Unpopular opinion?

Haney and stevenson will be champs.
Who do you suspect they will fight for their titles?

 

Ill take stevenson over valdez. I dont think valdez wants that fight though. Colbert is a more intriguing fight. Id like to see colbert vs shakur more the any other match besides crawford vs spence.

 

No... You gotta be the man to beat the man, and Hugo Centeno, Zaur Abduallaev, Abel Ramos, Hassan Ndam, and Joet Gonzalez are not and were never "the men"... Thus, the guys you mentioned are not legitimate champions imo, regardless of how good they are.

Nowadays, being a talented and marketable fighter basically guaranteees that the WBA or WBC will finagle or invent you a belt so that your status matches your skill level or hype... While I see their point from a financial perspective, this is exhibit B of boxing's decline.

 

I'll take Shakur v. Loma in a chess match, please...

As for Valdez, weren't you the one who said he struggles mightily with boxers/movers in sparring? As that's all there is at 130 nowadays, I wonder how long he stays champ.

 

I really don't like the upgrades with no fights (like what happened to Haney). That creates an incentive to collect these lesser titles and then sit on them in case you get lucky.

If they have to award interim titles, at least make the holder face the next mandatory in line and only upgrade the title if they win.

 

of all those the only one who beat a top 5 in his division was charlo when he beat derevyanchenko. all the others have worthless , paper belts that are only used as marketing ploys, so you can introduce these guys as "world champions" even though they are far from that. Haney, stevenson and murata have yet to face a top 10

 

Fury vs AJ will not be competitive

 

The problem is that each organization's rankings are blatantly finagled to clear a path for the guy who can generate the biggest purses & fees for that organization. NOBODY who follows boxing thought Joet Gonzalez was a worthy contender yet TR got him ranked #2 because they are trying to build up Shakur. I dig that it is what it is and whatnot but that doesn't make it meritorious and we shouldn't accept it.

In the case of a vacancy, two CONSENSUS top contenders (as ranked by common sense not corrupt organizations) should be forced to fight for it or they should order a unification (Ugas should have to fight one of the top 5 welters to be considered champion for example and it looks like he is in Spence). There should be no "interim champions"--these guys are just contenders. Prematurely giving contenders a belt makes it look like they've done something, making it less likely that they'll ever fight somebody worth a damn.

The WBC snafu at 135 is the worst case scenario of what can happen as a result of this ****ery: they have TWO dubious champions, as Lopez won the imaginary untransferrable "franchise" belt off Loma and Haney won his in an eliminator. They should be forced to fight immediately to clear up the WBC's mess (or get stripped), but will probably just beef on social media until one of them moves up.

 

What it needs is an International Boxing commission who control the world titles,One world champ per weight The Alpha's can keep their titles if they want but they with be named as The WBC Champ or The IBF champ for example but neither can claim to be the WORLD CHAMP!!!
Ask any non boxing fan in the street who the World HW Champ is & they'd probably say Mike Tyson people dont know them

 

You had me with IBF, then lost me with WBO.

I mainly follow heavy-weight, and as a Fury fan I was annoyed when the IBF stripped Fury for having a rematch clause with Klitschko. But objectively I had to respect that the IBF was standing up to the practice of automatic rematches which is somewhat of an annoyance for the modern fan. But then a few years down the line, the IBF didn't strip Ruiz Jr. for having that same clause in the Joshua contract. So it seems all the sanctioning bodies make moves to attached themselves to where the money is.

I say this to say, the IBF isn't perfect. But it is the best of a bad bunch.

Having said that I just can't get behind how the WBO are behaving regarding mandatories in the Heavyweight division. It's been 3 years since a mandatory (Hughie Fury) fought the champion (Joseph Parker) for the title. Since then they ruled that Dillian Whyte would be displaced as mandatory by Usyk in accordance with their rule book for a champion stepping up a division. Fair enough... But now instead of enforcing the mandatory status of Usyk, (remember it's been 3 years since their last one) they are now making Usyk fight what is in effect a final eliminator to face the champion. Putting up road blocks and potentially aging out Usyk. People are happy with it because Joshua has more fans and all eyes are on undisputed, but it's blatant corrupt practice.

The WBO are hell bent on devaluing their own belt. What will the title even be worth if the undisputed champion (Joshua/Fury) drops it, and Usyk is elevated?
(special shout out to Crawford who is probably regretting that he ever went the WBO route at Welter)

But yeah I agree. IBF are #1

 

The Charlo situation is not bad because Canelo never fought at 160 after that. The situation at 135 could have been completely avoided if the WBC just ordered #1 and #2 to fight which would have been Campbell vs Haney. Charlo is the legitimate WBC champ at 160 but Haney have to legitimize his belt by at least facing someone in the top 5.

 

Yes
I think colbert or shakur school valdez.