What's peoples thoughts on the worth of the above belt. I ask as I still see a few big names (GGG & Klit') carrying them, and a uk fighter (blackledge) was offered a short notice fight against Zac Dunn for the super middle version. But as far as I see it the IBO is a shadow of what it used to be & not worth a great deal.. Thoughts?
It used to carry a bit of legitimacy though eh, back in the day wasn't a bad belt.... Suppose that's before we had a million per weight..!
Chakhkiyev who beat Wilder at Olympics.. (or actually lost to him the only time they fought) is IBO champion.
We live in the era of fighters making the title. Give an IBO title to Wlad or Lil Floyd and it means something; give to a part time Latvian taxi driver, it does not mean so much...
If the wba got rid of their bs titles and just had a champion and in the odd case an interim which is effectively a mandatory to fight the main belt holder/gets upgraded to main beltholder if the proper champ doesn't defend then it'd be there with the wbc, then they all have their downfalls - WBO moving dead guys up the rankings and having Paul smith as #1 ranked challenger after beating scrubs in 6 rounders, the rocchigiani incident with the WBC, Peterson keeping the IBF despite failing a drug test etc
IBF have generally behaved the best out of most sanctioning bodies imho. WBA have killed themselves. WBC are crooked and certainly lean towards specific fighters (Floyd, RJJ and even now Cotto). Where as the IBF are the most neutral. At the end of the day it's all a heap of rubbish. British boxers are picking up belts because there are more of them and the fighters that are at the top of the game don't care about them.
Yeah, kinda wish the WBO and IBF would merge, WBA just have one champion and I could live with that as 3 world champions per weight class would be ok.