10 Most Accomplished of My Lifetime

[marbleheadmaui]

However silly the alphabets are, they generally help in pointing out the best fighters in a particular divison, and certainly seem to play a role in helping to define a new linage.

Would this linage had been considered had there been no title unification on the line? Would it have been considered had Hill not already beaten the current WBC champion Tiozzo?

Seems to me the WBA, IBF and WBC titles strongly influenced the creation of a new MAN.

I think your initial assertion is simply wrong. Here is a partial list of current alphabet strapholders who aren't remotely among the best fighters in there division.

Guillermo Jones, Beibut Shumenov, Dimitri Sartison, Gennady Golovkin, Hassan, Njikam, Austin Trout,
Saul Alvarez, Cornelius Bundrage, Soulyman M'bye and I'm still at 147 and above.

When Manny beat MAB, there was no alphabet strap on the line. Just MAB's win over Hamed over vasquez over Rojas and all the way back to Eusabio Pedroza.

Let me try it this way. What do the alphabet belts do positively that the Ring rankings don't? I'd argue nothing. Yet they cost the sport in a big way by diluting what Champion means. I really believe this is one thing that has driven the casual fan away. When I was growing up in the horse and buggy days, even a casual fan could tell you who the middleweight and welterweight champions were. Even the fans who only cared about the biggest fights knew they were getting the goods when a fight was fairly labelled "for the undisputed lightweight championship of the world." Serious fight fans (like me) could name the champ division by division. Today? NOBODY could remember the 100 names of guys who have belts and casual fans have no way to know, outside of the true event fights, which ones are real championship fights and which are fiction.

Hilarious. If only you knew how many times i've posted that. You are preaching to the wrong person. When it comes to establishing the rightful champion per division I give ZERO credit to alphabet titles.

However, your list of fighters PROVES my point. What do all the "full" belt holders have in common? They're all ranked in the top 10 by The Ring. CLEARLY the alphabet title is elevating them to this status. Therefore, alphabet titles increase - virtually gaurantee - the chance of not only a high ranking among the worlds best fighters per division, they also help to establish a "true" no.1 through unification contests, especially when the linage has been lost.

And by the way - alphabet titles greatly benefit the potential money a fighter can make. They are a nightmare for hardcore fans, they certainly are not for the actual boxers. Fact.

I don't get it. You concede the rankings are already there, right? I mean all sorts of guys without straps are highly ranked. And we disagree on a fundamental point. I think fighters make LESS money and the sport less money because the straps have driven fans away. The fan base has shrunk. Why? Because it is impossible for a casual fan to know what fights matter except for the event fights.

1. How many guys without straps currently occupy the no.1 or 2 position per division? Using The Ring ratings - almost every fighter currently rated in the top three is an alphabet holder. This indicates that a strap is highly influential in the rating a fighter is given and therefore greatly influences the chance of starting a NEW lineal champion.

2. Alphabet titles, plus regional ones, guarantee fighters the majority split on purse bids. The title is a bargaining chip. TV companies pay more for title fights. So being a champion is hugely beneficial. As far as fans are concerned, I agree, if we stripped boxing back to one title per division it would be fantastic. However, that wouldn't be great for the current "champions," or numerous challengers getting chances they never would have, to earn decent money through the sport.

Back in the "good old days," you had to con the public by throwing fights to get the opportunity to earn a few bob, right? Many a great fighter worked a full-time job as well as fought dozens of times per year. I bet some of those poor old fossils would give up their great resumes and hero status in a heartbeat to have the "riches" of a modern day alphabet holder

1. There is ZERO logic behind number one. Absolutely none. Correlation does NOT equal causation. And hey, if you're going to concede the Ring rankings are reasonable? Then they are also sufficient to identify contenders. The belts are at best superfluous. At worst? they cause huge problems. Why? Because, among other things they lead to alphabet rankings. last tiem I counted up the top ten 147's for the four largest gangs? We have 22 top ten ranked 147's. Yay us!
2. TV pays more for title fights because fans are being stupid. THAT is the key problem. If you want to tie some things together? How about the decline in boxing and the rise in the alphabet gangs? They coincide to a remarkable degree.
3. Again, you are simply clueless about boxing history. Pre the TV days fighters fought, period. You could see a live card in NYC 350 nights a year. It wasn't until TV arose in the 1950's and those clubs died that that dynamic changed. A pretty good metaphor for the rise and decline of the sport is Stillman's Gym. Read about it sometime. Or hell read a bio of Archie Moore or Harry Greb or Sam Langford etc. Of course the better way to look at things is which would you rather have? Some fighters having other jobs? or what we have today, a sport with HALF as many fighters as we had 50 years ago. In other words HALF of the guys we'd hope were fighters today too full time jobs doing something else and not fighting at all! Does that seem better to you?