Was David Haye Undisputed Cruiserweight Champion? Please vote!

Haye beat every fighter worth fighting in the joke cruiserweight division. Seriously I hope Haye is never mentioned as a former cruiser champ again after the Valuev fight.

 

He held the WBC and WBA titles as well as being the linear claimant.

It would have been good to add the IBF title to his collection, but it wasn't to be.

In summary.....

He held 2/3 titles and was linear - that's good enough for me, with the IBF as a caveat clearly.

 

He beat the WBA and WBC and Ring Champion away from home. He then beat the WBO champion. It's almost impossible to hold all the belts. In this case he is Undisputed because he has 3/4 and the Ring belt, which is far more valuable than the IBF alone in this case.

 

No. He had the WBC and WBA but didn't have the IBF.

 

If you're going to count beating someone who got stripped of the title (or beating the man who beat the man ... who beat the man who got stripped of the title) as having some claim on that title then it's possibly to have several undisputed champions at the same time.

If you refuse to fight a sanctioning body's mandatory challenger then you're rightfully not their champion anymore.

The Ring title and linear title are not the same thing and neither have anything to do with being undisputed champion.

 

in the same way that everyone called calzaghe undisputed champ...and lucian bute was sat at home looking at his ibf belt in a very confused manner

 

He wasn't undisputed, as he didn't hold the IBF title.

 

Yeah sorry I read that bit after my post.

It seems strange to take the WBA's definition of an undisputed champion what the idea has been around, and accepted to mean WBC, WBA and IBF champion, a long time before they mentioned in what is obviously a move to justify creating another belt. I don't think we can take them seriously. Besides, what if the WBC, say, created a completely different definition of an undisputed champion.

In my opinion Haye was by far the best cruiserweight, but what's boxing coming to if we're going to give people credit for things they haven't done yet. So many arguments could be resolved if people realise there's a difference between being the best and being the champion. You see people who support Wlad Klitschko and think he's the best trying to argue that he should be the undisputed champion because he holds (and they include the WBO, IBO and Ring titles) x out of y titles. If he's the best let him prove it.

And while Lewis was undoubtedly the best heavyweight in the world, he wasn't undisputed champion after he was stripped of the WBA title.

 

No, he wasn't in the traditional and technical sense, which meant holding the IBF, WBA and WBC

However we're in a transition period where people are beginning to call the recognised best in a division the 'undisputed' champ, in this modern sense Haye was as near as you can get

 

No he wasn't. He was lineal and the best in the world at the weight but the IBF recognized someone else as champ (Cuningham) so by definition he wasn't 'undisputed champion'.

That said, I don't think he had anything left to prove at the weight.

 

so...what do we learn from this?...that the ibf title has now become worthless ?

march 2008...david haye was being regarded as 'undisputed' champion...but could steve cunningham holding his ibf title belt watching his tv not dispute it...even a little bit.

 

No.He wasn't undisputed because of a technicality but common sense suggests he was.If you apply the everyday definition of undisputed you'd have to say that he was.Cunningham won a vacant title,is that really disputing the #1?

People who claim Haye wasn't usually use Adamek to support their claim which is clearly way off the mark since Adamek had only just stepped by that time and had done nothing of note at CW.