An Argument for Alphabet Titles

(Although I would rather just 1 title per division, I was thinking about some of the good things about alphabet titles)

Opportunity- every fighter has the chance to become champion. Now that might sound stupid. But think of the days when certain fighters were just completely ducked. Floyd Patterson refused to fight Sonny Liston for over 3 years, and in the past there have been much worse cases. At least with the alphabet system, you can pick a particular group, pay their sanctioning fees and eventually become a mandatory challenger.

It encourages activity- Imagine top level fighters fighting 4 times a year. That is not a bad byproduct of being an undisputed alphabet champ. Each group has a yearly mandatory, and if a fighter actually met those requirements, boxing would be better for it.


People often compare boxing to other sports, and argue "what if there were 4 super bowl champs"- but that is not really a fair argument, because boxing is a world sport, and the sports that it is usually compared to are American sports. After all, the NFL champ does not play the CFL champ or the NFL Europe champ. And look at college football, how champs do they produce each year.


Boxing is starting to look like it did back in the turn of the 20th century. Back in the era of John L. Sullivan, every newspaper had their own champion(with there own belts)and the public paid little attention to the titles. This gave the fighters incentive to fight each until there was a general consensus as to the real champ.

I would like to see a sort of world series of boxing. Tournaments

Boxing needs to evolve. Maybe I should start paying more attention to MMA.

I am tired of whistling Dixie. I am also tired of hearing other people whistling Dixie. But what can we do about it? We have no power or say so in this matter :( We are nobodies. Even as paying customers, we ain't jack cheese.

Ah, theres nothing like a bit of optimism on a wednesday afternoon ;D

I think more emphasis should be put on District/ Regional & Continental rankings ... When a fighter is comming through the ranks he should literally have to fight his way out of his neighbourhood, out of his home town, out of his state, away from his costal area, out of his country, off his continent and on the world stage.

Instead of the WBA, WBA interim, WBA super Champ and WBA imeritus title (huff, puff, deep breath....)
Why not have WBA (city) WBA (county) WBA (area) WBA (country) WBA (Continent) and of course WBA (world) WORLD champion?

That makes for a far more fluid and prestigeous ranking

Yeah, alphabet titles are great. Zab Judah retaining his IBF title for losing to Baldomir was awesome, for instance. Here's another example from just today:

http://www.boxingtalk.com/pag/article11660.html

(WBA mandatory ruins Diaz-Freitas unification)

What we need is one boxing authority, a body like the NFL, NBA or MLB that controls fighters schedules that has a comprehensive and understandable ranking system even the most casual fan can follow. The mandatory is actually a mandatory and the only way to get out of fighting him is to fight another champ. And each division should be reduced to having only 2 champs and there should be NO SANCTIONING FEES to hold a title.