hi, i see almost in every thread that the alpabet soup belts(wbc,wba,ibf,wbo) are always put down and people say how they are bad for the sport. people always say that each weightclass needs 1 champion not 3-4(which i agree with) but people also always put these organizons for stripping champions and how in the "good old days" a champion could only lose his belt in the ring etc this is a point i want to bring, because this is excatly what was wrong with boxing in the so called good old days.... because it is hard to take a belt from a champion who wont get in the ring with you, that is why some champions would for periods like 3 years without defending the title while some of the greatest fighters ever never got a shot at a belt, or got one once their prime was gone.... i do agree that often these organizons dont bring in good mandatory chellengers for whatever reason but i dont think their is anything wrong with stripping a champion of a title when he is just sitting on it.... now a lot of people espically tv networks like hbo have discredited these belts to a large degree with often good reasons to do so. but dont be mistaken into thinking they dont have other motives for it, they want to shove fighters down people's throat as the best and pretend the other top fighters dont matter because these belts dont matter.... and to no shock the champions hbo are not real champions, are the guys who are not signed with hbo and or fight in europe.... now that europe is in the converison, in the good old days it was often harder for european/non american fighters to get title shots then for americans but this has changed because of the belts espically the wbo... many people will bring up the fact that a lot of europeans have poor track records in usa but those same people tend to forget that a lot of americans in modern times have poor track records when they fight in europe.... but in the so called good old days, almost always the american fighters had home court advantage, which is not fair but again these tv networks want you belive that in even in modern times all the big fights have to be in usa.... then everyone who badmouths these organizons brings up the "wonderful" linear champion that neatly went from champ to champ.... these sounds good in theory but reality is different.... consider this....dempey beats willard,tunny beats dempsey....this all looks neat but in reality.... all these guys should have stripped of the belt in their stay as champion or forced for fight guys like wills,godfrey,fulton etc etc there many examples like this but then again you can only take a champions belt in the ring......yeah ok lol i am not saying these organizons are good, just giving the other side of the argument that things werent so great before them.....
