BoxRec

Quick question guys - in your humble opinion, what is the most credible world title belt? Oh and what are the, not so decent "plastic" world title belts?

Thanks in advance

None of them have any credence.

The Ring

They are all tarnished to some extent or other. There are many examples of poor decisions, arbitrary rankings elevations and strippiong of titlists across each of the belts. The Ring title is a little clearer, but is still very subjective and, for my money, remains far too US-centric.

I recently did an exercise looking into the lineage of the belts which showed that the most credible single belt is the WBC Flyweight title currently held by Pongsaklek Wonjongkam, as that title has an unbroken lineage (ie, no vacancies, no stripping, no titlists moving up in weight) going back 37 years. By way of a contrast, the average lineage across the 68 belts (4 Alpha belts, 17 weight divisions) is about 3.5 years. WBC has an average of 6 years, WBO 3.25 years, WBA (excluding "Super Champions") 3.1 years and the IBF a pathetic 2.7 years.

Seeing the lack of continuity laid bare like that was pretty soul destroying for a fan of "beating the man who beat the man" as I am.

Thanks guys