BoxRec

Opinion?

They should scrap them.

Controversial wrote: ↑25 Jun 2025, 05:57 They should scrap them.

Ya, as unlikely as that is, I think the sport would be better off. These jr , light, super, divisions mean more titles, belts, sanctioning fees, salaries, etc. it ain’t good. Other combat sports don’t need 25 weight divisions or whatever it’s up to nowadays. Watered down. Ridiculous

I’d be OK with them if each division had one belt holder,. The idea that four different people can claim to be “champions” at a weight class is silly. Having one or even two beltholders would also likely reduce the number of BS “vacant” title fights, where the “A”side gets put in with a Chilean ranked 116th in the division by boxrec for an alphabet belt

The only benefit with multiple belts is in theory you get more fights, one champ can only fight so many times in a year. Especially if they get injured and are out for a while. But as we've seen the top guys often avoided each other either for easy pay days or by vacating and moving up a few pounds and fighting for another title.

You would have a lot more fights between top contenders if there as only one title. The way it is now, there no incentive for a contender to fight another contender. He knows if he bides his time, he will eventually get a shot at one of the four titles. This has hurt the sport immensely.

As for the Jr/Super weight classes, they make more sense at the higher weights. For example, there are a lot fighters who naturally weigh much more than 160 buy much less than 175. The 168 division makes some sense.

However, the lower the weight classes, the lower weight classes it is silly. Do we really need weight classes at 105, 108, 112, 115, and 118? There is virtually no depth at these 5 weight classes. If there was only a 112 and a 118 there would be a lot more depth at those weight classes. And would it really be that unfair to expect a guy weighing 108 pounds to fight a guy weight 112 pounds?

Similar situation with all of these sanctioning groups. Combine all these weight divisions with all the groups , and it gets difficult to follow what’s going on. I know it was in the same weight class , and I think Ray Mancini was a solid fighter , but losing to Arguello for the strap and then beat another champ, Arturo Frias for his belt in the same division, a few months later to become a champ in another sanctioning body seemed like it needed an asterisk or something. There are a ton of examples of this I know. And heck I’d have done the same thing I guess

I remember that well. Or Weaver loses to Holmes, and about 9 months later wins the WBA title from Tate. Back then, there were only two WBS titles, not four, so it was a little easier to know who the "real" champion was.

The way it has been for many years, there is simply no incentive to take a risk. Being undefeated is being marketable. No reason for a promising young fighter to take on another young promising fighter or a tough veteran. Get you automatic 15-0 start to your career against no-hopers and some organization will rank you #1 contender. Then fight that WBS champion who probably did the same thing and has not fought decent competition either.

I think what many people don't grasp is these 4 WBS Organizations are simply (corrupt) businesses trying to make a profit. They are competing against each other and have no incentive to do what is best for the sport.
They also don't really "govern" the sport. they make their own corrupt rankings and get a fee for sanctioning title fights. Thats about it. And of course, the more weight classes, the more title fights, that they get sanctioning fees.

As big of a problem as the ridiculous amount of weight classes that there are, having 4 WBS champions in a weight class is a bigger one.