The modern trend of subtly inflating fighters' accomplishments

[Riddick Bowie]

Has anyone noticed the modern trend of subtly inflating fighters' accomplishments, specifically number of title reigns? For instance, I recently heard Carl Froch refer to himself on Youtube as a 4x world champion. Froch is not a 4x world champion, he is a 3x champion. He won the WBC belt against Pascal and lost it to Kessler. He regained the WBC belt against Abraham and lost it to Ward. He then won the IBF belt against Bute, later added Kessler’s WBA belt, and ultimately retired.

By boxing tradition, that is a 3x champion. You are a champion according to number of reigns you had, not the number of baubles won.

Amir Khan calls himself a 2x champion presumably because he beat Kotelnik for the WBA belt and later added Judah’s IBF one. (I hope it’s that rather than Peterson failing a drugs test and Khan being reinstalled as champ, which would be an especially lame excuse to call yourself 2x champion.) After beating Dubois again, the commentators called Usyk a 2x undisputed champion. No, Usyk would have to lose and regain the undisputed title to be a 2x undisputed champion. I’d let it go but I notice these lies getting picked up the boxing commentariat (announcers, websites, newspaper journos etc. Hopefully not Boxing News but nothing would surprise me anymore).

If we apply this new standard to boxing history it confuses everything. Mike Tyson equalled Muhammad Ali’s 3x champ status in less than 12 months, beating Berbick (WBC), Bonecrusher (WBA) and Tucker (IBF). He became 4x champ beating Spinks. Counting Bruno (WBC) and Seldon (WBA) Mike Tyson is a 6x champion of the world!

Ali it turns out is a 4x champ because he beat Liston for the world title and later Terrell for the WBA version. Joe Frazier is now 3x champ thru Mathis, Ellis and Ali. Marvin Hagler and Larry Holmes never regained their titles but are 2x champs anyway because they grabbed the IBF belt. On and on.

The likes of Harry Mullan, Glyn Leach or Ian Darke used their position to push back against the mendacious elements in boxing but now everyone seems to go along with it. Is it just the job of kooks on the internet to point out the lies?

[joshj909]

Professional athletes, especially those in combat sports, have some of the biggest egos while generally not being the most intelligent people. Most of them also come off as quite insecure. These are some of the things that contributed to the mentality required for them to achieve what they achieved but it also just leads to them lying or being incorrect about many things, even things they themselves did.

The media tends to go along with the claims as it boosts their stories and viewing figures (for those tied to the promotions e.g. Sky or ESPN).
Information is also now more available to us to critique those claims and the Internet gives us a voice to share those views.

[Boxerbeetle]

It did used to annoy me a bit, but I’m over it. The vast majority of boxing titles & trinkets are totally worthless. People can claim what they like about them and I couldn’t care less really, but anyone following the sport with half a brain knows the truth and the casuals don’t give a toss anyway, so no-one is harmed by it.

[nick henry]

I agree but the Usyk one probably means undisputed at Cruiser and Heavy

[CaptainSpacerod]

The promoters and tv are to blame.

Turki should buy all the sanctioning bodies and burn them down

[SeanBrennan]

I reject this, as a former world champion competitor (Grimsbys 3rd Strongest Man 2012).

[steve689]

ESPN used to do it with Shakur, calling him a three-weight world champion when he'd picked up WBOs all over the shop and not fought anyone decent.

The likes of Broner are four-time world champions ffs. Same with kickboxing, whenever I see a 10-time world champion coming over to boxing you know it's the equivalent of our WBU and WBF titles.