When ranking fighters on all-time lists, how important are world titles?

Depends what they did with that title.

If they fought evey one and clean out a divsion, I put a lot of weight in that.

That pretty much proves they were the best of that time frame.

Which heavyweight were better than Louis or Ali or Marciano in there time frames reins?
Not many if any at all.

 

In the more modern era what you say might be necessary becasue of the watering down of the belts. For older eras I think belts are one of the only ways you can judge a fighter "fairly" without being subjective as to what skills and style is more important.

People who like defensive fighters or offensive fighters tend to rate those fighters higher. Recognized fighters also doesn't mean better fighters either. Promotion giants are good at making fighters look like they are the best without necessarily being the best.

In the examples below the fighters were not well recognized and for the first three not even as skilled as the fighters they beat. They will definitely be under recognized by boxing history.

Recent examples:
Calzaghe was suppose to get beat by Lacey and suppose to get a tough fight from Kessler.

Pacquiao was suppose to be beat by Barrera, Morales, DelaHoya, Hatton, etc.

Hatton was suppose to get beat by Tsyzu

Wonjongkam was suppose to get beat by Kameda

 

P4P lists and rankings have more to do with promotion and business than it has to do with being the best. Even title orgs have the same problem, especially now, but they are not as bad as rankings because titles have to be defended, rankings do not.

The fighters that usual get the short end of the stick are unpromoted champs from other countries and the lower weight divisions. Most champions we don't even get to watch on tv.

Ever heard of most of the guys on this list?
http://www.secondsout.com/rankings?ccs=298&cs=24173

 

From the standpoint of someone like me, who isn't as historically savvy in many eras as many here, it's harder to be recognized if you don't have a title to stand out in my addled little mind. Therefore, they get short-changed.

Should it matter? No. We all know Langford was better than almost anyone who was given a chance. And he's just the tip of the iceberg.

 

Winning a championship is a big achievement. There are hundreds, thousands of fighters active in each division, beeing the one who holds the championship is big. But with beeing champion comes responsibility. The responsibility to defend the title against the best challenger available. If you don´t do so, it hurts your legacy and the importance of your title.

This is all true for the not as linear recognized titles as well, like the belts around today, the black championships of the past and even the commonwealth or european championships.

 

I think from say 1995 onward it's fair so say that winning a world title (or not as the case may be) should count little when it comes to a fighter's standing.

That said, the point is fairly moot because most fighters seem to want a trinket to help to sell a fight...... but citing Pacquiao as an example, is his win over Hatton any less valuable (disregarding Hatton's mental issues since the Floyd loss) any less valuable because Jose Sulaiman didn't put a title on the line?

Given that Hatton was generally regarded as the #1 in the division, fresh from a dominant stoppage victory over probably the 3rd best fighter in the division at the time I've got my doubts.

It's blatantly obvious that fighters and TV use the belts as a way to generate more buys, and why not in some cases..... whereas in the days of Ali, Foreman etc to be the champion (when there was only 1) was huge.

If by some miracle the alphabets would merge or go bust or something and there became a way to crown a genuine #1 other than a magazine committee's say so it would be huge again in my opinion.