This topic was on my mind recently because Amanda Serrano dumped one of her unified titles because she wanted to box 12, 3 minute rounds like the men. The sanctioning body did not want to change their rules so she dumped the belt. Recently we also saw Terrence Crawford stripped and his belt awarded to Jaron Ennis and Jai Opetai is getting stripped too. This all got me thinking that we the real fans know who the champion is, who beat who and established their reign as the man. Why do these fighters still pay the sanctioning fees? Why do they allow themselves to be dicked around by these bodies? I have some knowledge into the history of these organizations but was looking for insight or guidance on their history or any books, documentaries or articles that delve into how they came to be, multiplied and are the titles in this sport for better or for worse.
Here's an article that basically tells you everything you need to know about the history of the organizations. https://everything-everywhere.com/boxings-alphabet-soup/ Unfortunately, the WBA, the WBC, the IBF and the WBO are all legitimate. Each one of them comes with their own sanctioning fees, which is absolutely terrible for unification bouts, given how the fighters will need to pay way more in order to be sanctioned by all of them. The WBC and WBA especially are absolutely shameless, given how they have like 5 belts each in order to get even more sanctioning fees. The more divisions there are, the more sanctioning fees they obtain as well, let us not forget the whole Bridgerweight situation. God forbid another organization becomes legitimate.
very good article, thank you, seems like a lot of sour grapes from election losers Never knew the NBA to WBA and NYAC to WBC or at least the connection there
I agree with @KO KIDD , that this is a very good article. It is also what I've been saying for years. That the sport is disintegrating due to the parasitic money-hungry alphabet boys who simply keep reaping what they haven't sown and will soon be abandoning the dead husk of boxing once they have drawn the last drop of blood from it's carcass. When i got into boxing, even the man on the street could tell you a little bit of something about the fighters. Today, not even a die-hard can begin to name the champs. Too convoluted, so the papers dropped it, the magazines disappeared and the media outlets (USA, ESPN, HBO and now Showtime) have gone in 'different directions.' Years ago they used to talk about federal regulation in a National Boxing Commission. I say, it can't be any worse than what we have. I'd love to see someone or some organization shake out boxing like a dusty old rug and put it back together by barring all these alphabet boys from these shores, reducing weight classes to eleven, put proper guidelines in place for ratings, drug testing and enforcement and put boxing back into the minds of the public where it belongs. I know, I'm asking too much. But I can dream, can't I?
Actually, can't it just as well be said that these organizations are in reality equally non-legitimate? What makes you say that they are all legitimate or even each 1/4 legitimate?
By legitimate, I mean it as in ''officially recognized''. Obtaining a title from one of the main 4 makes you a ''legitimate'' title holder, but a title from the IBO or the WBF doesn't. Even though a fighter may have a strap from the IBO in the literal sense, he is practically considered beltless. A title holder from the WBC, WBA, IBF and WBO may not be the one true champion, but they are genuine title holders, if you get what I mean.
Thanks for posting that link. Sounds like an increasingly crooked mess. Not sure there is some viable alternative, however.
But that´s also true for baseball for example, Scar. There are no major stars in baseball and they were the starts back then. I truly believe that boxing is not pleasing to the newer generations just like baseball isn´t. Not many people will get pleased watching someone lile Usyk fighting, it´s viewed as boring because people have no patience today. Anyway, obviously the alphabet soup is a ****ing disgrace. Edit - I thought this was the "in the current boxing" thread, sorry for being off topic here.
Fair effort by Gary... here's mine from 2018: https://www.boxingforum24.com/threa...era-boxings-sanctioning-organizations.602611/
I think it should be up to you to decide if you think a belt is legit. And it should be based on the claim the winner of the match has and the quality of the matchups not the letters next to the name. This should be done class by class as the quality of sanctioning bodys decisions is not always consistant. I don't consider the WBC belt from 2005-2018 to be a major one at HW but at the same time their belts in most other weight classes I follow were very strong. It can go the other way for example I consider the WBC Silver title at 140 a major title for a little bit. The WBO belt is legit the least often because they rank fighters the other bodys don't not because they are stupid but as a institutional mission. The WBO is serving a badly needed function for the sport but that doesn't mean you have to pretend certain titles are legit if you don't feel they are. It is both the most and least important sanctioning body.
If the states/countries stopped doing business with these organizations they would evaporate over night and the sport would be better for it.
