The heavyweight title is universally regarded as the greatest This content is protected in sport. Even when fighters fought for a mere fraction of the sums that modern day heavies demand there was always the glory of being champ to spur them on. Fighters have gone to extreme lengths to obtain the crown and even more sxtreme lenghts to hold on to it. I often find that there are 2 huge questions asked...... Who do you consider as thee historical benchmark in the HW division? And how do you deal with all the multiple pretenders to the throne....this question has dogged boxing for many a year. The answer to the first question is easy .....John L Sullivan. By the mid 1800's society on both sides of the pond frowned upon boxing, regarding it as a barbaric sport (which in those days it probably was lol) It was banned in the UK and also in most USA states, at that time This content is protected fighting was pushed to the fullest of its margins. John Sullivan changed all that. He popularised boxing pretty much single handedly, not to mention becoming its first superstar in the process, he also gave the sweet science respectability. At the time when bare knuckle fights were slowly changing to gloved matches he was the main man in the eyes of a great majority of the sports few fans.In a nutshell....he was the first. The second question is more to do with the integrity of the HW title. When Jim Jeffries retired unbeaten in 1905 he nominated the next 2 fighters who were to fight for the prestigeous crown. Jeffries however, was an unbashed racist therefore it was no surprise that that he named two very indifferent white men to fight for his recently relinquished crown, Marvin Harte and Jack Root. He had overlooked the legitimate claims of some very talented black fighters in the process, Jack Johnson and Sam Langford to name two. 60 years later a different type of travesty took place, one sanctioned by the very sports governing body itself. The world Boxing Assosiation stripped Ali of the crown for nothing more than agreeing a re-match with one Sonny Liston. The WBA conducted its own tournament and duly installed the winner,Ernie Terrell, as champ. This was probably the first unpopular/politic related decision of the part of the boxing authorities. There were long, farcical periods of time where rival organisations trumpeted their own champions. (the start of the alphabet title fiasco lol) Real unification fights were quickly becoming something of a rarity. A statement that carries a lot of weight the world around was one that was spoken by Riddick Bowe in 1992 at the time he became the latest champion who had the title taken from him buy a bureaucrat instead of an opponent.......he said "Boxing titles are won and lost in the ring.In order to be a champion you must fight a champion and beat a champion." Over the past 120/130 years there has also been a lot of fantastic fighters within the lower divisions.....George Carpentier,(a true ladies man who brought women spectators flocking to watch him fight) Sugar Ray Robinson, (still regarded as the finest boxer to grace our earth) But none of the lower divisions seemed to possess that element of razamataz that came with the Heavyweight division where men would wear there pride, heart and soul on their sleeve and fight there hearts out to be one of the few who could say...." I WON THE GREATEST This content is protected IN SPORT"
