Are the ABC belts becoming meaningless?

There is a lineal title: The Ring Championship:good. Best system out there by miles, IMO, and it's fantastic that it seems to be getting more coverage by boxing fans and the media.

 

becoming meaningless? I think that ship has already sailed.

 

Yeah I think Lennox Lewis pretty much ignored the ****** belts, pity more dont do as well, maybe with lack of sanctioning fees and recognition they would then unify or something , I can dream anyway

 

yup that's really the one that counts cuz having that means you fought the best in the division.

 

Yeah, I think that is happening to some degree. Look at the WBA HW title. Nobody takes it seriously anymore because it's been held by non-entities for so long. And that is the oldest, and at times the most respected of these bodies. The others are headed that way too.

 

Seems to me yes it is meaningless. TOo much belts too many champions too much evasions.

Right now I would rank the belts with good ranking as follows.

1. Ring Magazine
2. WBC
3. WBO
4. WBA
5. IBF

 

Diamond Belt is the only one that matters.

 

wbc wbo ibf wba wbu iba ring belt diamond belt blah blah blah - theres too many the big companies should merge together making one belt, stop catchweights and make the top guys fight each other or suffer some sort of penalty

 

If you are already a star, then yes, the belts are meaningless. But if you are unknown, those belts are good way of getting attention. Not to mention that those belts will give you a better chance of getting a fight with bonafide stars and the big payday that goes with the fight.

 

its list of champoions arnt very european, kelly pavlik, interim paul williams, miguel cotto, tim bradley, juan manuel marquez, roman martinez, steve luevano, juan manuel lopez?

 

It is one of boxing great myths that there was allways just one champion intell the ABC groups came in around the 1970's and mised things up.
http://www.cyberboxingzone.com/boxing/claimants.htm.

 

This.

And face it, there are decent "regional stars" that are happy to make a living sitting on a belt and avoiding the top 3 in their weight class, which makes them far from meaningless (hateful, but not meaningless).

Thankfully, though, more and more upper echelon fighters seem to not care and are good to make fights that make financial/career sense without the belts.

 

I'd agree with this. Considering the amount of boxers out there, I think the belts are needed to get exposure. IMO the Linear/Ring Belt should be the objective of the big names, meaning the top/elite guys should fight each other to get it. But the ABC belts still provide fighters the means of getting to the top.

 

I think the Ring belt is overrated. Many times, the Ring champ is not even a true lineal champ. Not only that, but because there is nothing to force the alleged top two guys from fighting eachother, many divisions don't even have a Ring champ. Once a guy does become the Ring champ, he can then proceed to sit on his title as long as he wants. He can defend whenever he wants, and against subpar comp as long as he wants.