FAR TOO ‘REGULAR’
Why the WBA must stop diluting world titles
IMAGINE the laughing stock football and FIFA would be if, shortly after staging a tournament to crown the World Cup champions, another one began to establish the ‘regular’ World Cup champions. But that wouldn’t happen because it would be absolutely ridiculous, so mind-bogglingly ridiculous, in fact, that even the most desperate England supporter would struggle to embrace such a contrived trophy.
Yet the World Boxing Association, the oldest sanctioning body, continue to make a mockery of boxing’s history, but more so themselves, by recognising multiple ‘world’ champions in each division. Despite announcing in January 2017 that they would phase out such mayhem, they have 29 ‘world’ champions across 17 divisions, averaging 1.7 per weight class.
It’s true that some divisions only have one WBA champion. Bravo for that. But others are cluttered beyond belief. Take the bantamweight division, for example, which is showing zero evidence of a phasing out process. Between March and May this year, the WBA sanctioned defences for ‘regular’ champion Jamie Mcdonnell (who lost to Naoya Inoue) and ‘unified’ champion Ryan Burnett (who defeated Yonfrez Parejo) and had the gall to classify Reymart Gaballo’s victory over Stephon Young as an ‘interim’ championship-winning triumph. Furthermore, there is no obvious system in place: there are ‘super’ champions, ‘unified’ champions, ‘world’ champions, ‘regular’ champions, champions ‘in recess’ and ‘interim’ champions. Seriously, come on.
This practice makes an already confusing situation atop the sport completely mystifying.
This past Saturday we were told that Rocky Fielding was the new WBA supermiddleweight champion – taking his place alongside WBA super-middleweight champion, George Groves – after he dethroned Tyron Zeuge in Germany. This is not intended as a slight on Fielding’s efforts, because Rocky and his trainer Jamie Moore did their country proud by defeating Zeuge on away turf, but it is a plea for some sanity to prevail. Fielding deserves so much more than to have his victory undermined by utter confusion surrounding the title he won.
One day later, Manny Pacquaio collected his umpteenth ‘world’ title when he became the WBA welterweight champion after halting Lucas Matthysse. Again, not a knock on Pacquiao, just a knock on the WBA, who also call Keith Thurman the WBA welter champion.
Before that Kuala Lumpur bill we were told that Bin Lu would win a world title in record time, in just his second professional fight, if he could dethrone the WBA lightflyweight champion, Carlos Canizales. But the WBA crowned Hekkie Budler as their new WBA light-flyweight champion just six weeks ago.
As boxing fans we have been choking on alphabet soup for long enough, while begrudgingly accepting, as we struggle for breath, that the four major sanctioning bodies have split the world title into quarters. Yet it seems some fans and media are willing to accept this WBA ‘regular’ title as yet another world championship. Well, if that’s the case, let me introduce you to Manuel Charr, who, like Anthony Joshua, is the WBA heavyweight champion of the world. Come one ‘regular’ champion, come all.
To be clear, I do not blame Pacquiao or Fielding or Charr for any of this. If I was them I’d parade the title with all my might too. The efforts of a boxer should never be underestimated. But to simply create more titles for them to aim at is unnecessary. There’s no reason – bar the obvious riches to be gained from sanctioning fees – why these bouts should be anything more than eliminators.
Think about it, if the current system was in place in March 1986, Frank Bruno would have been WBA heavyweight champion after flattening Gerrie Coetzee in their eliminator four months before he lost to WBA heavyweight champion Tim Witherspoon. The public would not have accepted it then, and they shouldn’t accept it now.
In short, there is nothing ‘regular’ about ruling the boxing world. It should be one of the greatest achievements in sport. It’s time for the dilution to stop.
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