What does the saying "you have to really beat the champ to take his title" mean?

[brocktonblockbust]

to me bro, it means the champ is the chamo and to win the title you have to win it convincingly, its not like 2 guys who neither is the champ , and one shaves the other one by 1 point, etc. No champion is gonna get shaved by 1 point, its gotta be 3 points to shave a champ. Or a KO of course

[bradlee180]

A challenger has to TAKE the World Title away from the Champion.
He's not supposed to be there to stay away from the Champ, avoiding contact.

It's bizarre that it even has to be verbalized, but if a man's a world-class professional fighter, then he's being paid to fight, not to skedaddle around the ring avoiding conflict.

A man has to demonstrate that he's there to fight and to beat that Title out of the current Title Holder.

[IamInuit]

A challenger has to TAKE the World Title away from the Champion.
He's not supposed to be there to stay away from the Champ, avoiding contact.

It's bizarre that it even has to be verbalized, but if a man's a world-class professional fighter, then he's being paid to fight, not to skedaddle around the ring avoiding conflict.

A man has to demonstrate that he's there to fight and to beat that Title out of the current Title Holder.

True enough but its still a ten point must system and that is fallible enough with subjectivity being disguised as objectivity in many cases. Signing onto "you have to really beat the champ to take his title" can amount to a champion winning rounds he should not which we see all the time or even being ahead on the cards before the fight even starts as may have been the case in order for Ross to have her card in the Alvarez/Lara fight. The notion has like most others the came from the middle of the 20th century been bastardized today. Today in many cases because of dollars and future plans guys that find themselves in the position Lara was in have to almost stop "the star" to get a points win.
That was not even a title fight. This brings up another point. Had Lara's title been on the line and because of the styles and future economic potential between the two, that phrase could actually be changed to "you have to really beat the star to defend your title"

On the other hand,

The phrase came from a one belt era and to me that is a big difference. Today you have a lot of posers and paperweights claiming to be world champions. There are more belts in each division then there are elite fighters. Titles being held captive and a risk and reward world that has changed its stripes.

To me the phrase applies to "undisputed" champions and imo its the only time the phrase has validity and rightly so. Two examples that have always connected it to me in my lifetime are Hagler/Leonard and the two Taylor/Hopkins fights. I've scored the Leonard/Hagler fight more then any other and at the time I never liked either guy as a Hearns fan but I cant get past a draw or sd for Hagler. Leonard stole rounds and never brought the fight and Marvin was the only champion having beat the lot and Leonard came off a 3 year hiatus. Leonards star power imo won the fight not what he did and the fact that Marvin was the undisputed champion to me was the kicker. Same with Hop/Taylor. The new HBO poster child verses the bad ass Philly x-con that HBO never liked. Bernard was undisputed and had cleaned out the division by beating all the other champions. My line in the sand on this one is if Taylor did enough to take all of that work from Bernard in the first fight then he did enough in the second to get it back.

[Ron Swanson]

It's a nonsense statement that is yet another excuse to ignore what happened in the ring.

If the challenger has to do significantly better than you your championship is fraudulent and thus meaningless.

The sport needs to drop all these cliches that are nothing but excuses to deny the truth. Fans seem to act as though they hate when fighters make excuses but fans make excuses incessantly. Describe the fight as it happened and decide the winner as it happened.

[powerpuncher]

It's a stupid concept. The person who did better should win the fight no matter who the champ is.