by Rummys Corner: There are too many titles in professional boxing.
Most fans would agree with this point. There are too many sanctioning bodies in prizefighting. It is a complete mess of alphabet soup. The four “major” world sanctioning organizations today include the WBA, WBC, IBF, and the WBO (which was not considered a major world title back in 1999-2000 when we had our last undisputed heavyweight world champion, Lennox Lewis).
As if that was not bad enough, it is even worse. Within the WBC and WBA, they actually have multiple champions in each division, where the WBA can have up to four champions in a division at any given time, and with the WBC’s newest invention – the so-called “franchise champion”, they can actually have up to five champions in any weight class at any given time. It is absolute madness, and it waters down the idea of what it means to be a boxing “world” champion.
Another huge problem is that the sanctioning bodies recognize far too many weight classes. Not all fans would necessarily agree with that. But with yet another bright idea brought to us by the WBC, they are trying to invent a new weight class – Bridergweight. Amazingly the WBC has actually constructed a Top 30 list of their so-called “Briderweight contenders”. The lack of truly elite talents in their new Birderweight rankings is apparent upon a quick glance. In fact, if the newest WBC Briderweight rankings do not help make the case for weight consolidation, it is difficult to imagine what might.
So far the other sanctioning bodies have not joined in on the fun of adding a new division, but unfortunately – it is probably only a matter of time before the rest of the alphabet bodies follow suit.
This edition of Rummy’s Corner will attempt to make the case for weight consolidation, while providing opinions on why adding a new weight class is something that will only serve to further harm the health and popularity of professional boxing in time.