Quote Originally Posted by Bomp View Post
Two sides of looking at everything, yes unification is a good thing, but fighters who work up the rankings must have a way of turning the champion's hand. Otherwise the only fighters who'd get shots would be fan friendly guys and the sport would be turned even more towards being a glorified popularity contest.

However annoying Witter may be he earned his shot the first time round by going approx 20 fights unbeaten, paying his sanctioning fees, and facing everyone the WBC wanted him to face that were willing. It would be even easier to freeze out awkward high risk/low reward fighters if these mandatory procedures weren't in place. Anyway, bottom line is that Bradley is a young guy and could easily fit in a mandatory before chasing another belt.
Alot of this was down to TV too. Bradley wanted to face Alexander but Showtime said they had no interest in the fight and Bradley felt that without TV the fight didn't make much sense financially. I can see his point. Really, Alexander and Witter could have fought an elimanator as a build up. If Alexander were to beat an ex-champ, then maybe TV companies would show an interest.