GUEST COLUMN
The WBA is making a mockery of boxing history
The WBA is up to its old tricks again
AT this stage of the game Manny Pacquiao vs Adrien Broner – who collide on January 19 at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas – is a big fight in terms of name recognition alone. Even though “Pacman” is recognised as WBA welterweight champion (along with Keith Thurman), neither Manny or Broner are seen as a real threat to Errol Spence Jnr or Terence Crawford atop the division.
Broner has much more to prove. Pacquiao has already surpassed this level, he is very close to the end of his career and his legacy is secure. At almost 40, even just being able to compete at this level should be admired and applauded. But as great as Pacman is, there is obviously a reason why they picked Broner and not guys like Spence or Crawford at this time.
A loss would be excused as him just being caught at the wrong time, like any one of a number of defeats suffered by Archie Moore, Willie Pep and Sugar Ray Robinson at the very end of their careers. For Broner, I’d argue, a victory will mean more.
But please don’t call him a world champion if he wins.
Today, just about every major fight is being contested for some version of a ‘world’ title. There was a much better era when men like Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier could go against each other with a simple North American Boxing Federation title belt on the line, as they did in their first rematch in 1974. But today is the day when world titles are manufactured to make fights appear more meaningful than they really are.
I don’t believe most boxing fans even know or even care who holds what titles. They are all just lost into one mass of interchangeable belts. Few know which ones are legit, and which are manufactured.
The WBA is to blame for this. It’s up to them to regulate their own belts. They are the ones who are supposed to control the titles and the rankings but their greed has overcome all sense of decency and pokes fun at boxing history.
A promoter knows that he can deceive fans just by adding some kind of belt to a fight poster and create the illusion of world championship boxing.
So the promoters can take a small portion of the blame, but it’s up to the sanctioning bodies to not create the bogus titles in the first place.
Boxing has never been perfect, yet this is a symptom of the modern game that should be eradicated. It can all be attributed to the greed of sanctioning bodies creating needless titles and demanding sanctioning fees in the process. How dare these people actually encourage the dilution of the world championship belts and undermine their history. The sanctity and the respect for world championship belts is being slowly destroyed.
Nothing whatsoever against Pacquiao or Broner, but surely the fact that the winner of this so-called WBA welterweight title fight won’t be the only WBA welterweight champion says it all.
And it gets worse. Canelo Alvarez is claiming he will be a three-weight world champion if he beats Rocky Fielding next month.
I respect and appreciate Canelo but I wish someone of his level would speak the truth about today’s boxing business. Callum Smith is already the WBA champion at super-middleweight as I understand it. More than one ‘world’ champion in the same weight class under the same ruling body is something so nonsensical that if I didn’t see it for myself I never would have believed it. Some divisions have three - THREE - WBA champions.
My final thought is this: Imagine multiple WBA champions from the same weight class showing up to a fight card. As they take their place in the crowd, the announcer welcomes the ‘WBA champion’. How would it be decided which of the two or three guys gets to go to the ring and take a bow?