Credibility of each boxing organisation

probably the WBC, followed by the WBA, but frankly none of them have that much credability really

 

I'll give you a hint, they are all a bag of bollocks.

I suppose if I was held at knife-point and forced to answer I would say that the respectibility goes roughly in chronological order:

Main 3:
WBA
WBC
IBF

Followed by:
WBO
IBO

In terms of credibility it is debateable, they all have their weaknesses - corruption, rankings written up by a thousand (un)trained monkeys, bribery, worthless mandatories etc.. I personally think the IBO is the least corrupt, but it's still not ideal.

As far as I know, the others could have been created by a tramp under the bridge round the corner, so I would put all of those in a category marked 'shite'.

 

all the organisations are ****. the 'big 4' you mentioned are just a little less shitty than the rest. sadly, some folks in the boxing world have been giving some credence to the ibo as well recently, but really all the minor belts are totally ****, and **** don't come in degrees. **** is ****.
btw i believe there's also a wbf, world boxing federation.

 

World Boxing Empire. :rofl :rofl :rofl

 

It has a website hosted on Tripod! The cheapskates!!!:rofl

 

http://www.eastsideboxing.com/forum/showpost.php?p=1444644&postcount=35

http://www.eastsideboxing.com/forum/showpost.php?p=1444695&postcount=36

Incidently there no longer called the WBE. But go by the name WBS World Boxing Syndicate. There rankings are quite comical.

 

"Syndicate", huh?

I'd have never have thought of that one

 

WBA, WBC, IBF and WBO are called "the big four". They recognise each other but don't typically recognise any of the others. These four re recognised by fans as world championship belts.

The WBA was the first to get established. The WBC was a splinter group. IBF got started much later. Then, the WBO got started.

In itself, no belt is recognised as more prestigious than another; "the Champion makes the belt, not the other way around". In other words, the belt is only worth as much as the fighter who has it; it also matters whether the belt is a "paper belt" - i.e. won against another contender in a fight for the vacated title, or whether the belt was won against the beltholder - "full belt".

Thus, someone who has the WBO belt may in fact be better than the one who has the WBC and WBA belts in the same division: e.g. Calzaghe v. Kessler.

Even though the Champion makes the belt, not the belt makes the Champion, every fighter wants to have one of these belts because once you have one, you make a lot more money for your fights. On the other hand, you are forced to fight better competition than before, generally, because you have to fight mandatories - highly ranked contenders.

So, to decide which belt is best, you have to determine all these things:

1. which sanctioning body has better rankings - i.e. which has the best fighters ranked as top contenders and which rank lesser fighters at the top to give their Champ an easier ride in mandatory defences

2. which sanctioning body allows lesser fighters to be ranked in the Top 15 of their rankings to allow their Champ an easier ride in voluntary defences (where you have to fight someone ranked in the Top 15)

3. which sanctioning body enforced the mandatories and which don't. Some do, some don't; with some, if the TV networks are not interested in a fight between the mandatory challenger and the Champ, the fight never happens, and the mandatory is a mandatory in name alone

4. which sanctioning body is more likely to strip a champion of his title when he fails to fight his mandatory challenger

5. which sanctioning body is less likely to strip a champion on some less important technicality to give their preferred candidate an easy title fight, and thus, a title.

Now, all of these bodies are corrupt and none uphold their own rules; they all make exceptions and bend the rules as and how they see fit, but generally, people complain about the following:

WBA - that they have a regular champ and a super champ; you become super champ when you unify a title; the regular champ, howevr, still calls himself Champ and makes good money on the back of that, even though his title cannot be unified. The WBA is also criticised for their poor rankings and for not enforcing mandatories all the time

WBC - poor rankings; slightly better, in my experience than the WBA

IBF - most currupt of all - have traded rankings for money; poor rankings; tend to strip Champs for no apparent reason; they didn't strip Judah when he lost to Baldomir, because Baldomir had not payed them a sanctioning fee, so Judah was allowed to remain Champ (wrong decision), but they stripped Calzaghe for refusing to fight his mandatory challenger Stieglitz (correct decision), - so, they go by the letter of the law, rather than the spirit of the law; sometimes, IBF Champs are worse than the WBO Champs; their stripping policy is very questionable.

WBO - very rarely enforce mandatories; once you are Champ, you pretty much fight whomever you want, as long as you keep in their good books; you never get stripped as long as your promoter is in with them; they rank whomever you want to fight in their top 15; poor rankings; on the other hand, pretty much all of their Champs are very good

So, if I had to pick one as the best, I would say it's the WBC, by a small margin, and if I was to pick the worst, I would say the WBO, by quite a big margin, with the IBF being the most currupt. The WBC is also seen as the slightly more prestigious. But as I said: sometimes the best beltholder in the division is the IBF Champ (e.g. HW) or the WBO Champ (e.g. SMW). It's the luck o the draw, really. Every contender usually aims to get a belt as soon as possible, no matter which belt that is. Lesser fighters usually go the WBO route because it's slightly easier and because it's not as hard to stay on top. Being WBC Champ it is slightly harder to remain, because they enforce mandatories more strictly. WBA and IBF are in the middle. But all bend the rules to suit themselves all the time...


So: in conclusion: The WBO has relatively good rankings but they don't enforce mandatories, so it's pointless that their rankings are relatively good. The IBF enforce mandatories but they rank even very poor fighters in their Top 15 for voluntary defences, so they give their Champs an easy ride - this is where the corruption comes in; they also strip Champs when they shouldn't. The WBA are middle of the road; their rankings are not as good as the WBO's, but they enforce more mandatories; they rank bad fighters in the Top 15, but not as bad as those rankes by the IBF; on the other hand, they don't enforce mandatories as much as the IBF, so if you are a Champ, you get an easier ride. The WBC enforces mandatories most of the time, but their rankings are not always the best; still they don't rank as many cans in the Top 15 as the IBF do.


But don't forget: they are all bad and the reason is: boxing is a business - they are trying to make as much money as possible, not to be fair.

Oh...everyone seems to have a different opinion about this topic, so don't be surprised to find many disagreeing with what I wrote.

 

Actually there are two WBFs:

World Boxing Federation:
http://www.worldboxingfederation.org/

World Boxing Foundation:
http://www.worldboxingfoundation.com/wbf/

As to the original question:
The 4 big ones are equally corrupt but they usually have the best fighters of the division to fight for their belts which gives them some respectability. It used to be big 3 but the WBO has reached the level of the other 3 in the last few years. Still some fans consider it to be less valuable. I've done a bit of a math a while ago when I compared the 4 orgs based on their champions' position on different indepedent rankings (Ring, Fightnews, IBO). The result was: 1. WBC, 2. WBO, 3. WBA, 4. IBF

The lesser belts are more like stepping stones for contenders and last chances for older fighters. Young prospects can get some international experience and fight 12 rounders for these trinkets also the fight is more marketable if it's for a belt of some sort.

 

of the big 4,the ibf has the least cred in my opinion.

 

In terms of blatant corruption and investigation by federal law yes. In terms of historical value its validity is certainly better than the WBO who`s mandatories over the years have been nothing short of farce.

When Tyson was the unified champ no one paid any attention whatsoever to Franceso Damiani when he won the vacant WBO title. In fairness though the IBF isnt that much older than the WBO by only 6 or so years. But the diffrence is there inaugural champs were far superior to that of the WBO or any of the lesser titles.The only diffrence being the IBF when created simply handed out there titles to whomever they thought was the best man in that said division.I believe Holmes relinquished the WBC to accept the IBF.

 

totally agree but the way ibf has stripped some of its holders has been mind boggling,they stripped jermain taylor for having an immediate rematch with hopkins&this is after hopkins held their title for a decade.

 

Don King was investigated along with the president of the IBF some years back. I believe there still under federal observation because of racketeering. There lack of consistency though is a rankling point. Much like the way they stripped Taylor and Hop, they did the same with O`Neill Bell even though he was injured.

 

they are very dodgy but they **** it up for themselves really,in the calzaghe/kessler,haye/maccarinelli unification fights they were the only governing body not represented which devaules their title even more.