Via Ken Hissner: Every time you look, there’s another belt fight for the WBA, WBC, WBO, IBF and IBO championships. There are minor titles like NABF, USBA, Continent-America and International to be ranked.
Are there too many champions? Back in that day, there were eight weight classes and ten resistance classes. Today there are heavyweight, light, light, supermiddle, middle, ultralight, Welterweight, ultralight, light, super, featherweight, ultralight, Bantamweight, welterweight, and welterweight divisions. Flyweight super, Flyweight, light and Strawweight classes. Now WBC adds Bridgerweight? Which is eighteen as opposed to eight?
Most organizations have fifteen top contenders, while the IBO singles out a hundred boxers in each weight class and gets little recognition. Only Josh Taylor of the UK ultralightweight division has all the belts in his division.
Back in those days, there was the world champion, and then the National Boxing Association. Now heavyweight has two champions, light cruiser number four, light heavyweight three, super middleweight two, middleweight four, super welterweight two, middleweight three, lightweight two, super welterweight three, featherweight fourth, superweight third, lightweight third, superweight third, flyweight fourth, lightweight fourth and minimum four class. It’s the FIFTY-TWO champion on www.fightnews.com.
There was a time when you won two titles in two weight classes, and that was special. Now for example, Saul “Canelo” Alvarez has gone on five wins and gone up and won titles but failed to defend them and gone back to super-middle class. Oscar “Golden Boy” De La Hoya is a champion in six different divisions. “Sugar” Ray Leonard has held five divisional championships.
Henry “Homicide Hank” Armstrong held three division titles at once when there was only one champion in each division.
The other multi-division title holder is Manny “Pac Man” Pacquiao, who has won titles in six weight divisions. Roy Jones, Jr. has held titles in four weight divisions, Roberto “Hands of Stone” Duran and Pernell “Sweet Pea” Whitaker hold four titles.
The three holders are Bob “Ruby” Fitzsimmons, Tony Canzoneri, Barney Ross, Wilfredo Benitez, Alexis “The Thin Man” Arguello, Wilfredo “Bazooka” Gomez, Jeff Fenech, Julio “JC” Cesar Chavez, and Mike “The Bodysnatcher.” McCallum.
Fitzsimmons, Canzoneri, Ross and Armstrong are the undisputed champions of the three divisions.
Do you realize that there are too many champions, candidates and organizations?
