Did the wbo title matter in the 80's/90's ?

bailey · Jan 6, 2012

PityTheFool said: ↑

I'm not certain about this but I remember when Leonard fought Lalonde,reading that the WBC fought to get the division recognised so Ray could fight for the LH belt and force Lalonde to cut weight.
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I remember that also which discredits the WBC in that case

bailey said: ↑

Heres an old post from Aug 2011 about the WBO SMW title. Details have changed a bit since but can get the idea below

Where you have written for the WBO vs limited competition.
I just wanted to highlight some details to you.
The SMW divisions first world champs were WBC 1988, WBA 1987, IBF 1984 & WBO 1988.
Now for a start it is a new division so no belt has any more prestige than the other as they were all started at a similar time. So the WBO SMW title has no less prestige than the others.
Consider also that the WBO at SMW has been involved in 4 unification bouts.
The IBF has been involved in 2
The WBA in 3
WBC in 4 also
This shows that the WBO has been as willing to make top fights at SMW as much as any other governing body.

Now look at the list of champs in each and who they defended against and you can see that the WBO SMW title has produced the best defences overall better than all of the other govening bodies in this particular weight division so far.
Consider how much critism Bute gets now for his IBF defences.
Consider M Beyer defending his WBC title against 26-14-5 fighter who was coming off of a win against a 0-2-0 fighter
Or that Mundine when defending the WBA title against a 24-13-5 fighter who was the same fighter that WBC champ Beyer was defending against above.

People bring up Eubank who helped mould the belt that was good enough to give T Hearns a slice of history making. Out of Eubanks 18 WBO SMW title fights 14 of those fights were against fighters who were, had been or became top 10 SMWs. One was a unification and another was against the undefeated former IBF SMW champ (relinquished his title). In fact 6 of the fighters he faced had been or became world champs
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The highlighted part

pirao666 · Jan 6, 2012

pong said: ↑

it still should be worthless look at their lhw rankings for example

CHAMPION NATHAN CLEVERLY GB
1 Dmitry Sukhotsky (Int-Cont) RUS
2 Braimah Kamoko (WBO Africa) GHA
3 Eduard Gutknecht GER
4 Soulan Pownceby (Asia-Pacific) NZ
5 Marcus Vinicius de Oliveira (Latino) BRA
6 Robin Krasniqi (WBO Europe) GER
7 Kariz Kariuki KEN
8 Karo Murat GER
9 Andrzej Fonfara POL
10 Dustin Dirks GER
11 Denis Simcic SVN
12 Viacheslav Uzelkov UKR
13 Tomas Kovacs SVK
14 Isaac Chilemba MAL
15 Tony Bellew GB
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Look at the WBA welterweight rankings. Every ABC org has a paper champion in one or other division. At least the WBO doesn't creater "super", "regular" or "diamond" championships for no reason.

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Did the wbo title matter in the 80's/90's ?

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Did the wbo title matter in the 80's/90's ?

bailey Loyal Member Full Member

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