Bouts not Belts

[whicker]

Interesting one this- Friday Fight Night tonight has just one title bout, and that is for the English title.

However, it appears to be one of the best fghts on Friday Fight not so far this year.

(thats the intro, not the topic- I know there are other threads to discuss this fight.)

But what does that say? That the quality of the match up is more significant than the belt at stake?

Of course!

What do other people think- and indeed, what does this say about the concept of a "British Champion" etc?

[overhand_right]

It should always be this way. More qualifiers, much less belts.

The recent Khan-Kotelnik bout truthfully was nothing more than a European title level fight.

There's no going back to the 60s, 70s, 80s, etc, the 90s explosion of belts met no resistance and its become absolutely shocking the sheer enormity of paper titles and sanctioning body corruption this decade, terrestrial TV can't get their heads around the sport anymore and some reet old shyte has been served up on both the BBC and ITV dressed up as title affairs, much to the detriment of the game.

[whicker]

The recent Khan-Kotelnik bout truthfully was nothing more than a European title level fight.

WBO has always been a bit like that- centred on Europe rather than the states.

But yeah- I don't really think of Khan as a World Champion.

[alexpaterson]

It is an intresting card and I agree Khan vs Kotelnik was a poor world title fight but ye it's 1 of the better FFN

[gasman]

Yep the fight certainly is more important that the belt but this reflects an overall trend anyhow. How many belts get vacated in order to facilitate a bigger fight?

On a related note, as soon as tonights fight is over I am switching off my sky sports 2 channel (i.e dual pack) and am sticking with sky sports one as the rest of the upcoming friday fight nights etc are on sky sports 1.

[Flump]

Having 4 organisations is bad enough, but I think this interim/champion in recess/super champion nonsense is damaging the sport even more. That and the major promoters rarely working together. I mean if you're new to the sport and you see the WBA has three champions alone, you're probably not going to bother following it because it's virtually impossible.

[overhand_right]

Totally agree - and don't forget the WBC's new innovation the 'diamond belt' (retch)

[craigjenkins05]

The recent Khan-Kotelnik bout truthfully was nothing more than a European title level fight.

WBO has always been a bit like that- centred on Europe rather than the states.

But yeah- I don't really think of Khan as a World Champion.

khan - kotelnik fought for the WBA title still agree same sort of thing i think they have 3 champions at light welter atm

[sweetscience]

The recent Khan-Kotelnik bout truthfully was nothing more than a European title level fight.

WBO has always been a bit like that- centred on Europe rather than the states.

But yeah- I don't really think of Khan as a World Champion.

khan - kotelnik fought for the WBA title still agree same sort of thing i think they have 3 champions at light welter atm

who are the 3 champs ?