Former HW champs who retained a rating

[funso banjo baby]

everybody has a point but this is very confusing and complex

i tend to be biased against 'governing bodies'

the sad state of affairs is that a legitimate World champion is always going to be a disputed champion

the governing bodies have unrealistic world rankings (Chapman...Donell Holmes) i seem to remember at HW David polk was rated higher than Shannon Briggs for about a year ?????

i believe the Ring ratings are as close to fair as we're going to get

The Ring has at least attempted to explain their decision to keep the World Heavyweight title vacant until their number 1 fights their number 2 ..which i think atm is still Wlad Klit and sam peter

why is this such a controversial thing for some of you guys ?

[Ambling Alp]

To me that is sort of like saying if you win the World series or the NBA championship in 7 games it doesn't count. After all, it was close.

Except for the fact that Norton-Young wasn't a championship fight. I guess you could call that an inconvenient truth.

Well you yourself have said that the reason Norton shouldn't be regarded as the real champion is because the Norton-Young fight was close and controversial, not because it wasn't a title fight. You said -
"He should never have been handed a title because he beat Young by a very close and somewhat controversial decision, which is why few real boxing fans acknowledge him as a title holder."
That implies that had Norton won more convincingly, then he is a real champion. However, since he didn't, he wasn't a real champion. By that logic, Schmeling and Sharkey and many others weren't real champions.

Obviously the Young-Norton fight had to mean something or you wouldn't have mentioned it.

[The Great John L]

To me that is sort of like saying if you win the World series or the NBA championship in 7 games it doesn't count. After all, it was close.

Except for the fact that Norton-Young wasn't a championship fight. I guess you could call that an inconvenient truth.

Well you yourself have said that the reason Norton shouldn't be regarded as the real champion is because the Norton-Young fight was close and controversial, not because it wasn't a title fight. You said -
"He should never have been handed a title because he beat Young by a very close and somewhat controversial decision, which is why few real boxing fans acknowledge him as a title holder."
That implies that had Norton won more convincingly, then he is a real champion. However, since he didn't, he wasn't a real champion. By that logic, Schmeling and Sharkey and many others weren't real champions.

Obviously the Young-Norton fight had to mean something or you wouldn't have mentioned it.

That is not what I said, or meant.

Your post appeared to be trying to draw an analogy to the close decision of the Norton-Young fight with a close win in a championship of another sport. I was merely pointing out that Norton-Young wasn’t for a championship, which has been my point all along. It wasn’t a championship fight and in my earlier post I was merely pointing out that Norton was handed a title as a reward for winning a close controversial decision to Young. If he had knocked Young out he also wouldn't have been a champion because it wasn't a champioship fight.

There is no logical analogy that can be drawn between the Norton-Young fight and a championship match/game in another sport, because there was no championship involved in Young-Norton.

[Ambling Alp]

Well, it seemed to me that what you were previously saying that the closeness of the fight was what mattered. I guess I misunderstood you.

Let me ask you this; What if the WBC had stripped Spinks, declared the title vacant, and made Norton fight someone for the vacant WBC title. If Norton would have won that, would that make a difference to you?

[The Great John L]

Well, it seemed to me that what you were previously saying that the closeness of the fight was what mattered. I guess I misunderstood you.

Let me ask you this; What if the WBC had stripped Spinks, declared the title vacant, and made Norton fight someone for the vacant WBC title. If Norton would have won that, would that make a difference to you?

A little, but not much.

In that case at least Norton would have actually won a “title” fight, although there was no credible reason for stripping Spinks, thereby making the "title" worthless. Spinks was the champion and was penalized for giving a rematch to the guy he beat for the title. The fact that the man he beat was Ali, who many considered one of, if not the, greatest HW of all time, makes any decision to strip Spinks even more ridiculous.

[Brett Paul Dunbar]

B. Have Norton fight Young again, this time billing it as a title fight. (Which would have odd, especially if Young would have won the rematch.)

This is what the IBF did with Nate Campbell-Robbie Peden I & II. Peden knocked out Campbell in the fifth round of a Featherweight eliminator in 2004, and then in 2005 stopped him in the seventh for the vacant title. In the meantime Cambell had won an eliminator for the #2 position when Edelmiro Martinez was disqualified in the fourth.

[Collins2000]

How many times has a fight been retrospectivly upgraded to 'world' title?

As mentioned here, they did it with Norton - Young. And also with Lewis - Ruddock.

Any others?