Remember The Days Of Just 2 Belts?

The belts double every 20 years

 

Multiple belts result in what Mr. T called,,,,paper champions.

 

2 belts is already enough imo when you think that Guts Ishimatsu really got beat by Duran for the WBA title,only to come back a few months after to get the WBC title.

It does gives some divisions that has a too dominant champion some break at times.

 

Shows how ****ed up boxing is that I look back fondly on the days when there were only two belts, when there never should have been more than one.

 

When I went head- long into boxing in '73 - where I just gobbled up everything about the sport - there were 11 weight classes and dual champions in all classes except welterweight, jr. middle, middle, light heavy and heavy. It was tolerable and I could name every champ and tell you something about every contender and journeyman. To be perfectly honest, I could also name the Euro, commonwealth and British champs, but that was how I immersed myself in the sport and it wasn't hard with all the newspapers covering the fights and every boxing magazine out there getting knee-deep on every fighter. Friends of mine who were not into the sport could name or talk about fighters because it was all out there and compartmentalized in an easy to follow bracket ( I still remember a buddy of mine saying to me, "What do you think of that Napoles guy?" Because he had just read a fairly lengthy article in the paper about his defense against Roger Menetrey). How the money-grubbers killed the sport was expanding on weight classes with 4 champs in every division to the point where you just can't follow it. Also, fighters don't fight anymore. Once or twice a year doesn't form a fan base. Back then Danny Lopez, Jimmy Heair and Armando Muniz were fighting so often that when a magazine would come out, they would be covering a couple of their fights in each mag because they were fighting every number of weeks (it seemed). A sport is going nowhere when the die-hard can't follow it, never mind the guy on the street.

 

I should also mention that the magazines covering the sport hated this dual champion thing. "It's bad for boxing!" they would say. How little we knew.

 

True, with the addition of more belts, each belt lost it's value.

 

I remember when there were two belts and there wasn't a super middleweight, cruiserweight, bridgerweight or a strawweight division.

Or 'interim' or 'regular' champs, either.

And weigh-ins were the day of the fight. Sometimes in the late afternoon of the actual evening fight.

Doesn't seem that long ago.

And you know what?

Even though there were only two per division, champions didn't unify much back then, either.

 

I still struggle to see the 80s belts as legitimate

When they're all separated I respect them in the order of their history; wbc, wba, ibf, wbo. So I will rate a WBC over any other single strapper or evenly with a unified. I still see the IBF and WBO as just parts of the WBA so, imo, when the split was WBA/IBF/WBO= Joshua and WBC = Wilder, they were even in my eyes. One had a real historic belt and one had gathered all the fragments of the other historic belt, making his really just one. Resume excluded, never could match AJ's resume.

I don't really often share that, just being honest about how I see the belts here.

It's like... yeah ... okay ... I'll recognize the rules and call the WBO or IBF champions, champions, but that's it. This reg ****, y'all gone too far. I'll only recognize those guys as champions as like a matter of fact situation explaining the rules and belts.

 

I don't think unifying was ever ultra-popular unless it was for a humongous purse. All unifying did was cost the champion an additional sanctioning fee to these money-grubbers calling themselves sanctioning bodies. But to change the subject, you know what else was cool back in the day? 15-rounders. Man, they were special. That separated the men from the boys. That made a world title fight something you got dressed up for.

 

Maybe it's because the WBO and whatever else coincided with my temporary falling of interest in the game, I simply didn't recognize those belts as world titles. You have to draw the line somewhere, and I, for whatever reason, drew it there. They were never world titles to me, and I never did accept their existence. It might as well be the old WBC Intercontinental title, or whatever the hell it was.

Keeps things streamlined, you see.

 

The networks had something to do with this. They could have drawn a line in the sand but didn't. And lets not exclude the promoters.

So the powers that be could have put a stop to it. They did not & contributed to it.

 

i actually don't hate it.

it's not perfect and is confusing for everyone but hardcore fans (that includes me)

but helps people get paid for fighting. so good.