Combat Talk Radio]

Crawford/Spence is in the top 5 of most wanted fights of practically every fight fan. Saunders vs anyone is not on anybody’s top 5 list. Pretending that Saunders and his weird gotten title are important in the whole scheme of things is just ignoring reality.

Ok - so the narrative is "they're freezing Crawford" NOT "they're freezing WBO".

But then your narrative is faulty, as MC just proved, they're actually freezing WBO REGARDLESS OF Crawford.

That's his point.

Side: I remember Cashtro (Jamel Herring) mentioning on social media that he was concerned they'd start doing it to him as WBO holder.

[Motorcity Cobra]

Ok - so you're the narrative is "they're freezing Crawford" NOT "they're freezing WBO".

But then your narrative is faulty, as MC just proved, they're actually freezing WBO REGARDLESS OF Crawford.

That's his point.

Side: I remember Cashtro (Jamel Herring) mentioning on social media that he was concerned they'd start doing it to him as WBO holder.

And it's really just Fox not even PBC. They recognize it on Showtime & have their fighters fighting for the WBO belt

[edgarg]

Larry Holmes.

Oh Yes, I hadn't thought of him. That comment about the jockstrap. You know, in the immediate aftermath af losing to Spinks, he made a speech which went straight to my heart, , he was very teary, apologised abjectly for that remark and said that he loved Rocky.

I was so touched by that speech, which I saw only about 6 weeks ago, that I wrote to his internet site, a personal lengthy message, a first time for me.

You are obviously a big Rocky fan.. I must tell you in all honesty that I am NOT. I could say a lot more but ....I actually looked deeply into Rocky's record, the records of his opponents and the records of THEIR opponents, and could plainly see that they were nearly all set-ups of some kind or other. He only fought a handful of good fighter in total, and all of them either too young and not yet developed, or too old. The reason, I feel, that the once great fighters and Rocky had such good fights, -which they were-was because they had fallen back down to his level.

After all, some of the very best fights we've seen have been between Ward--Gatti, Ward-Augustus etc. Anyway, glad to have had the opportunity to talk to you.

[Marchegiano]

Oh Yes, I hadn't thought of him. That comment about the jockstrap. You know, in the immediate aftermath af losing to Spinks, he made a speech which went straight to my heart, , he was very teary, apologised abjectly for that remark and said that he loved Rocky.

I was so touched by that speech, which I saw only about 6 weeks ago, that I wrote to his internet site, a personal lengthy message, a first time for me.

You are obviously a big Rocky fan.. I must tell you in all honesty that I am NOT. I could say a lot more but ....I actually looked deeply into Rocky's record, the records of his opponents and the records of THEIR opponents, and could plainly see that they were nearly all set-ups of some kind or other. He only fought a handful of good fighter in total, and all of them either too young and not yet developed, or too old. The reason, I feel, that the once great fighters and Rocky had such good fights, -which they were-was because they had fallen back down to his level.

After all, some of the very best fights we've seen have been between Ward--Gatti, Ward-Augustus etc. Anyway, glad to have had the opportunity to talk to you.

Oh I respect the hell out of the champion, just not the IBF. Holmes is an atg for sure, doesn't bother me he didn't like Rocky.

Jack Dempsey doesn't have much resume either bud. Some guys are just in the wrong era, others had options they didn't take. It's on you how much it means to you. I use Jack because unlike say Primo or Tommy, Jack's pretty universally respected as a top ten all time making him more similar to Marciano than other HW champions without such great resumes.

Not to be offensive, but records are to taken with a grain of salt until around abouts the 80s really. Poorly kept records is a long time problem with boxing history. You shouldn't feel like you understand an era or even how good an opponent was until you've read a bit more than wins and losses. For example, Rex Layne was nothing special in my opinion, looking at records. I'd wondered why he got passed around and so many breaks he never made good on tbh. The answer can be found in Ring's endorsement of Rex Layne. Nat Fleischer, who I'm not a big fan of myself, is probably the most respected historian in boxing history and he backed Rex. In history we like to take ourselves out of it. So I might feel like Rex was a bit of an easy target and hypejob but the expert during his era who actually watched him did not. A bit like using contemporary Roman accounts to give Cesar a personality. It's a two edged sword, as you go back in time records get worse and worse because they knew they weren't keeping great records in say like 1910. So a guy might lose a fight knowing people won't hear about it until well after his title fight. Godfrey did just that in the 30s. Just took a small fight for quick bucks even though he had a title fight in line. To make sure he was good for the big fight he just laid down in the small one. Good for him then, but for us today trying to figure out how good he really was.

If I were to give Rocky's resume some defense it's the following:

Rex I just went over. Basically only good thing to say about him is his records not that ****ty per the era and he had the best expert history has supporting him. He did beat Charles and Walcott once though.

Roland LaStarza didn't name it rope-a-dope but the reason Marciano broke his elbows and sent him out of the ring was because Roland pioneered catching punches on the elbow and using ropes to absorb the energy. It was very clever and boxing pundits of his day thought the world of his defense.

Harry Matthews was on a 55+ win streak and his loses, few at the time, came earlier in his career against men who had over 100 fights experience on him and before Harry was a HW. Then he stacks a few more losses after Marciano but they're misleading numbers, it's just one man.

Don ****ell is and was generally underrated. Unbeaten at HW and the BBBoC champion at the time. His wins over Roland and Harry justify his title shot.

Ezzard Charles is a peer, dunno why people call him old. Usually when you have a full career's worth of experience over and are about the same age as the man you're fighting people see that as a credit and favor you to win. Which they did. Today folks say he's old or was past time. A whole year older or some such like that. Ezzard was not online a prime target but also an ATG LHW.

Moore had never done better in his career, that's why he's right back in the mix for Patterson and Ali. If Moore wasn't still an awesome tactician someone else would have earned those title elim/vacancy fights. When he fought Marciano he beat Nino Valdes to do it.

Walcott, to this day, still has the biggest bag of tricks and his Sucka Punch had dropped both Louis and Charles before he became the man. It's the same punch that dropped Marciano and what he's unloading when Marciano drops him. Ali's use of the Walcott shuffle speaks volumes to Joe's trickiness. This is the Old Master, the prototype.

Lee Savold was once considered a world HW champion. In 1950 when Charles is the NYSAC/NBA champion Lee owns the third title in the IBU. It's not much but it's something


----------------------------

Kay, my last message then I'll shut up. I'm not a Rocky Marciano fan because of anything that can be seen from a record. I'm a Marciano fan because he employed ancient pygmachia tactics and mixed them with classic london prize ring tactics and showed us what bare knuckle and ancient greek boxing would look like in the 1950s. The reason why that's important to me is because hit and don't be hit back boxing's story isn't about beating up the old dumb way of fighting until that form is seen as not viable to the point where no one trains in it. What happened was Daniel Mendoza came up with a system to earn more money and because you earn more as what we call points fighters today it became the main focus of the sport. As to which is actually more viable, who knows, but with Marciano we at least get an idea.

Can you imagine a big guy like Tyson Fury employing Tommy Ryan's BK Crouch? It'd be something. It's much easier to imagine it given Marciano did it and the technique is on film.

[edgarg]

Oh I respect the hell out of the champion, just not the IBF. Holmes is an atg for sure, doesn't bother me he didn't like Rocky.

Jack Dempsey doesn't have much resume either bud. Some guys are just in the wrong era, others had options they didn't take. It's on you how much it means to you. I use Jack because unlike say Primo or Tommy, Jack's pretty universally respected as a top ten all time making him more similar to Marciano than other HW champions without such great resumes.

Not to be offensive, but records are to taken with a grain of salt until around abouts the 80s really. Poorly kept records is a long time problem with boxing history. You shouldn't feel like you understand an era or even how good an opponent was until you've read a bit more than wins and losses. For example, Rex Layne was nothing special in my opinion, looking at records. I'd wondered why he got passed around and so many breaks he never made good on tbh. The answer can be found in Ring's endorsement of Rex Layne. Nat Fleischer, who I'm not a big fan of myself, is probably the most respected historian in boxing history and he backed Rex. In history we like to take ourselves out of it. So I might feel like Rex was a bit of an easy target and hypejob but the expert during his era who actually watched him did not. A bit like using contemporary Roman accounts to give Cesar a personality. It's a two edged sword, as you go back in time records get worse and worse because they knew they weren't keeping great records in say like 1910. So a guy might lose a fight knowing people won't hear about it until well after his title fight. Godfrey did just that in the 30s. Just took a small fight for quick bucks even though he had a title fight in line. To make sure he was good for the big fight he just laid down in the small one. Good for him then, but for us today trying to figure out how good he really was.

If I were to give Rocky's resume some defense it's the following:

Rex I just went over. Basically only good thing to say about him is his records not that ****ty per the era and he had the best expert history has supporting him. He did beat Charles and Walcott once though.

Roland LaStarza didn't name it rope-a-dope but the reason Marciano broke his elbows and sent him out of the ring was because Roland pioneered catching punches on the elbow and using ropes to absorb the energy. It was very clever and boxing pundits of his day thought the world of his defense.

Harry Matthews was on a 55+ win streak and his loses, few at the time, came earlier in his career against men who had over 100 fights experience on him and before Harry was a HW. Then he stacks a few more losses after Marciano but they're misleading numbers, it's just one man.

Don C****ell is and was generally underrated. Unbeaten at HW and the BBBoC champion at the time. His wins over Roland and Harry justify his title shot.

Ezzard Charles is a peer, dunno why people call him old. Usually when you have a full career's worth of experience over and are about the same age as the man you're fighting people see that as a credit and favor you to win. Which they did. Today folks say he's old or was past time. A whole year older or some such like that. Ezzard was not online a prime target but also an ATG LHW.

Moore had never done better in his career, that's why he's right back in the mix for Patterson and Ali. If Moore wasn't still an awesome tactician someone else would have earned those title elim/vacancy fights. When he fought Marciano he beat Nino Valdes to do it.

Walcott, to this day, still has the biggest bag of tricks and his Sucka Punch had dropped both Louis and Charles before he became the man. It's the same punch that dropped Marciano and what he's unloading when Marciano drops him. Ali's use of the Walcott shuffle speaks volumes to Joe's trickiness. This is the Old Master, the prototype.

Lee Savold was once considered a world HW champion. In 1950 when Charles is the NYSAC/NBA champion Lee owns the third title in the IBU. It's not much but it's something


----------------------------

Kay, my last message then I'll shut up. I'm not a Rocky Marciano fan because of anything that can be seen from a record. I'm a Marciano fan because he employed ancient pygmachia tactics and mixed them with classic london prize ring tactics and showed us what bare knuckle and ancient greek boxing would look like in the 1950s. The reason why that's important to me is because hit and don't be hit back boxing's story isn't about beating up the old dumb way of fighting until that form is seen as not viable to the point where no one trains in it. What happened was Daniel Mendoza came up with a system to earn more money and because you earn more as what we call points fighters today it became the main focus of the sport. As to which is actually more viable, who knows, but with Marciano we at least get an idea.

Can you imagine a big guy like Tyson Fury employing Tommy Ryan's BK Crouch? It'd be something. It's much easier to imagine it given Marciano did it and the technique is on film.

Good post. Too much detail for me to answer just on the spur of the moment, but Whilst I respect your opinion and knowledge, I think you are wrong in much of what you say. Dempsey was popular because his back story was pathetic and tough.. riding rods on railways etc. Also it was when heavyweight boxing was coming into a heyday, after Johnson.
And Dempsey married a film star, at a period when Hollywood was the most popular form of entertainment for a few pennies. And he opened a very good restaurant where the famous were always to be seen. Nat Fleischer always said , having seen every heavyweight championship fight and champion from Jefferies to Ali, said that the best was Jack Johnson. And many fight historians have averred that Johnson could do everything that Ali could, and much that he couldn't. I recall as a very young kid, when around old time boxing guys, they would talk about Johnson.. In WW1, the Germans had a very heavy, loud cannon shell, which the "Tommies" used to call a "Jack Johnson", because it was very strong, did great damage and resulted in much black smoke.

By the way the portrait of the massive damage Dempsey did to Willard is just a story. No broken eye sockets no teeth scattered all over the ring etc, I have a picture somewhere taken from a front page of a newspaper, in which Willard and his wife, the very day after the fight, at noon, were sitting in their open car, smiling at the reporters surrounding them. The back seat was piled with luggage, and they were being interviewed just before starting to drive about 700 miles home. No damage whatsoever. If you read a clarified account you'll read there were only a small outer eye cut and a few bruises. The whole story was because he was so small compared to the untrained Willard, and made that ferocious attack.

A point, DonC0Kell was basically a middleweight who fought light-heavy and later heavy because he had a severe glandular disease which caused him to be flabby. Savold was never a World Champion, except in the imagination of Jack Solomons the top British Promoter of the time. Who did he beat for that..Bruce WoodK0k...a typical horizonal heavyweight for which Britain was deservedly famous. The next best heavyweight there was Jack London 39 years old. The father of Brian London whom Patterson and Ali disposed of in a couple of minutes.

Savold had 3 fights in the 4 years before Marciano. 36 years old, WELL used up, won 87 lost 36, had only 14 rds in previous 4 years, 3 "fights"; lost 2,(KO 6 DQ4 won 1, KO 4) The DQ4 and W 4 were both against WoodK0k, who did everything except drop his hands and stick out his chin, to make it easy for Savold, who until then was basically retired. I actually saw the 2nd fight. They were talking about a fix afterwards. A heavyweight in those days with 125 fights was mostly just held together with baling wire and twine..so to speak.

Take La Starza, a 21 year old kid, but a good enough boxer. He actually drew his first Rocky fight. The only "name" fighter he's fought up to Rocky was Cesar Brion. Brion's first 9 opponents had combined, 1 win, 26 losses. His first 20 opponents had 26 wins and 65 losses. His fights just before La Starza were a 5-3, 0-1, 0-0, 4-3, 1-7, 4-2, 3-9, 3-7, 0-2. and so on and on.

La Starza's total of opponents before Rocky was 376 W and 277 L. His opponents #s 1, 6, 7, 10, 17, 23, each had NO wins, and #23 was a 0-0. #2, 9,14, 18, each had 1 win. So that's 10 "opponents" of his first 23 fights, with only a total of 4 wins between them.

And so much, much more. So you see where I'm coming from. The fight game in those days was very dirty, My record are good, taken from Boxrec, in the days when it kept accurate records available to all.

I should tell you that I grew up in that era, was a boxer myself, so was immersed in it. My uncle was a promoter, another uncle was an old time carnival boxer, and we lived in Ireland. where the best pro boxer in those days was about a Y or Z standard. Anyone reasonably good went straight over to England, where they would be immediately caught by unscrupulous managers and put up against English top rank fighters. One of my friends, after he came back from England and retired, was Jimmy Ingle. The rest of his family stayed in England where as trainers they became well known. I got RING and Boxing Illustrated regularly as well as other boxing issues. Have a box of a couple of hundred stored away. My first cousin in England, incidentally, was a ring doctor and knew Frank Bruno very well, He was also his doctor.

So we can amicably agree to disagree, and thanks for the answer. Keep Well and Healthy.