WBA new World Title

[candrew]

From the convention in October 2012 WBA has a new championship title: ,,World Unified Champion". Now if a WBA title is unified the champion is ,,Unified Champion", not ,,Super Champion".

17. Unified Title. The Association will recognize a World Champion as a Unified Champion when he is also recognized as world champion in a comparable weight class by one or more of the other sanctioning organizations. Likewise, it may also recognize a Unified mandatory contender. Unless otherwise provided for by the President in accordance with special terms under which a title may be obtained and retained, only one Champion shall be recognized in each weight division.
18. Super Champion Status. In exceptional circumstances, the Championships Committee and the President may designate a Champion (other than an Interim Champion) as a Super Champion. The President and Committee may establish criteria for a Super Championship.

http://wbanews.com/wp-content/uploads/2 ... -30-12.pdf

All WBA Unified title fights:

flyweight
Viloria vs Marquez
Estrada vs Marquez
Estrada vs Melindo
Estrada vs Mepranum

super bantamweight
Rigondeaux vs Donaire
Rigondeaux vs Agbeko

featherweight
Gamboa vs Salido (Then the champion which unified stayed ,,Super Champion", but Chris John already had this status. WBA created the new status then: ,,Unified Champion".)
Gamboa vs Solis

welterweight
Mayweather Jr vs Maidana

light middleweight
Alvarez vs Trout

super middleweight
Froch vs Kessler
Froch vs Groves

light heavyweight
Hopkins vs Shumenov (Hopkins beat ,,Super Champion", but is ,,Unified Champion")

I think that it is worthwhile adding this title to the base, because there is a chaos now. Many thoughts, that Ward and Froch both are ,,Super Champons". WBA has four championship titles now: Super, Unified, World and interim champion

[KSTAT124]

WBA Super Champions were originally unified champions- that is a champion who held both the WBA title and that of one of the other three major sanctioning bodies. (That allowed them to, in addition, crown a "regular" world champion.)

They (the WBA) would term their super champions who held the world titles of two other major sanctioning bodies "undisputed champions" thus you had two degrees of super champions- unified and undisputed. ("Undisputed" even though if WBA super champion held three belts, there was still one other recognized champion in the division but that's not something the WBA cared to address realistically).

Juan Manuel Marquez was stripped of the WBA world featherweight super championship because he had been stripped by the IBF and thus was no longer a "unified" champion.

That all changed when the WBA bestowed super championship status on Antonio Margarito who was only holding the WBA belt at the time.

As you pointed out, things got crazier when Gamboa unified the IBF title and the WBA regular title when there was already a super champion (John) in the division.

The situation is now that the WBA lists a number of "titles" above their world champions (or their vacant world titles)- you have SUPER CHAMPIONS Wladimir Klitschko, Andre Ward, Floyd Mayweather (at super welterweight), Danny Garcia, and Anselmo Moreno, UNIFIED CHAMPIONS Bernard Hopkins, Carl Froch, Floyd Mayweather (at welterweight), Guillermo Rigondeaux, and Juan Francisco Estrada, and one UNDISPUTED CHAMPION Simpiwe Vetyeka (who dethroned WBA Super Champion Chris John while unifying the IBO title with the WBA Super title- he's since relinquished the IBO belt- strange being that the IBO is not one of the organizations the WBA recognizes as an equal).

The best thing to do is take all of that with a grain of salt and just consider lineal champions (as recognized by the Transnational Boxing Rankings Board) as the real world champions. The other stuff is good for trivia contests!