What in the world is going on with these championships now? So Loma becomes promoted to ‘Franchise’ Champion and Haney becomes a ‘regular’ champion without even doing much... Someone please tell me what exactly is a ‘franchise’ champion. I feel like the boxing organization is just making **** up at this point. This is just getting ridiculous...
What I really want to know is how the hell do they not have an opponent lined up for Haney when he's supposed to fight in like three weeks? Petrov isn't even finalized. Dude is one of the best young fighters in the game, and for all the Loma talk, they've completely neglected his actual next fight.
IMO it's genuinely killing the sport. I think increasingly regular sports fans don't take being the belts seriously, and as the champion status loses credibility, boxing as a whole loses credibility. Soccer in Europe is the exact opposite. The structure is watertight and this gives meaningful context to almost every game. Part of the reason it's the #1 sport.
Sad to say I know quite a few boxing fans, who no longer acknowledge any belts. They will watch, but don't call them championship fights anymore. They're just fights.
It´s mostly so that the WBC doesn´t have to force mandatories that could result in champions dropping their belt. Meaning WBC doesn´t want to loose their sanctioning fees due to politics. Also, is Loma now a Franchise Champ?
