THE WORLD IS NOT ENOUGH
Investigating the real value of a championship belt
ICOULDA been a contender.”
In 1954 a line like that meant something. Terry Malloy, played by Marlon Brando in On
the Waterfront, viewed becoming a contender as the unobtainable dream. There was no mention of a world title, no thought of being The Champ. Back in the fifties there was no place for such delusion. The Champ was feared, dominant, respected and singular. Malloy was a dockworker.
Now, however, Malloy wouldn’t set his sights so low. Scrap contender, he’d want a Silver title, a Regular title, an Interim title, and that’s before cracking the top 10. He’d then campaign for a vacant world title fight against some 37-year-old Italian on some undercard in some half-empty Vegas casino. If he sat
tight, he’d get it. The fight, the belt, the right to call himself world champion, a lifetime membership to an oversubscribed club.
“Having a world title means everything to me,” says WBC cruiserweight champion Tony Bellew. “There are some world champions who shouldn’t be world champions, but I’d like to think I got mine the hard way. To be honest, the WBC title was the only one I was ever really interested in. All the great champions of my childhood held that green and gold belt. Muhammad Ali, Sugar Ray Leonard, Mike Tyson, Nigel Benn, Roy Jones, they all had one thing in common: that green and gold belt.”
Ignore the fact the belt was vacant and Bellew, to his credit, won his world title the way fighters used to win world titles. In 2016 he went into a high-profile fight as underdog, showed cojones to battle back when decked in round one, and then stood toe to toe
and outgunned a puncher, eventually coldcocking Ilunga Makabu in the third. Better yet, Bellew did it at Goodison Park, home of his beloved Everton Football Club.
“I didn’t make a ton of money that night,” he says. “It was one of my smaller recent purses, in fact. But money can never give me what that night gave me. I know people will laugh and say it’s all about the money, but I will take that night and the money I got over £5m and a loss. I don’t know many fighters who would do that, but I would. That was the night my dreams came true. That night I was finally able to call myself a world champion.”
Bellew’s next fight, scheduled for March 4 against David Haye, will have no title on the line. It will, instead, take place at heavyweight, a division in which neither man holds a belt. Still, it matters not. The fight carries appeal, it sold out London’s O2 Arena in double-quick time, and it will do good business on Sky Box Office. Which, I guess, begs the question: who needs titles or rankings or even a sense of order when you stand to make millions of pounds on hype and histrionics alone? Not boxers, that’s for sure.
“Big fights are the only things that interest me now,” Bellew admits. “I’ve lived the dream. I’ve done what I set out to do. For someone like me you’ve got to look at it like this: if you’re playing a video game, I’ve clocked the game. I’m trying to get the bonus things out of the game now. I’m trying to get the special gun. I’ve exceeded my expectations in this business. Now the only thing left to do is secure my kids’ future. That’s my plan. It’s got to be purely big fights from now on. Massive fights with big purses.” When one considers Bellew’s alternative options were cruiserweights like Oleksandr Usyk, Murat Gassiev and Mairis Briedis it becomes easier to understand why he has momentarily abandoned his precious green and gold belt and opted for Haye. Moreover, with entertainment and storyline never more crucial to the financial success of an event and its participants, it’s distinctly possible world titles and world title defences, those things which often serve only to complicate matters, will soon be viewed the way a teenager views a VHS tape. Artefacts from a bygone era.
“When we’re selling the package to fighters, the ultimate goal is to be a pay-per-view fighter,” says promoter Eddie Hearn. “The stack of pay-per-view fighters might only be 1 per cent, but every fighter’s goal is pretty much the same. They all want to achieve. They have dreams, they have targets, belts, et cetera. But they all want to earn as much money as possible. And the longer they’re in the game, the more they focus on the money.”
Historically speaking, the seven stages of a world title belt are as follows: Stage One, you belonged to one world champion, The Man, and the whole world knew it; Stage Two, you were wrapped around the waist of one of two champions in a weight division; Stage Three, you were wrapped around the waist of one of three champions in a weight division; Stage Four, you were unified with at least one of the other belts; Stage Five, screw order and unification, you attached yourself to one of six or seven champions in a weight division; Stage Six, you were important to a world champion because their television network needed a world championship on the line in order to promote an upcoming fight; Stage Seven, you are now important to a world champion because you might aid their pursuit of a pay-per-view windfall.
“I feel like a little bit of the glory has gone from the game in that respect, because I’m all for winning world titles,” Hearn says. “Some, like [WBA super-lightweight champion] Ricky Burns, still have an old-school mentality, though. Ricky was going to either fight [IBF champion] Julius Indongo in a title unification or Paulie Malignaggi. He would have made about 30 per cent more fighting Malignaggi and it’s a much easier fight, in my opinion,
WHO NEEDS TITLES OR RANKINGS OR EVEN A SENSE OF ORDER WHEN YOU STAND TO MAKE MILLIONS OF POUNDS ON HYPE AND HISTRIONICS ALONE?”
but he said, ‘No, I want the unification.’ Not many would do that nowadays. You’ve got the manager saying, ‘Listen son, you’ve got an easier fight with 30 per cent more money. Don’t be a tit.’ Of course, you’ve got to chase the money. It’s a brutal sport. You’re getting punched in the head. You’ve got to get what you deserve. But it’s nice to have the ones who chase the glory as well as the money.
“For fights and fighters with a smaller profile, the belt is everything. But, once you get to a certain stage, the belt becomes less important. Anthony Joshua versus Wladimir Klitschko, a unification fight, is a good example. If that was for just one belt or for no belts would it sell one less pay-per-view? No. Once you get to an elite level you actually become – and the sanctioning bodies won’t like this – more powerful than the belts. In the meantime, winning a world title can give you the profile to go to that next level.”
Britain currently has 10 ‘full’ world champions, yet it’s tough to make the case for many of them being the number one in their division. This speaks to the fact a fighter now only has to be good to become a world champion, not the best, and that holding on to a world title in this day and age requires intelligence rather than dominance, and that often a fighter’s biggest win is avoiding their biggest threat.
“It doesn’t mean as much now,” says WBO lightweight champion Terry Flanagan. “I can call myself a world champion but so can [WBA champion] Jorge Linares and [WBC champion] Mikey Garcia and [IBF champion] Robert Easter Jnr. It’s not as special as it might have been. A world title just leads you to unification fights or a move up [in weight class]. There’s now world title level and elite world title level. So even if you have a world title to your name, that doesn’t mean you are elite level. You have to prove it against the elite fighters in the division.”
Pay-per-view can’t be the promised land for everyone. A champion like Flanagan, for instance, may well be able to beat every lightweight in the world but that doesn’t necessarily mean he has the ingredients required to make fights against these lightweights pay-per-view attractions. He’s not alone, either. Jamie Mcdonnell, the WBA secondary bantamweight champion, also knows the likelihood of him ever using his title to bag a pay-per-view bonanza is zero to none. At 118lbs he works boxing’s graveyard shift.
“It’s tougher to make a name for yourself and shine in the eyes of the general public when you fight in the lower weight classes,” Mcdonnell says. “I’ve done a lot in my career but I still don’t get the spotlight of an Anthony Joshua or Kell Brook. I can’t help being little. I’m just happy to have that world title. Being a world champion means you’re one of the best fighters in the world at your weight and that’s a great achievement. Also, when you get to the top, the money is better and I can provide a better life for my wife and baby. You’ve got to keep winning and keep that title otherwise the lifestyle and nice things will go away. You’ve got to stay there because you see the difference in money. As long as you’ve got a belt and you can keep that belt, doors will open. They might not open in six months or even 12, but they will open.”
Flanagan and Mcdonnell seem acutely aware of their ceiling. They are both good fighters, two of the best in their respective divisions, but they know a world championship belt only provides temporary satisfaction. It’s fast food. It’s a loan from the bank. It is something which gives them fleeting status and security, a foundation on which to build, yet ultimately counts for little if it doesn’t lead to a lifechanging payday.
“Money is important because that’s what supports you and your family,” says Flanagan, “and big money comes with success and the big fights. If a big fight came up at 140lbs, I’d move up two weight classes and take it. I’ve won my world title and I’d like to get others and unify the division. I’d also like to get world titles in other weight classes. But the thing you want more than anything is a big fight.”
Hearn, meanwhile, issues a bleak prognosis to world champions not called Anthony Joshua when he says, “If you’re not built during the process of becoming world champion, you will never get the chance to exploit it when you’re there. I use people like Billy Joe Saunders and Terry Flanagan as examples. They’re not earning the money they should be earning for being a world champion. They’re not filling arenas and they’re not driving audience numbers because they haven’t been built along the way.” George Groves was certainly built along the way. Rivals helped, as did his swashbuckling style and ability to self-promote, but he was built all right. He sussed the game early. He maximised his earning potential. He also once explained to me how his goals had shifted as a result of two world title defeats to Carl Froch. “I always said I wanted to be a world champion but I didn’t really give a s**t,” Groves said in 2014. “I just thought of all the things that went with being a world champion – the recognition, the fame, the money. They were more important to me. But actually, now I’ve got a bit of money, I do want to win one. I want to win one just to say I’ve done it. I don’t want to win it for anyone else but myself. That’s a nice feeling. It’s nice to know it has become important again.” It may no longer mean you’re the best in the world, but, for some, a championship belt still means the world.