I love my boxing but i dont understand how we managed wth all these organisations wbc,wbo,wba and ibf. who were the original and how did we end up with the rest?
The WBA was founded in 1921 although back than it had a different name, NBA i think. National Boxing Association. The WBC was founded in 1963. The IBF was founded in 1983 and had virtually no meaning untill Larry Holmes dropped his WBC title to avoid the mandatory challenger in Greg Page and was spontaniously awarded the IBF belt. The WBO title belt came in the early 90's or late 80's, i believe.
Greg Page was too fat and lazy to win 15 round matches. So rather than insist he get into good enough shape to win over 15 rounds, the WBC decided to shorten their championship distance to a length Greg might be able to manage more easily. Page's real idol in boxing was Butterbean, and he wishes he could have performed exclusively in four round matches throughout his career. Today's ignorant boxing fans could then talk about how invincible Greg Page was, because nobody could have competed with someone weighing 650 pounds or more.
The National Sporting Club was formed by Lord Lonsdale to regulate English boxing in 1891 The British Boxing Board of Control was formed in 1930ish and continues to regulate British boxing to this day The IBU (International Boxing Union) was formed in Paris in 1911, it was replaced in 1946 by the European Boxing Union (EBU), which is still going today. In the USA, Richard K. Fox publisher of the Police Gazzette issued championship belts in the late 1880's. With the Walker Law in 1920, boxing became legal in New York under New York State Athletic Commission (NYSAC). New York quickly became the centre of the boxing world as the sport expanded. In 1921, 15 State Athletic Commissions formed the National Boxing Association (NBA). Although formed in New York, the NBA did not have NYSAC as one of its memebers. This in effect led to both organizations crowning different champions. Boxing was getting bigger and bigger globaly which led to the NBA changing its name to the World Boxing Association in 1962, with members from Africa, South America and Asia joining. But because each state in America still had a vote, the WBA was still basically an American organization. Because of the American domination George Parnassus formed the World Boxing Council (WBC) in 1963. The WBC consisted of 11 countries placed into continental federations each with two votes each. In 1976 a Pepe Cordedo engineered changes to the WBA which ended its control by the USA. In 1983 Bob Lee lost a battle to become President of the WBA, and left the WBA to form the International Boxing Federation (IBF) Latrn American countries then helped form the World Boxing Organization (WBO) in 1987, in another internal row in the WBA. Hope that helps
