It seems common to dismiss the acomplishments of modern boxers when comparing them to boxers of the past. This is most aparant when compareing championships as won by boxers of the past and the tittles won by modern boxers. We are talking about two completly difrent earas of boxing. In the past there was one champion there was no such thing as fractured tittles. At some point the big four emerged (WBA, WBC, IBF and later the WBO)and completely changed boxing for better or eorse probbly worse. However you can not hold this against modern boxers. They had o controll when they were born. It would be like a basebal player with 500 home runs or 300 wins not being voted for the hall of fame because the feet they acomplished is more comon. Like with modern boxers they also had no control when they were born. I know I'm going to get a lot of disagrement on this, but I fell this is an unrealistic comparesment. With four sepret orgnizations haveing what are viewed as ligitmate titles it is almost imposable for a boxer to hold all four at the same time due to the politics envolved. I'm all so sure that when there was just one championship there was just as much back room dealings to minulpate rankings as there is today.
It is a shame the sanctioning bodies, and promoters have a stranglehold on the sport. More money may be there per fight but the big fights are harder to made in many instances, so therefore legacys are hurt by it. There are some great fighters today only they are making hundreds of thousands to millions a fight so they are simply protecting their health. Not like the old days were even some of the best fighters had to fight many times a year just to put food on the table. Again more money in their pockets but simply too inactive to be up there with Langford, Pep, and Robinson.
I think you've made some very good points. No disagreement from me. An analogy I make - although there are some differences - is w/the major team sports. Once upon a time MLB, NFL, NHL, NBA had 6-16 teams. Now most of these N American leagues have about 30 teams, with all the divisions, conferences, and long postseason playoffs. It may seem hard for younger readers to comprehend, but MLB used to have just one playoff series ! Now the reason that these sports still have one champ at the end of the season is because through mergers with upstart leagues, they retained their structure and control of the teams. Boxing just does not have this. What we have in boxing is much more like 4 competing orgs. With the expansion of TV through cable, with all its options & packages & ppv, etc… The execs need much more programming. Thus for a sport like boxing they need more divisions, more champions & contenders... more & more. There are some fans, and good ones, that pine for the days of one top guy in maybe 8 or 10 divisions - and top fights on free TV ! I think those days are long gone. Some are just using this issue as a red herrring to disparage certain fighters. But some fans are genuine in their longing for the "good ol' days". All the other major sports, including individual sports like tennis & golf have changed. Why should fans expect boxing to be like it was 50+ years ago? Boxing just does not have the coordination that the other sports have.
I totally agree. It is f*cking stupid to compare eras, especially in terms of ability & accomplishments IMO when boxing has evolved so much. However for those that bag the 4 major sanctioning bodies, I firmly believe they are a neccessity. Without them, can you imagine how long a fighter would wait for a shot at the title, and how LITTLE boxing we would actually watch. The politics would be even worse. Boxing is much too large to run under a UFC type format where all the fighters are under one banner.
Split titles are not a modern phenomenum. There have always been split titles, since there was boxing. The situation IS more confused now though. For me, comparing eras is fair and sensible. There's no great mystery here. When the bell rings the goal is the same as it's been for hundreds of years.
