- boxingtalk The true world middleweight champion Sergio Martinez is ignored by the WBA; Felix Sturm is recognized as the super champion, despite never having unified any titles; Gennady Golovkin is the regular champion despite never having beaten a reigning champion and the title never having become vacant; Hassan N'Dam N'Jikam of France is the interim titleholder despite the constant activity of Golovkin.
I try my best to ignore all the alphabelt sanctioning bodies and what they're doing in their own worlds but the WBA seems to be the biggest joke of them all right now. As is often said, they're all as bad as each other. They really need to start being ignored by boxing fans and the media. It's close to fraud and people just accept it because boxing's a really tough sport.
They're all ****, and I know the days of 8 weight divisions and one champ per division are long gone, but surely its not too much to ask for an organization to have one champion per weight per division?
They are not "decent" Rob, playing "pass the parcel" around South Africa with their titles. They are just marginally not as bad as the other 3, which isn't really THAT much to be proud off given how **** poor the competition is.
Rob likes them because the IBF enforce mandatories so they must be OK. The fact that an inordinate number of mandatories seem to feature South African fighters (where the organization is based) doesn't seem to matter... I'm not sure if they are the best of the 4 organizations, they might well be but that doesn't make them "decent" in my book. Its like being the best white 100 meter runner...yeah, you're the best but you're still ****.
No the IBF are just as bad as the others. Remember all that crap when Hatton fought Malignaggi a couple of years ago? But the IBF demanded that Paulie had to either defend against his apparent mandatory of Herman Ngoudjo (who Paulie already beat) or pay the IBF a ridiculous amount to sanction the Hatton fight. Ricky and Paulie ended up telling them where to go before the IBF sanctioned a fight between Ngoudjo and Juan Urango for the vacant title, who were both beaten by Malignaggi and Hatton respectively. End of the day they're as much a joke as everyone else. Edit: Just seen your post Gaz. Makes sense I know how Rob respects the mandatories.
Golovkin would clean outta this division if the thing with Universum wasn't so messy. Its ****ing up his career. N'Jikam or Sturm won't go near him for fear that Universum will sue the crap outta them, hence the talk of Golovkin fighting Manfredo next in the states. Dissapointing.
there was no such additional fee demanded. Ngoudjo was coming of a controversial loss to PM, allot thought he won. After that he won an eliminator against a former world champ. PM was aware he had to fill his mandatory before the Hatton fight got made, and Hatton had dropped the belt before rather than fight his mandos. No interim, silver, diamond, regular belts. thats makes them better than the others. Trust me if we only had the IBF boxing would be allot better and without mandatory challangers boxing would be allot worse. Khan vs Maidana, Marquez vs Katsidis both happend because the WBA and WBO ordered them. also they are based in New Jersey, USA
Lets not get into fights that happened because they were mandatories. Theres as many crap fights as there are good fights in that category. You could say that boxing would be better with only having any one of the four organizations. Again, thats really no praise at all.
Mandatories are obviously great if they're used properly but as we all know they're not and none of the bodies do this. At the end of the day it all comes down to money like everything else but just because they're happy stripping champions and forcing pointless mandatories doesn't mean they're anywhere near decent.
the IBF were once as bad if not worse than the others. Wasnt there a controversy around 2000ish where they were shown to have sold rankings for fighters. There was even video evidence of it an the ibf came close to being removed from boxing