Only those entirely immersed in the sport are able to negotiate the labyrinthine collection of weight classes, governing bodies and titles the sport has adopted in recent years. Designed to provide a measure of its participants’ success or failure these multitudinous belts simply add ever more tiers and layers, so the benchmarks become ever more meaningless. Even the seemingly unimpeachable concept of a fighter’s record is blighted by the need for context and understanding of the titles and belts that will adorn it.
There is no longer an available method for recognising a fight’s or a fighter’s place in the sport’s hierarchy. And there is the rub. The simplest, purest sport is now engulfed in unnecessary complication. Complication that ostracises the general public and pushes boxing further to the margins of the sporting landscape.
Continue reading “Magee and Confusion Reign; the WBA and the quest for ever more titles”