by Chris Kelly: It is widely regarded common knowledge that a perfect boxing world would be restricted to one world champion per weight class. There can be no denial of the utter ridiculousness of the current state that boxing is in. With a vast and confusing barrage of boxers claiming to be the best in their respective weight divisions each holding or having at some point held one or more titles each claiming to be the ultimate world title you can see how the main stream and casual boxing fan may find the sport incredibly confusing and why even the most knowledgeable of fans tend to find it frustrating and upsetting all too often. Subsequently public interest in boxing has declined and rightly so it would appear. Years ago, when boxing was at it’s most popular; everyone knew who the best fighters were and who the champion was. They got to see the best fighters clash in often-epic battles for the prestige and glory of becoming the World Champion. Long since past have these great days. Would the Ali-Frazier fights or the Robinson-La Motta contests occur had those legends existed today? No. Not as long as the boxing system today makes it nigh impossible.

It seems that the solution to this problem is quite painfully simple. If the four main governing bodies (WBA, WBC, WBO, IBF) conducted their rankings together so that each had the same list of top ten contenders in the world then there would inevitably have to eventually become only one fighter holding all four of these titles in his weight class. What would benefit the sport further is if the big four hired an independent outside organization, such as BoxRec, to conduct theses rankings for them. This would render it easier for the public to see who is the best in each respective weight division and would be harder for fighters who don’t deserve to be in the top ten to get into them.

Here I have compiled a list of fights that in a perfect world would be held in order determine the one unified and undisputed champion in each weight class. In many cases this is simply one bout or a series of deciding matches between the various current champions. In others, certain current champions have been ignored in place of other fighters not in possession of any title. This is because often it is boxing politics and the greed of the sanctioning body that allows a fighter to become champion whilst the best boxers can be over looked.

Heavyweight

David Haye vs Wladmir Klitshcko (winner) vs. Vitali Klitshcko

Cruiserweight

Steve Cunningham vs. Marco Huck (winner) vs. Krzysztof Wlodarczyk

Light Heavyweight

Jean Pascal vs. Tavoris Cloud (winner) vs. (winner ) Chad Dawson vs. Bernard Hopkins

Super Middleweight

Winner of Super six tournament vs. (winner) Kelly Pavlik vs. Lucian Bute

Middleweight

Sergio Martinez vs. Felix Sturm

Light Middleweight

Miguel Cotto vs. Paul Williams (winner) vs. Antonio Margaritto vs. Ryan Rhodes

Welterweight

Manny Pacquiao vs. Floyd Mayweather (winner) vs. Andre Berto ( Mayweather vs. Mosley and Pacquiao vs. Cotto already serve as semi-finals as do their respective fights against Clottey, De la Hoya, Luiz Collazo, Hatton, Juan Urango and Marquez)

Light Welterweight

Khan vs. Maidanna (winner) vs. (winner) Bradley vs. Alexander

Lightweight

Humberto Soto vs. Juan Manuel Marquez

Super Featherweight

Roman Martinez vs. Takashi Uchiyama

Featherweight

Juan Manuel Lopez vs. Chris John (winner) vs. (winner) Elio Rojas vs. Orlando Salido

Super Bantamweight

Jason Booth vs. Steve Molitor (winner) vs. (winner) Wilfredo Vazquez Jr. vs. Toshiaki Nishioka

Bantamweight

Vic Darchinyan vs. Fernando Montiel

Flyweight

Koki Kameda vs. Pongsaklek Wonjongkam

Light flyweight/ Strawweight/ Minimumweight (to merge into one division)

Ivan Calderon vs. Roman Gonzales