Yet you will notice that the IBF champions are relatively poor. They are very eager to strip their champions when a unification bout appears, as they would rather strip their champion and make him fight a bum, then allow a nice big unification fight. They are also too eager to strip the true, established champions that hold their belt. Take Calzaghe, Hatton, Bell....Taylor. The list goes on. Its one thing enforcing mandatories, but when they are against bull**** contenders and prevent bigger fights taking place then they are a burden. They wouldn't be if there was just one belt of course, because the rankings would be much better. None of the ABC's are any good really, its pointless trying to rank them. As I said before, the WBO cant really be ignored. The reason being is that the WBO have had some very good, established champions in their time, Calzaghe being the best example. While he only held the WBO strap for 10 years, nobody, not the media, TV, writers, or fans dispute that he is a long reigning champion. You can say 'I dont recognise the WBO' in one sentence, and talk about Calzaghe's SMW reign in the next. Or Cotto being a 140 titlist in the one after that. Its all double standards. To those of you who 'dont recognise' the WBO, do you see Calzaghe as only a three year champion? From when he picked up the IBF belt? Can you/do you say that Wladimir did not truly unify two belts? Etc, etc.
Wasn't it the IBF that robbed N'dou and N'goudjo when they both beat Malignaggi, only to then strip Malignaggi when he wanted to 'unify' the IBF with Hattons Ring and IBO titles? Confusing.....seemed like they wanted him as champ but then kinda decided they didn't unless he fought the same guy again for the 8 hundreth time?
Sanctioning bodies don't like unifications. They never have. As soon as a fighter wins another belt whilst ascending through the ranks he is immediately dropped by the other sanctioning bodies from there ranks. The IBF are equally as bad and were investigated successfully by the FBI along with DKP.
I've always rated it the lowest of the 4 organisations by a long way. But I always classed Benn & Eubank as legitimate World Champions (even before Benn won the WBC)
It is a strange one, because around 1990 neither of them were even the best middle in Britain - that man was of course Herol Graham.
all 4 have lost the plot in recent years. the wbo have always been the worst though. duff mandatories. dead fighters in there top 10. atsch bobby gunn, damon reed. :roll:
the ibf's recent decision to not accept paul williams as a challenger for verno phillips was ridiculous. and stripping malignaggi was a bad one.