If There's No Current Unified Heavyweight Champion...?

it's actually more important to fight the best fighters available and during their primes (if possible) than unifying belts, since the belts will be broken up as soon as the champ decides which mandatory to take
who they fought and when will always be the best way to reflect on a fighter's career, above and beyond his win/loss record and belts won

 

It's pretty difficult to become unified heavyweight champion when one of the belt holders isn't willing to fight anyone.....

 

Joshua is already a unified champion

 

There was a time when a fighter had to earn his ranking for a title shot. There was only one champion, and most everyone knew who that person was. Plus we did not have nearly as many weight divisions...............it takes a lot to keep up with so many champions. Then we have fighters like Wilder, who did not earn their ranking, got a title shot against another undeserving fighter who did not earn his title shot. Wilder has never fought one legit fighter period! Yet he is called a champion! It appears that the championship belt can be easily bought! Breazeale is now Wilder's mandatory, who was knocked out, not long ago, by Joshua....................owned by the same promoter, Haymon! We do have a boxing tournament going on right now, but not being shown on USTV! We have house fighters fighting bums in a total mismatch! Boring as hell! Not even a good sparring session.................Then there is PPV......................ESPN is having success by having some good fights and it is free........................that will help....................used to be that CBS, ABC, NBC used to show fights regularly, we had well known stars that were built up, their name known by many...............even many who were not even boxing fans..................

If we had only one champion per division, it would be huge, would make a big difference.................the mandatory a threat, then we would have so much more interest.

 

There's another thing nobody mentions here, which can change people's perspective.

In the old days you could become the one and only true champion by one single win, no matter how bad of a contender you were and/or how bad/old the current holder was.
There's a reason why guys like Braddock, Carnera and Sharkey could be the recognized heavyweight champions at one time, because only one upset or a little mob involvement was required.
Nowadays a beltholder is barely recognized unless he puts a string of defenses together, beats a big name and/or unifies with another beltholder.
The requirements of acceptance have gone up. A single good win doesn't cut it anymore, you have to be consistent.

 

True but only to a small extent.

If Pianeta would have beaten Wladimir, boom, same thing as Braddock except worse.

 

True, but nowadays as something like that happens he has to follow up on that performance before fans would take him seriously. If he can't -like Braddock- people would just call him a one hit wonder now and move on.

 

I think OP means Undisputed

 

I feel you but think it is equal or goes the opposite. Braddock was seen as a total fluke back then even though everybody respected him from years prior. The belt got heavily criticized, status equivalent to a modern forum, during the long Shmeling-Sharkey-Carnera-Baer-Braddock passing of the torch with Baer at the time seen as the only one that wasn't controversial (how Schmeling and Sharkey won the belts, Carnera in general; all surpassed by Braddock's "fluke"). Random shout out to Joe Louis for beating them all. I've read a lot of material that excerpts newspapers from that whole era of the HW scene. They were way more critical than media was of the last 15 years of HW's I'll tell you. The difference in amount of fights nowadays plays a role; back in the day they were fighting, showcasing, and building much more to constantly legitimize/expose themselves and to be seen/heard. Also the top players simply faced off much more often so class was proven and rank earned on merit frequently. And those generally accepted statements do play a role to this conversation.

And I don't know man, Joshua is the talk of the town the instant he popped Wladimir (has there been a more talked about HW with only 2 wins vs. a ranked guy?). Look at Mr. Postol, tremendous example. Provodnikov was the savior for losing by a round to Bradley. Look at what was by many the complete 180 on Jacobs in one night. Wilder doesn't even need to beat two top ten fighters to be among boxings most discussed fighters and while most critique that, most also rank him the #3 or 4 HW so I don't know. Most of these guys had some quality pedigree, I know, but these are just known crazy high profile examples. Over and over. The claims one way or another are loftier because they are less proven. One win is all you need today, sometimes even don't need, to change the perspective.

Nowadays you get crazy hyped and even viewed as accomplished to an insane degree before beating a single noteworthy or ranked opponent (and so forth). And that is the difference between fans' opinions/knowledge/expectations/perspectives of today and those of decades past, more so or at least equal and cancelling out than what you are saying in my opinion. A debate could be had, is all!

 

To me it does diminish the era when you compare it to other era's. Holmes at least became the lineal champion. Fury is the last lineal champion, but Lennox imo is truly the last lineal champion. The heavies must establish a new lineage if Fury isn't capable of fighting.

 

Fury singlehandedly proves this isn't correct. His fans thinks he's TBE from a single win