Originally posted by Eff Pandas
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Champions are generally your unified title holders and/or lineal champs. Right now there are surprisingly few champions. It's actually depressing if you dig into it. Take a look:
Heavyweight - no champion, only title holders (Joshua/Wilder/Parker).
CW - no true champion, only title holders which will soon lead to a true champion (Usyk/Gassiev) thanks to this awesome tournament. Best division in boxing as far as delivering to the sport & fans.
LHW - no champ, only title olders since Ward retired. Kovslev/Stevenson could possibly get there if they actually fight but hopefully some young guys take them. out. Stevenson is technology lineal champion but can anyone truly call him champion without ever fighting Wars, Kovalev or even Hopkins when he was in the mix? No. No they cannot.
SMW - no champion.
MW - Obviously Golovkin is the bonafide Champion. Sure, Canelo got a gift draw, but Golovkin cleaned out the entire division unifying all the belts but one that was hiding out in the UK and of course everyone, even thr hardcore Mexican fans know deep inside their heart Golovkin beat Canelo, even if they won't admit it publically they know, and it hurts their pride. Canelo could potentially get a gift decision in his rematch since GGG is like 45 years old now, but that doesn't change who the real champion is right now.
WW - Title holders, no champ. Thurman vs Spence will settle that if/when Thurman finally feels Spence is "worthy" enough to fight him, for now he's clearly trying to delay the pain & suffering Spence will provide him with as long as possible.
JW - Crawford is a champ due to unifying but he really should be fighting Garcia instead of Jeff Horn but that's our wonderful boxing politics in action (not to say Horn is a bad fight just sayin).
LW - title holders, no champ.
JLW - Lomachenko is a bonafide champion. Very simple here.
FW - no champion, only title holders
JFW - no champion, only title holders. Rigondeaux is still technically lineal champ I believe however. Strange situation there too.
BW - no champ. Well, kinda strange situation with Yamanaka who lost to Nery who failed a drug test but the loss still counts so we'll see what happens.
JBW - no champ. Inoue could get there but he'll probably move up, we'll see.
Flyweight - no champ
Junior Flyweight - Ryoichi Taguchi has two titles unified so you can say he's a champ since no one else in the division is unified (two other title holders).
So there you go. In all of boxong we can say there are at most 4 actual champions, with another on the horizon (Usyk/Gassiev).
In all of boxing I believe there are just TWO actual lineal champions (not just the fake The Ring "lineal belt" but actual lineages - Adonis Stevenson (from Dawson) and Rigondeaux (beating Donaire). That's it currently. Very depressing.
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