Bunce: Matthew Hatton title shot as genuine as Amir Khan's

Discuss.

His argument on William hill podcast was that as Manny Pac was light welter champ at the same time, Khan's claim to be world champ was no better than Matthew Hatton's would be tonight.

Evidence against:

Lovemore Ndou's record in welterweight division prior to this fight as opposed to Kotelnik's. Neither fighter has any right to be fighting in this world title contest.

By Bunce's rationale only Hatton, Lewis (only when beat Holyfield) and Calzaghe (only when beat Lacy) could legitimately claim to be world champ. Fair enough if consistent.

Was Farnell as much of a world champ as Khan? Cornelius Carr? Is Willie Limond?

The old governing bodies are horrible but though the ibo has a few proper champions (not always an indicator look at some of the belts Roy Jones represented in his pomp), along with a number of Aussies who worship it like we did the wbo in early 90s), it loses any legitimacy by calling this a title fight. Plus am very dubious about computer rankings system.

 

He's right, but Khan is holding one of the recognised titles that have been around a long time. I wouldn't refer to either of them as a champion but Khan is the WBA titleholder and, should Hatton win his fight, I wouldn't refer to him as anything.

 

I say for each that they are 'fighting for a version of the world title'. That is all that I claim.

Adios.

 

Isn't Hatton fighting for the IBO? If so, he's not a champion of anything.

 

Fair enough. So WBC/WBA/ibf/wbo have brought themselves down so much that they are no longer more worthy than others?
Haye should have fought Francois Botha!
Might have got 798k less ppvs mind.

 

Khan holds a significant alphabet belt.

Matthew Hatton is fighting for a minor alphabet belt.

Khan is not a World Champion and neither will Mathew Hatton be if he wins.

Likewise, David Haye WAS World Champion at Cruiser but only holds a significant alphabet belt at Heavy.

 

Regardless of how corrupt 'the big three' have become, the WBA will always be an infinitely better World Title to be in posession of than the IBO though surely?

 

How does boxing benefit from recognising more titles? Surely three is enough (four if you count WBO).

 

The value of the title is in how the fans hold them. Is Khan really THE world champion, nope its another guy who trains at his gym. He beat Hatton, who beat Tszyu, who unified vs Zab Judah after winning the vacant title vs Gonzalez after De La Hoya had beat Chavez.

I only care for linear titles... All the rest is pretty much window dressing. Its a mess and there is no need for governing bodies if people just egnore them. An independant, universally accepted governing body needs to be formed but Promoters won't want that..... less money for conning the public into thinking that there watching something historical as opposed to just a good match up between international class fighters.

A bit like the obsession with the 0, the obsession with titles needs to go before the sport will get taken seriously again. Put me incharge. I'll sort the ****ing sport out.

 

Boxing is the only sport that continually shoots itself in the foot with crap like the alphabet titles and it's due to not having a legitimate set-up; anyone and his dog can set up a 'governing body' to sanction 'world title' fights and the media only seem to happy to publicise them:fire. As long as the media as a whole (not just Bunce) keep lapping it up, we'll have a sport that is fragmented and worse-off due to these stupid factions. Can you imagine if there were 4 Premierships and then some other league rocked up and said 'no, I think you'll find we have the Champion of England'. No, you couldn't because it would be farcical situation. Boxing needs wholesale changes to draw a bigger fanbase and get the proper publicity it deserves, IMO.

And people moan at me for saying that the Ring title is the only genuine title in the sport:roll:.

 

There is no genuine title.... thats the whole point.

 

In Japan, they only sanction WBC and WBA title fights. We could easily get rid of the minor alphabets if the governing bodies were prepared to stand up to the promoters and say no. We all know who the biggest propagator of minor alphabets in this country was.

 

Think the ring has to be more proactive though losfer, do more to convince people that Oscar doesn't dictate the rankings and not have half the titles vacant.

My idea. The Ring belt is formally disenfranchised from magazine.

Writers and fans vote on former fighters/people within game to oversee rankings (difficult to pull off I grant you). eg George Foreman, Angelo Dundee, Lennox Lewis, Kostya etc.

The new Ring belt committee orders competitions among top 4/5 willing contenders (think super six is too long) with winner the champion or facing champion.

Has the ring formally announced that super six winner will be middleweight champ or are we going to have ridiculous scenario where title is still vacant and bute is number two after guy has gone thru he'll to win the S6?

 

The ring would have to be accepted as the official moderator of the sport. Its not going to happen without a govermental parliment type decision and that would have to be world wide.... They'd have to make governing bodies illegal or something. Not going to happen.

 

They follow a champioship policy that was established long before Oscar owned the magazine. And, unless Bute drops from second spot somehow, it's unlikely the Super Six winner will be declared champ.