Mostly unrecognized championships

I say mostly because the fights I’m talking about, someone sanctioned as title affairs.

Let’s dismiss other belt holders from recognized sanctioning bodies (i.e. the ‘other’ heavyweight champs during Larry Holmes’ reign) in the ages of multiple belts. So a John Tate holding a WBA belt while Holmes is the ‘real champ’ isn’t what we’re talking about here or we can list probably hundreds of split championships.

I’m talking about more obscure claims.

For instance, Nevada recognized Archie Moore as heavyweight champion when he beat Nino Valdez a couple of weeks before Rocky Marciano defeated Don Cockell. Nevada sanctioned Moore-Valdez as a heavyweight title fight apparently on the basis of Marciano refusing to face either man (he beat Moore in his next and final bout, so while no one outside of a bureaucrat or two in Nevada really considered Moore to be champ, the Valdez fight did serve as an eliminator and the IBC said as much when a rep stated that Marciano must fight the winner).

Then there’s the curious case of the WAA. I list it, even though I hope this won’t devolve into WBF and other equally jackleg ‘sanctioning bodies’ because it’s first title claimant, lightweight Sean O’Grady, was an actual recognized champion.

O’Grady beat Hilmer Kenty for the WBA 135-pound title. He was instated as the WBA’s top contender after a review of his fight with Jim Watt, which ended on a cut caused by a deliberate butt that everyone but the referee acknowledged. That meant Sean leapfrogged Claude Noel for the mandatory spot and Noel sued. The judge ruled that the Kenty-O’Grady winner would have to face Noel within 90 days — and, for some reason, he ordered Bob Arum’s Top Rank to promote it.

Well Sean’s manager/father Pat O’Grady wanted his own outfit to promote it — another of his sons from one of his five or more marriages headed the promotional end of the family boxing biz, at least in name (Pat controlled everything). So he refused to let Sean fight for Arum and Sean was stripped of the WBA title.

But there was still interest in Sean from the networks, particularly CBS, and most considered him still a champ. Enter the WAA (World Athletic Association), which Pat O’Grady founded and loaded with O’Gradys and friends of O’Gradys as officers, including Champ Thomas, who had already written a book and I think an couple of songs about Sean.

Sean was supposed to fight Howard Davis in defense of the WAA, with CBS on board. But Howard twice pulled out due to training injuries. Enter Andy Gannigan, the hard-hitting Hawaiian southpaw, who filled in for Davis on short notice. The ‘Hawaiian Punch’ knocked out Sean in two rounds and was thus the WAA champion.

The WAA existed for a few years, making Sean’s brother-in-law Monte Masters its heavyweight champ (until stripping him when he split with his wife, Sean’s sister) and even a few champs not from the O’Grady clan. And Champ Thomas, the president of the WAA, apparently went rogue and sanctioned some fights in Denver without Papa Pat’s permission so he was fired as president … but then the WAA split and there were two WAAs recognizing ‘champions’ for a short period of time.

Gannigan never defended (or maybe even claimed personally) the WAA title but he was a champion of a sort for a hot minute there.

Any other tales of forgotten ‘semi/sorta’ champs?

 

In what was was a guy who was recognized by the WBA and IBF not recognized as champion? Underappreciated isn’t the same.

Please read the topic — nobody recognizes Archie Moore as having been heavyweight champion of the world, but at one point Nevada called him that. I’m talking about more oddball titleholders who the world didn’t consider to be champions. Not ‘he was good but people don’t realize how good he was’ types.