When did the WBA start with having a Super, Regular, Interim, etc. belts?

I thought it was because of the WBC being forced into chapter 7 bankruptcy in 2004 after losing the court case with former champion Graciano Rocchigiani in 2003. The WBC lost a 31 million dollar judgement. These worms decided they could squeeze more sanctioning fees out of the fighters by creating all these titles.

 

I believe the "super" was created for the Roy Jones and LL situation, so they wouldn't have to fight a mando every 3 months, but back then (2001?) it replaced the standard WBA belt
Later on they just added the other belt as "regular", added the "interim" and sometimes even a "unified" one to create more money and confusion.
About 2004, maybe 2005 is a good guess.

 

Roy Jones vacated the LHW belt. Rocchigiani beat Michael Nunn for the vacant belt. Then Roy Jones decided he wanted to keep the belt. The WBC stripped Rocchigiani, and gave Roy Jones the belt back. Rocchigiani sued them and won.

 

The WBC is not the WBA. They both have become irrelevant jokes, that will had out belts to anyone. Or allow you to fight any bum you want as long as you pay enough for your sanctioning fees.

Luis Ortiz vs Matias Ariel Vidondo for the WBA Interim Regular HW Championship. Take that in for a second- Matias Ariel Vidondo. I had never heard of the guy. Are you telling me that Matias Ariel Vidondo was the #1 ranking best available HW in the World to fight for the vacant title?

Deontay Wilder vs Johan Duphuas. Another so called top raking World class HW according to the WBC. Never heard of him either.

 

The WBA followed suit in 2008 I believe, with there own designations

 

Don't forget the WBA Champion in Recess

 

The WBA has around 24 champions I believe in one form or another. Crazy.

 

Don't forgot some of these belts as well.

1.WBC Champion Emeritus.
2.WBC Silver Champion
3. WBC Diamond Champion...

1,257. WBC Southwest London Champion

 

I found this:

Sooo ... it was all Lennox' fault


In almost 15 years since the first fight for a WBA super belt, there have been 3 (!) mandatory defenses by WBA super champions.
Those are:
Hopkins vs Joppy
Klitschko vs Povetkin
Donaire vs Walters

That's all.

Notes:


- Are the 18 months over yet?

Some keepers of the "regular" belt wait a long time for the mandatory defense.
Funny stuff, if the super champion changes, he get's a new set of 18 months as mandatory defense period 8not to mention that the WBA doesn't really care about those 18-months-limit).
In cruiserweight, the title was won by Mormeck, gone to Bell (RIP), than back to Mormeck and in the next fight to Haye.
By that time, Virgil Hill was very upset, that he didn't get his rematch with Mormeck with the WBA belt. He thought, that Mormeck/Bell would have to fight him 18 months from the date of Mormeck vs Braithwaite. But when Bell won the belt, Hill was told, that Bell had 18 (new) months, til he has to madatory defend against the WBA regular champion (him, Hill).
So Hill chose to make money (rematch with Maske and hoping for a rubbermatch). Later he was demanded to make a mandatory defense against interim champ Arslan.


- Don't trust the WBA

Instead of fighting his mandatory defense against Travis Simms, Shane Mosley was allowed to fight a unification with Winky Wright. Simms received a signed contract, that the winner of Mosley-Wright would have to fight him within 90 days.
But instead of enforcing this mandatory defense, the WBA allowed Mosley and Wright to do a rematch. Simms never got a compensation nor was interested in stepping aside.
But suddenly the WBA stripped Simms for the title for not fighting a mandatory defense against Alejandro Garcia.
Simms later sued the WBA and got a title fight with Jose Rivera.
Wright moved up to middleweight and vacated the belt.
Later "super champions" @ 154lb never had to do a mandatory defense


- super-duper-champion

A long time ago, you have to had another belt, when you want to be WBA super champion. There was a time when the WBA only recognized the WBC, the IBF and (of course) themself as a major sanctioning body.
When the fight between Virgil Hill and Darius Michalczewski was postponed, there was absoluty no time left for a IBF mandatory defense against Williams Guthrie. The IBF stripped Michalczewski. So did the WBA, cus by that time, Michalczewski was missing a belt of another sanctioning body in the eyes of the WBA.
Michalczewski remained the WBO champion and was considered the lineal champion (like his succeders, Gonzales and Erdei).

Some years later, you could be super champion out of a sudden.
In 2010, Felix Sturm was somehow super champion ... so he didn't had to care about a mandatory defense (18 months? hahahaa)

In 2010, Miguel Cotto was somehow made a super champion between his fights with Yuri Foreman and Ricardo Mayorga

The first "i'm somehow super now"-guy was Chris John in 2009. The WBA liked, that he paied sanctioning fees since 5 years (or whatever) and made him super champion.
So Yuriorkis Gamboa moved up from interim champion to regular champion ... but in 2010, Gamboa and Salido fought for a vacant IBF belt, while Gamboa still was the WBA champion.
Now the WBA had two "super champions" ... Gamboa and John. I remember Kellerman calling this rubbish ... but the only thing happened, was that the WBA later had a "super champion" and a "unified champion".

By now, you can't be really sure whether you are a super champion or not, if you win a title unification includind a WBA title.
Might be, that one wheight class could included up to 4 WBA champions (super, unified, regular, interim).


- oh yeah ... mandatory ... sure ... yeah

Did i already mention that almost no one (with a super-duper-belt) has to do a mandatory defense?
A masterpiece in this point is Andre Ward.
Ward got his super-guy-status in when he beat Kessler in 2009 (like John, Cotto, Sturm, there was no other belt).
Several fighters captured the WBA regular belt in the following years ... Ward was never forced to fight a mandatory defense. It could have happened when Froch was the WBA champion ... but Froch wasn't interested much in Ward.
6 years later, Ward was still the WBA super champion although he never fought a mandatory defense and although he didn't fought in that weight class for 2 years.

He had to vacate the title by himself ... seems like the WBA would never have stripped him by the belt.


- I'm a worthy world champion ... yeah

So who do you wanna fight? The #1 of the weight class? The master of them all? The guy who brings the crowd?
Might be ... than you maybe want to fight the guy with the super belt.
You want the regular belt? For what? He would never have to fight you as mandatory challenger ... except you are Povetkin.
If you are ambitious fighter you better run for the other sanctioning bodies. Get the #1 spot at IBF or WBO or WBC ... than you might be in a mandatory defense soon.
Just think about ... how many mandatory IBF- and WBO-defenses has Klitschko fought? Peter II, Rahman, Chambers, Thompson I, Thompson II, Austin, Fury, Pulev, Leapai ... and how often he had a WBA mandatory defense? Just one.

So what's happening? Most "good" fighters of a weight class don't care about the WBA regular belt.
Macelino Masoe had to be buried out to get an opponent for Evans Ashira. No one knowed Masoe.
The challengers for the WBA regular belt are often laughable.

Wait ... what? You don't care for the #1-guy? No one in you country knows that fighter? You just want to grab a belt and let yourself be called "world champion"? You wan't to be promoted as world champion and you wan't to have fight posters with "world championship" written on it?
Hey ... you might be in europe ... you probably are in germany (like me)!
So get that WBA regular belt against average joe. Almost no strong fighter would like to challenge you (those guys ask for the #1 of the weight class). Less than 1 percent of your spectators know names like Bernard Hopkins, Jermain Taylor, Sergey Kovalev or Andre Ward? They don't know that there is a "super champion"?
Perfect. Grab that belt and be a world champion.
Probably the majority of your fans doesn't even know that there are several world champions in each weight class.

Really ... german television had some trouble to explain that both Klitschko and Povetkin are WBA champions.

They called Maske a hero cus he beat "world champion" Hill in their rematch. They didn't mention that Hill beat lesser known Valery Brudov for that title.
They didn't mention super champion Mormeck who had beaten Hill previously.

 

- oh ... an interim belt

hey ... why not paying sanctioning fees and fight for an interim title.
The WBA has plenty of them.
Will the regular champion ever do a mandatory defense against the interim champion? Maybe ... but don't expect him to do so.
What happens, if the regular champion will be promoted to super champion vacates his belt (move to another weight class f.e.), will the interim champion be the new regular champion? Maybe ... not.

Daniel Jacobs and Adrien Broner fought for vacant WBA regular titles while there were already other guys with interim belts.

Dmitry Chudinov won the interim belt in 2013. When Golovkin was made a "super champ", Daniel Jacobs was allowed to fight Fletcher for a vacant belt. Chudinov lost the belt to Eubank.
Do you expect Jacobs or Quillin to fight a mandatory defense against Eubank?

Johan Perez won a super lightweight interim belt in 2013. Later Jose Benavidez had it.
When Jessie Vargas moved up to welterweight, the 140lb weight class was the only weight class with just 1 single wba world champion ... interim world champion Benavidez.
But Broner was allowed to fight for a vacant belt with Allakhverdiev.
Do you ecpect that Broner might be asked to make a mandatory defense against Benavidez? I don't think so...


tl;dr
the WBA is a mess
the super champions don't have to do mandatory defenses
the regular champions are often weak
the challengers for the regular title are often weak
the interim title is even less worthy (than the interim silver WBC title)