Jofre or Arguello, who was the true FW champ?

As much as it breaks my heart to have to say it, the great Alexis Arguello was never the true champion at featherweight. That represents one of the great indictments against boxing over the past 40 years -the confusion about who the hell to aim for.

[--It's also why the Transnational Boxing Rankings sprang into existence.]

When boxing historians look at "lineages", they ought to know better than anyone the folly of bothering with the WBS mini-mafias. If you enjoy wasting your time and your readers' time, then by all means, tell us who the WBS champion was at one time or another and then make a jerk out of yourself by going back further and finding out how that string began. More often than not, you'll end up scratching your head. If any of them happen to have gotten a belt around the true divisional champ, it's an accident I assure you.

When Johnny Famechon beat Jose Legra in Jan. '69, both were the top-two Ring rated contenders at featherweight. Vicente Saldivar beat Famechon, who was in turn beaten by Kuniaki Shibata, who was beaten by Clemente Sanchez, who was beaten by Legra, who was beaten by Jofre.

Your WBS fools, in this case the WBC, stripped not only Jofre, but Carlos Monzon and Bob Foster of their titles before the end of 1974. Why? Because they were then what they still are --tin-can tyrants. "Any of our champions are subject to withdrawal of their titles if they ignore the council," said the WBC president Ramon G. Velazquez.

The truth of it is that Jofre was the champ until he retired. He fought six/seven more times in non-title affairs and then retired (read: abdicated) in October 1976.

Due to the confusion of the sport then, which was magnified by the Ring scandal in '77, none of the top-two Ring contenders faced each other at the weight until Salvador Sanchez beat Danny Lopez in '80.

 

You beckoned, I came forth. Like a golem. I'm lufcrazy's Golem.

 

:goodGreat ****ing job, Springs. Thanks:good

 

Negative. After Jofre retired, there was no real/true/legitimate championship bout until Sanchez-Lopez.

 

The trouble with this way of thinking is it doesn't account for champions who are aren't facing their best contenders, who thus can't "legitimize" themselves by beating the reigning champ. And great though he was, methinks Jofre wasn't interested in facing certain fighters at that point in his career. He may have hung on until '76 but he wasn't fighting many legitimate threats after Saldivar (and even he had been out of the ring for two years). He stopped being the real champ in any meaningful sense several years earlier, lineal title be damned.

 

Are you saying Holyfield wasn't the true champ because he hadn't beaten Foreman/Briggs? I don't see why the lineal title holds any more value than the ABCs. It's just as synthetic, and is only usually brought up to boost a fighter's kudos in the absence of him actually holding any belts (like Foreman).

Especially as, when a previous lineal champ leaves the scene without losing his title, who decides who the next lineal champ is? It's arbitrary. For a long time the heavyweight lineage traced back to Floyd Patterson knocking out a 40 year old light-heavy for a vacant title.

And what of champions who aren't meeting the best challengers? Do they just get to keep their title regardless because they are "lineal"? Jofre didn't face Arguello, Chacon, Marcel, Olivares etc and didn't even fight at all for 14 months. To me that diminishes his claim to being the 'true' champ at 126. A champ, fair enough, but not the champ.

 

I'm down with your angst though not your argument, Berlenbach.

Would you "damn" Robinson's "lineal" claim while he was avoiding Burley? How about the fact that Armstrong wouldn't go near Cocoa Kid, his number one contender for months? You know who the biggest threat to Duran was at lightweight? Buchanan. He never gave him a rematch and instead fought lesser threats.

There are a hundred similar examples.

Of course it's lamentable that champions (most, I'd argue) pick-and-choose who they will defend against. Some do worse, like Cotto and yes, Armstrong. However, to argue that they are not the champion because of that simply doesn't stand up. Boxing used to call the avoided greats -Burley, Graham, Robinson at LW and at LW for example- "uncrowned champions." But no one was silly enough to confuse them for the true champion, even if the true champion was derided as a paper champion.

But that was then; now we have this subjective pick-your-champion practice that is widespread. It's loony.

Until boxing has a centralized and widely-accepted authority that can demand champions behave like champions and enforce it, the lesser evil is to recognize the true champions for who they are. Fans can and should demand that the true champs behave as such and use social media to go at promoters and even trainers like Roach who are behind the unbecoming conduct when it comes to defenses.

 

Apologies.

No, after Sanchez, that throne was open for 20 years until Barrera beat Morales when both were rated #1 and #2 by The Ring. Pedroza was subjectively promoted by organizations who should have known better because they commingled concepts: The best fighter in the division (in this case Pedroza) is not necessarily the champion of the division. Why should Pedroza be handed a crown when Burley wasn't?