Which is more important lineal title or alphabet soup (WBA, WBC, IBF, WBO) title?

[iamasadlittleboy]

Their was no same shit different pile option so I was unable to vote.

The only two things that carry ANY weight at all are the lineal crowns and Ring Magazine.

All the other organizations exist to charge sanctioning fees for "title" fights and therefore ALWAYS want there to be champion they can charge (regardless of legitimacy) and hence are corrupted at the core. None has any validity at all.

For the word CHAMPION to have any useful meaning? There can only be one per divisision and it must be won in the ring fighting the existing champion if he is active. If it isn't clear? There is no champion.

As an extreme example is the WBA. The WBA RIGHT NOW has THREE featherweight champions. THREE!!!!!!!!!!! NONE of whom has fought the other. It also has TWO champions at 140, 160 (neither of which is Sergio Martinez), 168 and 118. It's NUTS!

In Ray Robinson's day there were 8 champions in the sport. Now there are somewhere around 100 just from the four largest organizations. Does ANYONE want to make the case those "titles" mean remotely the same things?

The alphabet gangs mean precisely squat. The BS marketing stuff of "x titles in Y divisions" is for the short bus crowd. As someone noted on another thread saying Muhammad Ali and John Ruiz were both heavyweight champions is to broaden he meaning of the word beyond usefulness.

Just to pick you up on this, Gamboa has beaten Barros, one of the other title holders the WBA recognise at 126.

[Mr140]

I Think the belts hold weight at least the WBC does or did. I mean the man who beat the man to me is flawed as well. I mean was Larry Holmes the champ because he beat a shell of Ali, or because he was better skilled then everyone else and defending his belt to me that what makes the champ.

[generalbulldog]

The lineal title isn't perfect but it's better than having someone like John Ruiz walking around calling himself a 2x HW champ.