Methinks not. Now that all the meaningful fights can be seen by everyone around the world, we don't need the concept of a world champion. It is easier and more accurate if we decide ourselves who is the best of each division. Take Errol Spence for example. I don't know which belt he has, if any. I don't know if he has any type on lineal legacy. I do know though that he is the best welterweight out there. If some other welterweight starts beating up other contenders in an impressive fashion, the question of who is the best welterweight is up for debate again, until the two settle it or it becomes obvious in some other way. At no point do we have to even think who is the champion, since it doesn't matter. The same with it heavies. That Gvozdyk guy who killed Adonis has a lineal title. Kovalev is the best known and has some belt. Bivol and Beterbiev are there. Who is the champion is meaningless, who is the best of them is intriguing. Now, at some point there will be fighters who are so clearly above the rest that everyone agrees they can be called the champion, and that's fine. However we shouldn't try to find a champion, rather try to find the best fighter
I agree to an extent. I never used to care about anybody as a "#1 Champ" unless they had the WBC belt. The WBO sort of broke that mold by having good guys holding their belts, Klitschkos, Hamed, etc. The IBF started it even earlier in the mid 1980's with Spinks and Holmes and Pea. Now none of it matters. It should be fan-based, we want to see X vs Y, belts be damned. Sanctioning bodies played a great role in this to be honest, with their Emeritus, Diamonds, Silver, etc etc stuff. Fuck it, McGregor probably got more to fight Mayweather than anybody else ever did and he didn't even have any FIGHTS, never mind a belt.
We haven't really needed it for a long time already now. "Champion" is only used for promotional reasons. The sanctioning bodies have been corrupt forever but it's not just about them. Increasingly promoters and networks refuse to make big fights because everything is risk/reward. To make matters even worse there are often grudges between them complicating things further. In an ideal (boxing) world there would be true world champions. No debate. The guy holding the title earned it and is the best until bested. To the original point most avid boxing fans have done away with the concept years ago.
I'm not sure if we would need the concept in an ideal world either. I used to hope that there was one universally recognized, non-corrupt sanctioning body, but now I don't think it would improve anything. Back in the days when there was 'a true' champion, all the media was champion-centered. If someone didn't get a title shot, for whatever reason, they were hardly known by anybody, even if they were as good as the champion. Concentrating on a champion keeps our view limited
Of course we still need it. Always will. Even the PBC with its billions of $ has given up trying to prove it's not necessary.
The PBC deemed the WBO not a major sanctioning body. Of course that would all change if a PBC fighter won a WBO title
The fans don’t necessarily need it but the fighters sure do. They need something to push and strive for other than just winning a particular fight. A championship gives fighters a dream and a goal to achieve as well as maintain. The politics of the whole thing can drain the point out of it, but that all goes out the window for that fighter who drops to their knees in tears after winning their first title.
This might be true. Concrete goals are more important than one would think. I have seen fighters get highly emotional and motivated even for belts that are obviously bogus and practically been mail-order by their promoter friends. However, the next generation of fighters might not need the championship status anymore, if we stopped talking about it. It is more of a cultural thing than anything else
“Champion” on the promo equals $. A local fighter becomes a draw when he ‘makes it’ and wins a world title. It lets casual fans know that this is big time, world class boxing. This is the time when multiple belts are more indispensable then ever. Stupid post-modern Euro trashy thread!
I agree that simple people will see title belts as important achievement, even though they mean nothing
I don't have any idea who the champions are ... if you gave me a form to fill in where each of the forms corresponded to one of the four main sanctioning bodies and had each weightclass blank for me to try and fill in ... I'd probably get 10% and it would simply be chance/luck They don't actually mean anything in the sense of what "champion" is intended to indicate in a competition. There's no logic to them at all. They continue to mean something though because they continue to be used as a promotional tool geared towards non-fanatics ... the casual is used to sports making at least some degree of sense so the casual needs "championships" to be persuaded to watch the fight ... so the promotions use it ... it's self-perpetuating
It's not necessarely as simple as you imply. Sure, short time is beneficial to have a lot of champions as a title belt is a promotional tool to increase the visibility of a fighter, but long term, how many fans were lost (or not hooked up) due to not being able to keep in touch with whom the real top class boxers were or by being forcefed shit while it being advertised as ice cream ??? I had this argument with a guy not to long ago who claimed (and I'm not saying I have the right answer for sure) that Bute, even though he was obviously a paper champ, was good for boxing in Quebec as he increase the sport's visibility and brough a lot of mainstreamers. I told him that in fact, I thought he hurted boxing in the province has now, a lot of these mainstreamers had turned on the sport precisely because they were sold something thant was not as advertised and that all of our fighters (even far better one such as Stevenson or Pascal) were though of as jokes. If multiple titlists i sso good for the sport, than why does the sport's visibility keep decreasing in recent years, when there have never been so many recognized champions, while the UFC has caught up by simply having a single champion in their own (much less numerous) divisions.
As the sports visibility decreases belts become more and more necessary so fighters can alert the public that they’re the ones to watch. The UFC is a closed league representing a fraction of MMA and a fraction of those guys are making real money. That’s fine for a tiny sport like MMA that’s mostly made up of hobbyists but boxing can’t sustain itself without the hope of real money for the decent fighters. You guys don’t get it because you don’t want to get it. You want to keep whining about the same shit and starting the same stupid shit threads that never amount to anything.
The Concept of "Champion" is Definitely Necessary... Always Will Be... Sure, Certain Fighters REACH a Point Where a Title Belt Becomes Meaningless, But UNTIL That Mountain Has Officially Been Climbed, They Very Much NEEDED Their Belts... Errol Spence NEEDED that IBF Title Win Over Kell Brook...Sugar Ray Leonard NEEDED That WBC Title Win Over Wilfred Benitez...Larry Holmes NEEDED That WBC Title Win Over Ken Norton...Winning Those Fights/Belts Rubber Stamped Each of Them... Canelo vs. Kovalev is POINTLESS w/Out a Title Belt @ Stake...Ditto for Roy-Ruiz or Any Other Light Heavyweight Champion vs. Heavyweight Champion Matchups in History... It Sounds Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay More Impressive Referring to Manny Pacquiao as an "8-Weight World Champion" than Merely Stating "He Beat Some of the Best of His Day, Spanning 8 Divisions"... The Latest Wave of Unifications Bouts Proves Title Belts are Still Relevant, Also...In the Case of Prograis-Taylor, REED's More Intrigued by 140 Getting THAT Much Closer to an Undisputed Champion Than the Idea of Winning a Tournament, the Ali Trophy or "Probably" the 2 Best Jr. Welters in the World Colliding... It's Not Absolute, But in THIS Particular Instance it Goes w/Out Saying They're "Probably" the 2 Best Jr. Welters in the World; They're Each CHAMPIONS...DUH!!!... REED
REED Was Never a Fan of the Guy and Felt He was 1 of the More Infinitely VULNERABLE Champions in Recent Memory, but Lucian Bute was Definitely GOOD for the Sport in Quebec, in REED's Opinion... There's NO Downside to Drawing the Casual Eye... The Onus is On Broadcasters, Media and Hardcore Fans to EDUCATE Those Casuals AS They're Watching...Let Them Know WHY the Guy They're Watching is Considered Good or WHY You Feel he's Overrated...Give Them Names of Those You Feel are Better, Share Footage of that Person w/Them, etc... Yes, Casuals are Stupid...As Fuck...But @ Least ATTEMPT to Educate Those That are Willing to Learn Something New... Back to Your Point, If Joshua Loses Again to Ruiz, Boxing's Mainstream English Appeal May Take a Hit, but it Won't Mean Joshua was BAD for the Sport On His Side of the Pond...Not @ All... Is Boxing's Visibility REALLY Decreasing???...There's MORE Boxing Available for Public Consumption Today than @ ANY Other Time in History... REED
THIS... It Means Soooooo Much to Fighters that Even @ a GrassRoots, Local Amateur Level, They Hand Out Title Belts These Days, as Opposed to Medals or Trophies...@ Least the Dallas Golden Gloves Does...And Those Kids Could've Fought 3 Hours Prior, Yet They're Proudly Walking Around in their Trunks and Shit, Belt Around Their Waist or Draped Over a Shoulder... EVERY Fighter Dreams of Having Friends/Family Escorting Them to the Ring, Carrying their Belts, Defending Them, Saying "And STILL" Afterwards and Adorning Themselves to Celebrate Victory... Probably 80% of Fighters Speak of Winning "that Green Belt" @ Some Point...And As you Mentioned, How Many Fighters Cry Like Newborn Babies After Winning that 1st World Title as a Pro???... It'll Never NOT Matter to a Fighter... REED
