BoxRec

From October 28, 1901, to June 2, 1923, the Featherweights had only two World Champions, Abe Attell and Johnny Kilbane; two Champions in more than 20 years...

From 1937 to 1939, Henry Armstrong win three World Championships (Featherweight, Lightweight and Welterweight) and held their Titles simultaneously...

Boxing, our sport, was better with 8 weights and, of course --as the world is one-- with one World Champion; boxing don't needs 17 weights (!?) or more than eight "champs" or "versions", this affirmation, is true or not?

Young Corbett II, Jimmy Britt, Brooklyn Tommy Sullivan and Jim Driscoll were title claimants during that period also.

Martin Sosa Cameron wrote:From October 28, 1901, to June 2, 1923, the Featherweights had only two World Champions, Abe Attell and Johnny Kilbane; two Champions in more than 20 years...

From 1937 to 1939, Henry Armstrong win three World Championships (Featherweight, Lightweight and Welterweight) and held their Titles simultaneously...

Boxing, our sport, was better with 8 weights and, of course --as the world is one-- with one World Champion; boxing don't needs 17 weights (!?) or more than eight "champs" or "versions", this affirmation, is true or not?

"Ain't it the truth". The honest truth, though. If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem. As long as the paying public buys into it, nothing will change. We can whine all we want. If we continue to support what we don't want, we'll just get more of it. Now that's the honest truth.

If it keeps going this way we will have divisions down to the ounces or even grams. Creating over 100,000 divisions....each with several sanctioning bodies calling the shots and of course factoring in regional titles....

The good news? Everyone will be a champion. No fighter left behind.

Even worse is that these plastic sanctioning bodies won't rank one another's title holders and strip their own 'champs' of the belt the first chance they get.

Decagon thanks for returning me to center...it's not really all that bad, I just let my imagination take over and lost grip of reality.

Seamus wrote:Young Corbett II, Jimmy Britt, Brooklyn Tommy Sullivan and Jim Driscoll were title claimants during that period also.

Seamus, as usual, it's true, but they were only claimants

Decagon wrote:In 1920, there were 15 weight divisions.

Dec, remember the Jr. titles weren't credibles, and fall in the oblivion; but from any recent years, nine weights --news or not-- were recreated by the WB... and others. And the "supercruiserweight"?

bill.lockhart wrote:

Martin Sosa Cameron wrote:From October 28, 1901, to June 2, 1923, the Featherweights had only two World Champions, Abe Attell and Johnny Kilbane; two Champions in more than 20 years...

From 1937 to 1939, Henry Armstrong win three World Championships (Featherweight, Lightweight and Welterweight) and held their Titles simultaneously...

Boxing, our sport, was better with 8 weights and, of course --as the world is one-- with one World Champion; boxing don't needs 17 weights (!?) or more than eight "champs" or "versions", this affirmation, is true or not?

"Ain't it the truth". The honest truth, though. If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem. As long as the paying public buys into it, nothing will change. We can whine all we want. If we continue to support what we don't want, we'll just get more of it. Now that's the honest truth.

Solution:
1) an unification tournament of all the "champions" of each weight; the winner of all in each weight, is the reliable World Champion
2) a following elimination between the Champions of the classic weight vs the "Jr" or "Super" weights, then, there are the eight original World Champions in the classic weights
3) the "world" organizations must be dissolved in one, single, unificate World Boxing authority; the National Federations must to demand it

Of course, this ideas are an utopia (or not?)

Another possibility: don't to mention, never, the "world" organizations

BoxBuzz wrote:If it keeps going this way we will have divisions down to the ounces or even grams. Creating over 100,000 divisions....each with several sanctioning bodies calling the shots and of course factoring in regional titles....

The good news? Everyone will be a champion. No fighter left behind.

If the alpha boys simply regarded one another's title holders as challengers for their own titles then very quickly any decent title holder would soon become the mandatory challenger and unification fights would follow suit.

In the UK there's a Russian billionaire who has taken over a football club. Imagine if someone with that kind of clout moved into boxing and decided to make the big fights and try and bring the sport back to something that can be easily followed. They could set up tournaments and make boxing about the fighters and the fights again.

Ezzard wrote:Even worse is that these plastic sanctioning bodies won't rank one another's title holders and strip their own 'champs' of the belt the first chance they get.

Ezzard wrote:If the alpha boys simply regarded one another's title holders as challengers for their own titles then very quickly any decent title holder would soon become the mandatory challenger and unification fights would follow suit.

In the UK there's a Russian billionaire who has taken over a football club. Imagine if someone with that kind of clout moved into boxing and decided to make the big fights and try and bring the sport back to something that can be easily followed. They could set up tournaments and make boxing about the fighters and the fights again.

Ezzard, thanks you very much, when I was answering your previous reply, you put this new ideas, you are right!

Decagon wrote:In 1920, there were 15 weight divisions.

How do you work that one out?

Decagon wrote:In 1920, there were 15 weight divisions.

What kind of lie was that???

Remember when Carnera was champion? They were sincerly thinking of making a 'dreadnaught' division had he have beaten Max Baer, because they felt Carnera was just 'too big' for average HW's.

The problems stem from the U. S. having complete control of the sport. These different sanctioning bodies were created in essence to combat that. What we have now are 4 or 5 different businesses if you will, all independent of each other looking to gain top dog status & control. The interests of boxing are secondary to their lust for power. I suppose they will just have to fight it out, because their seems no willingness to compromise for the good of the sport. Ring magazine must take a more dominant stand.

Decagon wrote:In the 1930s, there were the IBU, the NYSAC, the MSAC and the NBA. Nothing's changed.

I am not familiar with MSAC & the IBU, but boxing fans saw one world champion at the head of 8 weight classifications. Is that what they see to-day?

>>>What kind of lie was that???<<<

Just the usual Decagon being absurdly wrong...as is typical with him!!! In 1920 below were the weight divisions, not the 15 nonsense that Decagon claimed...that's just bullshit:

Heavyweight: Unlimited
Light Heavyweight: 175 (still called "cruiserweight in England)
Middleweight: 160
Welterweight: 147
Jr. Welterweight: 140
Lightweight: 135
Jr. Lightweight: 130
Featherweight: 126
Jr. Featherweight: 122
Bantamweight: 118
Flyweight: 112

The Jr. Fly, and Jr. Bantam and did not come around until the 60s, or 70s maybe even the 80s

Jr. Middleweight came around in the 1960s with either Denny Moyer, or Emile Griffith being the first Jr. Middleweight World Champion.

Claiming 15 classes in 1920 is just complete nonsense...and even then...the jr. welterweight, jr. lightweight and jr. featherweight classes were not recognized but by a few and after one, or two title bouts in those weights they were quickly dropped back out of the game. There were 8 world boxing divisions when Henry Armstrong won his third title.


I think it was the editor of Boxing Blade boxing magazine...he introduced the Jr. Welter division in the 20s and let his readers vote to pick who the champion was going to be, who if my memory serves me correctly turned out to be Pinkey Mitchell...it wasn't a division that was won in the ring, but instead a publicity stunt in the attempt to popularize the boxing rag that promoted it...all the other jr. division did not come around until the 60s and 70s!!!

One thing is for certain Decagon…you don’t play around when being incorrect…when it comes to being wrong you do it with gusto and in outlandishly, mammoth proportions!!!

>>>I am not familiar with MSAC & the IBU, but boxing fans saw one world champion at the head of 8 weight classifications. Is that what they see to-day?<<<

Exactly!! All the nonsense that Decagon likes to yap about meant nothing in the boxing world then and it means very little now and very rarely were those brief orgs such as the IBU ever acknowledged, but to listen to Decagon you would think that there were four fighters in 15 divisions going around during the 30s claiming to be world champion...and that is the furthest thing from the truth and just a load a bullshit to be frank! There was one champion in eight divisions and when the title of a certain class was vacant a tournament was pulled off...such as the tournament to crown a middleweight champion in the 30s...which if I'm not mistaken turned out to be Gorilla Jones!!!

I think the truth lies somewhere in the middle. Obviously it wasen't like today with 16 weight classes or something, but I don't think you consistently had 8 weight classes and 8 champions. In 1930 for instance you had 10 weight classes and those Junior Weight champions were Hall of Famers Benny Bass and Jackie "Kid" Berg, so let's not call those belts meaningless. Then, at the end of 1935, Benny Lynch and Small Montana both claimed the Flyweight title, Sixto Escobar and Baltazar Sangchili the Bantamweight title, Freddie Miller and Baby Arizmendi the Featherweight, and Marcel Thil and Babe Risko the Middleweight. So, it's not like dual claimants at least are anything new.

barry everything I've read and have been aprised of supports what your saying. But there have been "counter cultures" or "less observed" group who were going about operating under what Decagon is describing correct. Maybe not as officialy sanctioned? I'm just trying to figure out why Decagon who does do some research from time to time is sticking to his guns.

Anyway I'd like to ge sent to some sort of documentation that supports it, cuz I can't find it on line or in any of my inventory of boxing info. The new weight divisions got their birth from something...maybe the confusion has some sort of historical thread that Decagon simply has put forward is some distorted form.

But at this point it appears to be simply wrong. Certainly in mainstream and official accounting. My dad would know but he's been behind gates since 1989. Pearly gates that is.

PS just read Seamus thoughts....and his wording is sort of what I'm alluding to. You seem to hint at it yourself.

I remember when Percy Bassett was an "interim world champion", and when Willie Lüdick was another "world champion" for South Africa