Imagine a World Unified Champion Tournament

By Boxing News - 08/08/2010 - Comments

By Tom Graves: Imagine a boxing tournament in which was structured to unify all of the main worldwide sanctioning organizations’ (WBU,WBC,WBA,IBF,IBO & IBA) champions from every weight class, from straw weight up to heavyweight.

This sort of tournament would be the biggest event in boxing and would be what the FIFA world cup is to international football/soccer. It could happen every four years in order to make clear who the best boxers of that current time are. Although the separate sanctioning bodies are separate for a reason coming together for a big event like this would generate millions of pounds for them and do great things for the sport of boxing in which currently lacks mainstream interest.

It would be structured by having knockout bouts in which the top contenders of all of the sanctioning organizations rankings in all of the weight classes fought each other until there would be 8 top contenders for every weight classes title holders. While this was happening the current world title champs would fight each other in knockout stages, the winner of the champions would then face the winner of the contender’s bouts resulting in a final to be the unified champion of the world and there would be in every weight class.

Currently there is the super six middle weights tournament which is good for boxing but does not include all the champions from that weight class and is only in one weight. Obviously my plan is a bit rough on the edges and some closer details would have to be sorted out such a vacant titles, the time in between fights and length of the rounds and number of rounds in the bouts but it has major advantages too, such as boxers couldn’t avoid each other once in the tournament and there would be no messing around with catch weights or excuses like blood testing or location of the fight.

If this were to happen now, imagine the super fights that this tournament could potentially create, Klitschko(s) v Haye,Kessler v Bute, Cotto v Spinks, Marquez v Soto, Berto v Zaveck, Khan v Alexander and that is just some of the current champions let alone the pound for pound kings and top contenders fighting like Floyd Mayweather, Paul Williams, Manny Pacquiao, Chad Dawson, Sergio Martinez and Andre Ward.

If something of this nature happened I believe it would be pronominal for boxing and would revolutionize this great sport and help bring back that magic in which boxing once thrived on.



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