How do heavyweight boxing championship titles work?

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Unlike sports I’m more familiar with who have strong central authorities and therefore one way to become a champion, I’ve never really understood how the pieces all fit together for heavyweight boxing.

I’d be very grateful if someone can please paint a picture for me that covers some / all of the points below:

* In what different ways can you be a heavyweight boxing champion? For which orgs?
* What does it mean to be the undisputed champion or lineal champion, and are there any other kinds of champion I’ve missed here?
* What gives you the right to challenge another champion to take their position?

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3 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

WBA is the oldest boxing association. WBC was started in Mexico for international rules, but WBA didn’t want to give power up and so still exists. IBF started up in the US, saying the WBA is corrupt. WBO said they can be better, but no one cared for a long time. The Ring is a magazine that said “we can pick better fighters.” People went along, because why not. If they suck, people stop caring, but so far those 5 have become the most known.

Really, you can call yourself champ of whatever you want, until you flight someone with another belt. Make up your own magazine or website, decide who your champ is. If they would win in fights against other fighters, you’ll gain credibility. Then you “unify” the belts. Different boxers, countries, promoters, use one lineage over another because they think it’s better, but it’s about money and who wins against other fighters.

Each body calls a different number of defenses “Super Champion” or “Undisputed” but they’re always disputed. It’s all market and hype. Winning all 5 major governing body belts is tough. That’s a lot of fights. 

Canelo Álvarez holds all 5 super middleweight belts. If someone beats him, any of the 5 can vacate the title if whoever doesn’t meet their criteria, and then there will be a “Unifying” fight to sell tickets or gets betting going.

Anonymous 0 Comments

Someone else has explained why there are different organisations, but to flesh it out:

Generally, Unified means the boxer holds at least two of the world champion belts at their weight class (eg WBA and WBC). Undisputed means the boxer holds all of the “main four” world champion belts at their weight class (ie WBA, WBC, WBO, IBF) plus usually the Ring Magazine title. There are other smaller organisations who hand out world titles, but they’re less recognised/regarded.

Lineal champion means “I’m the guy who beat the guy, who beat the guy, who beat the guy…” all the way back to that first world champion. But, it’s not a well supported thing. Sounds great, but in practice, with boxers retiring, or suspended/banned (either for drugs (Fury) or legal/political reasons (eg Ali)) then returning and winning, it makes it messy.

What gives you the right to challenge another champion? Well to quote Don King, “you don’t get what you deserve, you get what you negotiate”. Boxing organisations run ranking systems, but at the end of the day, it’s money (and sometimes fan pressure!). Ranked boxers might voluntarily step aside for a pay out, or be ignored with little punishment for the dodging champion. It’s a messy messy thing, and the biggest gripe of boxing fans.

Anonymous 0 Comments

It’s a bit of a mess to be honest. There’s about 4 different titles whose holder would legitimately be considered a “world champion.” Often attempts are made to unify these titles so someone can be called the “unified” world champion and that’s usually what’s required to have the status of what would’ve been a true undisputed champion.

The problem that often occurs is you have different contract obligations with each title. They all have their own “contender list” and you’ll often have to forfeit the title if you don’t fight their contender next. Since the lists are different it could be impossible to meet the terms of all of them and usually the goal of a world champion is to set up the highest profile highest paying fight possible. So you get a unified champion when they win a title and then slowly the titles peel away and the buildup for a new unifying fight begins.