BoxRec to no longer recognize the WBA

This, 100%

 

According to Boxrec, Ali was never stripped of his WBA heavyweight title for his stance on Vietnam, never had his boxing license revoked, and there was never a WBA Heavyweight Elimination tournament, which was won by Ellis.

Could've swore I saw something on that. Oh well. Great job, Boxrec.

 

Guess who didn't become the youngest champion at 17? Wilfred Benitez.

According to Boxrec, Antonio Cervantes was never champion. Never won anything. So there was nothing for Benitez to win.

Mike McCallum was never champion at 154 or 160.

Virgil Hill went from engaging in nearly 30 title fights and winning titles in two divisions ... to winning just one title fight ... against Henry Maske.

But that's better than Eddie Mustafa Muhammad. Who never won a title.

Sounds about right.

 

They just altered boxing history for the last 60 years.

Other than that, I guess.

 

This has to be temporary. Boxrec is reacting to a organization that is trying to gobble them up. It is however a complete misrepresentation of the boxers and boxing history to not give boxers credit for winning WBA titles, or credit for defenses. If they dont give the boxers credit for the WBA title's, they shouldn't give credit for any, especially the IBO.

 

Who knows, maybe boxrec can get sued for misrepresentation. All legitimate titles or no title's at all mentioned.

 

History matters though.

 

I don't think it is a good source of data now.

Knowing who's the champion and how many defences they made is a starting point in assessing a fighter.

If I wanted to debate Khaosai Galaxy now, with someone who has no idea who he is, they would start by checking his boxrec, maybe then checking his Wikipedia, and then checking year end rankings. Once you have the stats you can watch the fights with the context.

But now all that is gone.

 

If there was a tournament to establish a true champ in each weight and from here on out have one champ, i would be fine with that, but history has to be maintained. You know, like mentioning back in the Alphabet era and so on.

 

Partial information can be more harm than a lack of information imo.

 

The good news is I'm not sure this applys to the boxer rec wiki which has the REALLY valuable hard to get stuff. Which is seperate from the main boxing rec site. But wouldn't surprise me if these monsters purge that too but it seems like it would be a lot of work.