Let's have some fun playing "what if" with history. Let's imagine that the WBA, WBC, IBF, and WBO had existed as far back as the early part of the twentieth century. How would boxing history be different? Would Jack Dempsey have been forced to defend the title between 1923 and 1926? Would Billy Conn have a "W 12 Joe Louis" on his record? How many "heavyweight champions" would we have by now? Would Jimmy Bivins, Charley Burley, Ezzard Charles, and many many more be multiple division champions? How many more titles would Henry Armstrong have won? How many fighters who never won titles, or even got a shot, would have won championships with four belts available? How many great matches would've been made that weren't, in the name of unification bouts and manditory defenses? How many great matches that did take place wouldn't have because of champions wanting to hold on to their belts and / or fear of being stripped? How dead would boxing be now had the alphabet boys done their thing much earlier?
IN short, the amount of Champs would become exhausting to follow... The great match-ups may have halved... SRR may have been 72 time M/W .. SM/W.. LH/W.. and H/W champ.. Both Turpin and Olsen would be come dual champs... Fitzsimmons would be the first man to gain 5 titles, at 5 divisions... The list is endless... and ludicrous... much the same as todays records.
armstrong would win the feather-super feather-lightweight-light welter-welter-light-middle-middle titles so thats a 7 weight champ billy conn would have still lost to Louis who he would have tried to KO in the 11th not the 13th
