Boxing people: When did the WBO become a real TOP title?

[oc9979]

The WBO President (I forget his name) continually represented himself and his organization well at conferences and conventions, working steadfastly at making the title credible. He was able to get European promoters to align with him and then got some big American name fighters as well, which helped turn the perception around 2001-2002 ish.

Paco Valcarcel

[AlwaysOnTop]

WBO is one of the better major titles imo. Much better than WBA.

Scabs like this fool help to legitimize the WBO...

People always complain about the alphabet titles....then support more titles.

WBA > WBO

[AlwaysOnTop]

A la Calslappy who held one for 10 years plus!

Yep...tha coward had a death-grip on hia WBO crap-strap.

[JAB5239]

Scabs like this fool help to legitimize the WBO...

People always complain about the alphabet titles....then support more titles.

WBA > WBO

They all suck, but let's not pretend the all suck equally.

[DiegoFuego]

I remember Calzaghe held it for like 10 years without fighting one good opponent. I think that's when people started pretending it was a real belt.

[Superflo777]

The WBA sucks more for their super and regular system. A LOT MORE.

[JAB5239]

Was it when "Prince" Naseem Hamed held the belt?

I'd say they came to prominence in 2001 when the had a fighter named Darrin Morris in their rankings.

The WBO twice moved Darrin Morris up in its super-middleweight rankings in 2001, despite the fact that he was dead. Morris was Number 7 at the time of his death and Number 5 when the WBO discovered the error. Varcarcel said, "We obviously missed the fact that Darrin was dead. It is regrettable." Valcarcel also stated that other boxing sanctioning organizations had made similar errors in the past by continuing to rank another boxer after he was dead. One week after British newspaper The Independent broke the story, one of the three men ranking the boxers, Gordon Volkman, still had not heard that Morris was dead.

[turbotime]

Calzaghe, Naz, Barrera had WBO straps so they made it legitimate. It takes a special type of fighter to legitimate that strap though.

But really, the other belts have declined in quality so much that the WBO has almost pulled even with the others.

[JAB5239]

The WBA sucks more for their super and regular system. A LOT MORE.

I agree. I don't like any of the orgs, but they're by far the worst with all that crap.

[Flab]

Scabs like this fool help to legitimize the WBO...

People always complain about the alphabet titles....then support more titles.

WBA > WBO

I should be on Wikipedia for that.

The WBO was made popular by boxers such as Manny Pacquiao, Oscar De La Hoya, Marco Antonio Barrera, Ronald "Winky" Wright, Naseem Hamed, Verno Phillips, Michael Carbajal, Johnny Tapia, Harry Simon, Jermain Taylor, Nigel Benn, Paul "Silky" Jones, Gerald McClellan, Joe Calzaghe, Steve Collins, Daniel Santos, Michael Moorer, Dariusz Michalczewski, Chris Eubank, Riddick Bowe, Vitali Klitschko, Wladimir Klitschko, Chris Byrd, Tommy Morrison and Flab from BoxingScene.com in the 1990s.