Winning the Commonwealth title

You keep it when you win it

 

commonwealth is like the interim british title imo
means nothing compared to the british title

 

That does seem to be the prevailing opinion, if not in line with how they were historically meant to be viewed.

This was discussed several weeks back:

http://www.boxingforum24.com/showthread.php?t=501245&page=3

To me it seems a natural progression of magnitude, the same way a state title here is subordinate to a national title, which in turn holds less water than a continental/North American title.

The Commonwealth is larger than Britain which in turn is larger than England, which in turn is larger than its constituent areas.

Kind of strange - to an outsider - how the hierarchy got *******ized and the Commonwealth title unofficially degraded in esteem to be less than British on its own (let alone outright)

 

you know what it is mate
it's because all the commonwealth countries are poor at boxing.. it's all african countries, asian countries, Austrailia, Canada
hence why at the commonwealth games in boxing. england, wales, scotland and northern ireland - dominate.

most mandatory opponents for the commonwealth wouldn't even be in the top 20 in the domestic Uk divisions.

boxers struggle to get up for fighting some ghanian punchbag with a padded record it's like a cover up to fighting a journeyman.. the commonwealth title has lost a lot of credibilty.

 

That is all fair enough. That needn't even be taken as racist (though some are sure to spin it that way), that's just the fact of the matter as far as the strength of amateur programs and proliferation of gyms and quality coaches in those parts of the world.

 

theres more to it than that and you know it.. some countries of massive populations have really terrible stats regarding boxing, there can be no excuses there. The whole continent of Africa is overall very crap at boxing.
Some top individual sportsmen come out on top no matter what,self determination is a big thing. Some of the best sportmen in the world got to the top wihout help from no one. Plus some of the countries you may think have little facilities/ coaches ... actuallly have everything on a plate you'd be surprised w.. Some of the gyms in eastern europe are total shitholes yet they churn out constant top boxers. Most of Calzaghe's career he was training in a shed. etc

 

Definitely the worst belt out there. Every design - and there's been plenty has looked utterly shite.

 

It stood out more when they won the cup, even if it did look a bit cheesy...

 

Its like the uefa cup winners cup it should be scrapped

 

british > commonwealth

 

I think that boxer's aren't really interested in the commonwealth title until they realise that they don't have much chance of winning the British. Other boxers seem to use it as a stepping stone to the British (George Groves). So with that thought, I view it as a step down from the British belt. Lee McAllister for example won 2 belts at light and light-welter I think. I watched a couple of his defences and they were pretty much walkovers. At that time, the likes of John Murray and Kevin Mitchell would've been in their prime and would've been more legitimate challengers. John already beat Lee so picking up the commonwealth may have been a straight forward win in his eyes.
If you also include Micheal Katsidis who was at his peak in that time, there's plenty of boxers around who could've picked up that belt but just weren't interested in it.
It's got nothing to do with geographical size with this belt, it's just a belt that's not well thought of.

 

The Commonwealth title is a major title and should be respected. I suppose it's value dropped over the years because promoters were making their fighters vacate, so upcoming prospects could pick up a title.

 

Another reason is that it's not a natural geographical progression. Regional>National>Continental>World is a natural progression and the commonwealth just doesn't fit into that. The Commonwealth is just a group of countries that were under the British Empire which itself doesn't even exist anymore.