When did WBO become a respected belt

Like I said, I consider one WBO champ (Lopez) to be the actual champ of the division currently.

If you're one for 18 ... that's not the "most" legit.

 

Late 90s when Klitschko had it.

 

You hold the WBA higher than the IBF?
The WBA has 4 champs in each weight class......
The WBA are the biggest joke in boxing closely followed by the WBC.
At least the IBF and WBO call mandatory's.
As for the original question it started becoming recognised around the time of Senior and Naz

 

Everyone ducking Inoue.

 

No word for Usyk in Japanese, but rest assured the lesbian from Yokohama wants that smoke.

 

When they were recognised by fellow organisations.

Back in the day the WBC champ was unable to unify and often dropped the belt very quickly.

Warren spotted that meant a long term WBO belt holder could hide behind the lack of unification due to the politics.

Guys like Hamed, Eubank, Calzaghe all were long term WBO belt holders, but were also superstars that other organisations wanted.

Plus De La Hoya often chased the WBO belt.

And it basically meant as we approached the late 90s some guys were the best in their division despite being WBO belt holder, which ten years earlier would never happen (think Damiani).

Without the dedicated WBO belt holders being mainstream stars it wouldn't have happened imo, same as it hasn't for IBO.

 

Naseem Hamed
He was one of the top fighters in the world and when he unified he always gave priority to the WBO belt .
He was bringing in all the money so other champs were more then willing to fight him, even if it ment they would be stripped.

 

It's also notable that the WBO catered to Hamed and made sure he didn't have many rules.

 

I still don't consider it as legitimate as the other 3 but maybe that's just old bias. I always see the wbo holder as an outsider looking in when discussing who actually reigns supreme over their division.

 

It didn’t officially become recognize until September 18, 2014 when Hopkins defeated ODLH. Hopkin was already recognized by Ring and the other sanctioning bodies as the Undisputed champion with the WBA/WBC/IBF already in his possession.

When he accepted that WBO belt and carried it with the other 3 it finally was 100% legitimized by the other sanctioning bodies. Before that guys had to drop the WBO in order to fight for the other titles. From that point on it was necessary to have the WBO along with the other 3 to be considered Undisputed.

 

Too many belts, they are pretty worthless. How can you legitimately have 4 world champion in 1 weight class?