Confused on the different organisational belts...

Because certain organisations (WBA particularily) have incredibly stupid rules such as super champions and regular champions in the same division, which cheapens the title and is done blatantly to squeeze more money out of the sport. Also some organisations are considered to give title shots to poor quality fighters, or fighters from a certain promoters stable (WBA and WBO come up most frequently here).

 

WBA and WBC are the oldest active belts, to my knowledge. They came in different incarnations after the original was split. WBO couldn't be unified with any other belts for a while as they were attempting to be established, is my understanding and they are often looked down upon. IBF is the third, coming to prominence because I think Holmes ditched his WBC belt for it. But because of the wacky titles the WBA and WBC have come up with, they are losing credibility every day. But it's really the history. You get the WBA or WBC heavyweight belt for instance, you get your name on the same lists as Liston and Ali, Frazier and Foreman. Whereas the lineage of these younger belts is less prestigious the younger they are. Less history. The Ring title is well regarded and harder to get though, as it does attempt to designate the linear champion, regardless of organizations. It's far from perfect and in many classes it's vacant but it carries a long history itself. So, yeah, four major titles and then the complicated but more historically weighty "linear" title (not necessarily Ring) and the IBO is gaining credibility in recent years as well.

 

Back in the day, different US states recognize different champions. There's a champion recognized only in california etc. One organization who came to prominence is the NBA (National Boxing Association) and would be later be known as WBA.

So in terms of history, WBA is leading the pack. Nevertheless, WBC, IBF, and WBO had a lot of great champions that they gained prominence afterwards.

 

It's very confusing, and although WBA was the first I think it's one of the worst around right now.
It's become a race of credibility between the diffrent organisations, and right now I see the IBF as the most credible on the moment because they genuinely seem to try to clean up the mess boxing has become.

I think noone here is able to mention all the 'reasonably known' belts.

the ones I know (in no particular order)
WBA
WBC
WBO
IBF
IBC
IBO
IBA
WBF(ederation)
WBF(oundation)
Ring

and I saw another one just a few days ago, but can't remember what it was. So yeah, very cunfusing indeed. :huh

 

let's just put it this way buddy...

for example, i am the vice chairman of a sanctioning body (for discussion's sake, WBA) and do not like the way the chairman takes control of the organization (let's just say not giving me enough favors), i would just get out and create a new one myself, name it WBC and create a similar sert of rules and regulations, have new people under me, some who also bolted from WBA. Then ask a promoters to let their boxer fight for our vacant title and the rest is history.

 

The reason why certain belts are not as popular with fans as others is because notoriety and pedigree involved with those belts, which usually comes with the class of belt holders within that division, and by class I mean what fighter at what weight class holds that belt organizations belt.

For example the WBC, has had a pretty good history with keeping their belt with the perceived champion of a division. This made the belt popular and it became a perpetual motion event where the real champion was the one holding the WBC belt. Now that has waned a bit, but still most people believe that the top 5 fighter in a division usually holds the WBC strap. Compare this to a belt organization like the WBF, whom is a belt organization but whom have been unable to get legitimate elite fighters to become belt holders and that gives the public the perception that the WBF is a crap title.

 

Here's the run down from what I know of it all:

There has never exactly been one single championship title. There were always different factions within the world of boxing, they just had different names than they do now. The difference is that there didn't used to be so many that claimed to represent the world, and in the old days certain governing bodies and such had more informal power, so if they said someone was champ, they could twist the arms of the different promotion companies and such and those companies had to accept it. Dissent with that didn't happen often, and it usually didn't last long. Now, that's no longer the case.

The WBC and WBA are by far the oldest of the belts, dating back at least to the 60s. (But they probably go back further, that's just the oldest references I remember to them offhand). As a matter a fact, a little known piece of trivia is that after Muhammad Ali won the title from Sonny Liston, the WBA refused to recognize him, stripped him, and then held a tournament to name their own champion. It wasn't until Ali beat Ernie Terrell in '67, (Terrell who won that tournament the WBA held) that they recognized him as champion again. And that was right before he was banned for refusing to go to Vietnam.

Slowly the WBA and WBC started splitting further and further over rules, who to recognize as champion, and especially money. See, these organizations make their money by charging "sanctioning fees" to fighters that fight for their belts. Usually, I think they do this by charging a fighter a certain percentage of their purse for a title fight. If you want to have the words World Champion said in front of your name, (and get the public recognition and interest that come along with it) then you have to pay. (And if you're one of these sanctioning bodies and want to get someone to pay, it's a lot easier to do this, and be able to charge more, if the guy you're saying is the champion isn't the same guy everyone else is saying is champion).

Anyway, a couple of years after the WBC and WBA split for good and started running their own champions, the IBF came along because the founders of it saw the WBC and WBA as either being biased toward fighters from their native countries, disagreed with the way those two sets the rules, or because those two groups were being controlled by promoters. (WBC Chairman Jose Suleiman basically spent 20+ years as Don King's *****, and never made a decision without King's say so).

THE IBF got instant credibility because Holmes, who never liked Don King, dumped King's butt boys in the WBC for the IBF belt as soon as they came along. And for a couple of years it was the Big 3, with the WBO being an extremely minor 4th. (Nobody cared about the WBO for a very long time, because their champions were nobodies. To give you an idea, they crowned their first champion in 1989, six months before Mike Tyson ran into a guy named Buster Douglas. Was their champion the human phenom named Mike Tyson? No, it was Francisco Damiani, who won the belt by beating Johnny DuPlooy. Yep, nobodies. I think it might have been 10 years after the WBO formed before I heard them referred to by HBO or Showtime). Occasionally smartasses will refer to the WBO as the Warren Boxing Organization, because promoter Frank Warren virtually runs it the way Don King virtually ran the WBC for a long time, and makes sure that he gets a lot of his fighters easy shots at the title as they come up.

So far as I know, the International Boxing Hall of Fame still only recognizes the WBC, WBA, and IBF, although I'm not 100% sure of that. All the others are considered kind of outsiders. Out of all the others, the WBO is the closest to have mainstream respect, and it just goes downhill from there. Personally, I all but discount the WBA these days, since they have gotten ridiculously greedy and have about 5 different champions in the same weight division at the same time, so they can charge a sanctioning fee on each belt. (Hence why the WBA has super champions, regular champions, interim champions, etc). Plus, these days Don King's last hold on the sport seems to be in the WBA, and on behalf of all the fighters King stole from or lied to, I'd like to see him gone for good. (Even if I miss some of the cards he put together). The WBC isn't much better, though, and the IBF has slid back to being about level with the WBO. Half their championships are vacant, and the other half are held by nobodies.

Naturally, since there's no one group that runs boxing, anyone with enough money or investors to start their own group can do so, make up a belt, pull some rankings out of their ass, walk up to a guy who couldn't win any of the other titles and say "Hey, do you want to be our champion?" If either that guy or someone else down the line who is a good fighter wins some high profile fights and people start hearing that organization name more, it starts gaining a little bit of respect and being able to charge more in sanctioning fees, and so on.

Hope that's helpful. If there are any factual errors in what I said, someone feel free to correct me, I never bothered looking into the organizations until a couple of years ago myself, despite being a boxing fan for 20+ years.

 

would be good to have one organziation - like FIFA in football. One champ, one set of rules, one set of rankings. Don't see it happening though.