Thinning out the alphabet soup

In a sport that splits opinion and creates controversy like no other there is one issue that the boxing public have reached unanimous consensus on; it would be for the good of the sport to properly unify the titles and have just one, undisputed champion with one belt at each weight.

Just about the only people you are likely to find who would oppose this idea are the sanctioning bodies themselves and those individuals and groups who make money promoting, advertising, sanctioning, etc.

Having just a single champion at each weight would have numerous advantages. As it is now, boxing is a murky, confusing sport to all but veteran fight fans. It is very difficult for a newcomer to the sport to get a working knowledge the way they can quickly with other sports by glancing at league tables. As soon as they are familiar with the rules of actual fighting they are then overwhelmed by the sheer number of fighters and weight divisions and, even more confusingly, champions. It would be much more accessible as a sport, and have advertising advantages, if there was a clear champion and even a rough ranking system based on previous fights, like a league table.

Cutting back the number of belts could also help cover another of the sports blemishes by forcing fighters to face each other to have a successful career. There could be no hiding behind a belt, taking easy defenses and fighters would have to beat the established order and truly clean out a division.

The recent prizefighter tournaments have been a reasonable success and offer a glimpse of an alternative to alphabet title fights and regional and national titles would become the prestigious, crowd drawing events they were in the past. Perhaps had Amir Khan spent a few years toughening up the old fashioned way against solid, gritty domestic pros he wouldnt have suffered the defeat that set him back a long way in terms of credibility with the fans.


Everyone seems to be in agreement but do you think it will ever happen? What steps could somebody take and what resources would they need to bring a organised, structured image back to the sport?

 

:good

Even a half hearted attempt to cut the number would be better than nothing, instead of multiple world titles at each weight, have a less prestigious belt and a world belt to create another stepping stone on theold local --> national --> european --> world progression.

I really think this is the best way for boxing to get a grip on a real fanbase again. Good TV programming, similiar in format to football highlights combined with a arbitrary 'league' ranking system would pull in so many more casual viewers but it would mean a lot of people giving up their slice of the $pie$ and boxers/managers perhaps accepting more mandatories and slightly less freedom of negotiation.

 

Part of the reason the heavyweight division has been so abject the last few years. Boxings popularity with the public stands and falls it seems with having a poster heavyweight to capture the imagination. Since Lennox, who didnt coincide well enough with the Klits to have any real rivalry with them (the fight with Vitali aside) we were then left with the situation where the two brothers hold portions of the HW title between them, though they will never fight, thus there can never be a unified title unless someone beats both Klitschkos and whoever holds the spare belt as well. It looked like Haye was going to try to do what you say, and unify all the belts but see how that seems to be stalling now that he too has a piece of the championship.

Even if Haye signed to fight Wlad in March say, and won, he would then have 2 versions of the belt and at least one mandatory defense to make within the next 90(?) days. This prevents him pursuing unification at the moment, while the other champion/s have their own mandatories to fight. If one of them loses, they may then have to fulfil a rematch clause.

Years ago, when fighters fought ten or more times a year at the highest level this would have been fine, but now you can see how it is difficult, verging on impossible sometimes, to truly unify the titles. Sometimes you even get the ridiculous situation where a fighter holds, say, the WBA title yet is ranked by the IBF something like 6th place. You may find a fighter holding a portion of the title without being ranked by anyone of the other sanctioning bodies.

So we are left with a stagnant flagship division with two fighters who, while good, maybe verging on great, boxers have a bland to robotic style and lack the 'superstar' appeal to keep mainsteam interest high in the sport. Boxing fans so often get robbed of the great fights and they are in a position where they can sit on their belts, while the man everyone wants to see them fight, Haye, goes to win the other fragment of the title and instead of everyone fighting for the HW Championship the belt manages to keep the top fighters away from each other.

 

K, lets just talk about Pacquiao and Mayweather then, there is lots more original thoughts to be aired on that one still I'm sure atsch