Youngest Heavyweight Champion Ever: Patterson or Tyson?

But what are the four recognized sancationing bodies?

Personally I do not recognize the WBA, WBC, IBF or WBO...

So that means, what; The Ring, BBB of C... I am struggling! :nut

 

I hope that doesn't mean we should consider Michael Bentt, Herbie Hide, Francesco Damiani and Bruce Seldon as legitimate champions.

 

No, as a Legitimate TWO TIME World Champion!!! (but you cannot recognize Joe Louis or Ray Robinson as neither won a legitimate title...)

 

The problem is your introducing an arbitrary element to the entire thing. When you say Ernie Terrell was not taken seriously - by who? "Many people"? Many people did take him seriously. Many people did not. Were there polls done of large portions of the population? Or are "many people" newspapers (meaning one editorial by the staff sports writer)? I get what you're saying, but do you see how arbitrary it all is when you start relying on the media to tell you who is and who is not the "real" champion? It's a poor way to evaluate things.

I think you're correct to point out that boxing organizations are flawed to the max. But if I had to choose between the organized chaos of boxing organizations and the full out chaos of unmeasurable "public sentiment" and sensationalist newspapers whose main goal is to sell newspapers, I'd have to go with the organizations. After all, they are the groups actually awarding titles the boxers fight for, right?

All I'm saying is if you're going to be objective, you have to weigh all four major orgs recognized by the IBHOF equally and assign equal weight to the records set and broken by champions and challengers to each of the organizations.

 

You might not recognize them, but again, being objective, it doesn't matter if *you* personally recognize them.

According to the IBHOF, the four bodies for whom championships are recognized for recording keeping purposes are: IBF, WBO, WBA and the WBC. That's the only standard we should go by, really.

 

Off-topic - this is a great discussion we're all having. Just thought I'd mention that. Not sure if this is typical of the Classic forum, since I've never been here before.

 

I think that would be the worst of every world.

For a start off, what gives the WBO any more legitimacy than the IBO?

Also, it would mean that you would never have one single champion in any era.

 

OK then, I agree in the general scheme of things, my opinion probably does not count.

But your standard is suggesting any fighter who retired before 1962 (and the creation of the WBA) is not recognized as a world champion.

So can you explain to me why Jeffries, Johnson, Dempsey, Tunney, Louis, Marciano, Charles, Fitzsimmons, Loughran, Rosenbloom, Robinson, Walker, Greb, Flowers, Ketchel, Ross, Armstrong, Pep, Saddler, Wilde etc, etc were not World Champions?

 

The predecessor organization to the WBA is the NBA, which goes back to the 1920s. Anything before that is already widely understood to be the world championship. This standard mainly applies to the debate at hand - in an era with multiple boxing organizations, what is and what is not legitimate. My point is that the IBHOF already answered that for us for only counting records among the four major bodies and its predecessors.

 

The IBHOF, which is the official record keeping organization of boxing recognizes the WBO and not the IBO as an official organization against which records are kept.

There are already more than one champion in pretty much every division from the 80s to today. I'm not describing the way it should work - I'm describing the way it *does* work. That's why Mike Tyson is in the record books for being the youngest and Patterson is not, because the WBC title he won is officially recognized as a heavyweight championship by the IBHOF.

We should make the distinction between titleholders and "the champion" not by lineage, but by unification. Lineage is broken - dozens of times over in some cases. Beating a "lineal" champion shouldn't count for anything special, just unification. If you want there to be one champion, wait for unification and crown him champion.

 

Theres too much over-analysing here. Tyson was the youngest

 

As much as Liston.

 

So what about the NYSAC, IBU, NSC, PG, The Ring, all the state world titles? I can understand you trying to argue for a black and white standard; would not we all love that? But it is far too blase to go:

Well you know; WBA, WBC, IBF and WBO, all the rest sorts itself out via the NBA, that is simply not the case!

 

I'd rather make my own mind up, and take into account opinions and sentiments from people I respect, rather than go with the sanctioning bodies. If the opinion and sentiment is backed up by good sound rational argument, I have no qualms.
Sure, fighters DO fight for the alphabet titles, but in a majority of cases historically they were going by who was GENERALLY recognized as the champion, and the sanctioning bodies ALL originally found legitimacy for "recognizing titles" in the fighters they recognized, rather than the opposite that you seem to believe.
I feel I'm on pretty firm ground going with the "sentiment" that Clay/Ali was champion, and Terrell was just a contender. I feel I'm on pretty firm ground going with the idea that Lewis's failure to fight John Ruiz didn't give Holyfield and Ruiz a hold on his (Lewis's) actual status as world champion.
Spinks over Tyson is far less solid, but I feel Spinks hadn't done enough damage to forfeit his claim, and the argument for Spinks is entirely RATIONAL.