|
|
|
|
BOXING
101 As you probably already know, Lennox Lewis is the "Undisputed" Heavyweight Champion of the World. What you might not know is that Chris Byrd, Hasim Rachman, Wladimir Klitschko, and Lou Savarese are also Heavyweight Champions of the World. Confused? You should be. Did you know that last Saturday night Hasim Rachman was crowned the new WBF Heavyweight Champion of the World after beating Corrie Sanders? Probably not. That's because the World Boxing Federation is so lightly regarded that no one outside of the WBF, Rachman himself, and maybe his immediate family cared that the title changed hands. And yet, ring announcer Michael Buffer still announced Rachman as the "new Heavyweight Champion". The alphabet soup ranking system has been growing ever since the early 80's. To my knowledge there are currently 18 different boxing organizations, each of which has a champion. The main three (WBA, WBC, IBF) are the highly regarded organizations, their champion is usually acknowledged as a legit champion. Then there's the WBO, IBC, IBO, WBF, etc. Their "champions" are regarded as holding fringe belts. Their only known purpose is to boost the confidence of the "champion" and to allow him to fight 12 rounds (all non "title" fights can only go the maximum of 10 rounds). So you can now narrow the number of organizations you regard down to three. Unfortunately,
that doesn't make it much less confusing.
Before Lennox Lewis beat Evander Holyfield last year to win the
three belts and become undisputed champion, the last undisputed champion
was Riddick Bowe back in 1992. Bowe was regarded as undisputed champion for about a month
even though he didn't lose for another year.
Now pay attention, this is where it gets even more confusing.
Every month the organizations reveal a new set of rankings, the
current champion is forced to fight the #1 ranked contender at least once
per year. In November of
1992, Lennox Lewis was regarded by the WBC as being the #1 contender and
Riddick Bowe was forced to either fight Lewis, or be stripped of the belt.
Riddick Bowe decided to do the classy thing.
He went on television and dumped his WBC belt in the trash.
One might ask "why didn't Bowe just fight Lewis?"
Well you might be surprised to hear that Lewis (then fighting for
Canada) knocked out Bowe in the gold medal match of the 1988 Seoul
Olympics. Bowe decided he'd
rather give up one of his belts rather than putting everything on the line
in a fight he wasn't so confident he could win. Lewis was awarded the WBC belt and there was no longer an
undisputed champion. The
titles changed hands several times, Lewis eventually lost to Oliver
McCall, who lost to Frank Bruno, who lost to Mike Tyson.
Bowe went on to lose to Holyfield, who lost to Michael Moorer, who
was then knocked out by George Foreman.
Forman was stripped of one title and vacated the other.
There was now three heavyweight champions. Tyson eventually won the WBC and IBF titles back, but gave up
the WBC belt and a large sum of money rather than fight the #1 contender
Lennox Lewis. Tyson then lost
his title to Holyfield, who went on to beat Michael Moorer for the IBF
belt. Lennox Lewis began
campaigning for a shot at Holyfield and eventually received it.
Lewis dominated Holyfield for 12, but unfortunately for Lewis, two
of the judges were legally blind and the fight ended in a draw.
There was a rematch, Lewis was less impressive but still won the
fight and was named undisputed champion.
Thanks to Don King, Lewis' reign was cut short as a lawsuit was
filed stating that Lewis had an obligation to fight King's fighter John
Ruiz, a slightly above-average heavyweight.
So as it stands, Lewis has been stripped of his WBA title, and
Evander Holyfield and John Ruiz will fight for the vacant title next
month. Will the winner be
regarded as the Heavyweight Champion of the World?
Hopefully not.
While the
corrupt organizations still exist, (the IBF is currently under
investigation for taking bribes, and the WBC has been accused of using
bullying tactics), there might very well be a solution to eliminate the
corrupt rankings. It is
called "The Boxing Writers' Rankings Poll".
Boxing writers from around the world, including Larry Merchant,
Wallace Mathews and yours truly, have been asked to decide the boxing
rankings by rating the top ten fighters in all 17 pro weight classes every
month. The boxing writers,
who stand to make no gain by unfairly ranking fighters, are not
compensated for voting which should eliminate bribery in the rankings
system. The monthly vote is
supervised and created by BoxingRanks.com and the monthly poll is
administered completely on the internet.
The Boxing Writer's Rankings Poll hopes to become the most
thorough, comprehensive, informed, authoritative, honest, and reliable set
of boxing rankings in the world. Now
that you know a little bit more about the world of boxing, and probably
have a pounding headache, I advise you to be very careful the next time
you watch a fight. When
Michael Buffer announces a fighter as the "champion", listen for
the belt that he holds. Lennox
Lewis is the true Heavyweight Champion, no matter what Don King might have
you think. |
