Floyd Mayweather, while promoting his upcoming exhibition bout, says that he’s looking to give back to the sport that made him so unbelievably wealthy. His cause célèbre? Fighting the preponderance of world titles.
The 5-division, 15-time world champ says that there are too many world champs who just haven’t earned their stripes.
“…You’ve got Lomachenko, a guy that — even though he had, what, 400 amateur fights — he’s a professional anyway, but he shouldn’t be allowed to fight for a world title in his third, fourth fight,” Mayweather said.
“What I did in my career was when I turned professional — to fight for a title against Genaro ‘Chicanito’ Hernandez — I fought 17 fights in a year-and-a-half, then I fought for the world title. So I earned it. Nothing was given to me.
“What we’re doing is watering the sport down. Everybody is champion now. There should only be four champions at each weight class, but it’s more than four. Now, in the top ten you may have 12 fighters in the weight class that’s champion.
“So the sport of boxing, we need to clean this up with all the sanctioning bodies. I’m not just talking about one particular sanctioning body because I was a fighter at one particular time competing at the highest level and I feel that…I was put in this position to clean this sport up. I don’t want to be in boxing if I can’t help, if I can’t give back.
“I don’t want to give back just financially. I’m giving my time back but I’m also going to give my voice. We have to clean the sport of boxing up. There’s too many champions at these weight classes.
“Ya’ll the writers. Ya’ll have to say something about this…Anybody can be a champion in this era…everybody’s world champion now, everybody.”
Well, does Mayweather have a point?
He certainly is voicing the popular opinion on the matter. Ask most boxing fans about the sport’s biggest problems and the knee-jerk response will be “there are too many world champions.”
But is this really boxing’s most pressing issue? There’s a case to be made that, when it comes to the growth of the sport and it’s standing in the mainstream sports world, it’s not an issue at all. There’s even an argument that boxing’s multiple world champion system has actually benefited the sport overall.
As this writer argued awhile back at another site:
“In this day and age when boxing has become a niche sport reliant upon international participation, having four world champs has been a positive thing. It has allowed world class boxing to reach Eastern Europe, new parts of Asia, and other growing boxing markets. It has helped create new stars and has put more money in more fighters’ pockets. It has also served as a tremendous advertising tool for the sport via buzz created by fans’ champ vs. champ dream clash debates.
Sanctioning body politics may prevent some bouts from happening, but the biggest fights usually end up getting made. If anything, the business as it is today would be hurt by a single world champion as it would be tossing aside the other belts—the only marketing tools proven to be successful these days in getting young and rising stars increased attention. The belts DO matter when it comes to getting a head start in promoting a young career. Even if they aren’t REAL championships, the belts ARE real valuable in building a fighter’s star power and reputation.
It would be sweet to go back to 1950 and have one champ in each of only eight divisions (even though we all know that boxing always had paper titles floating about), but the world has changed. What worked then wouldn’t work now. And, really, it’s not such a big deal, anyway. Fans are smart enough to know the pecking order among world titlists and new fans are just interested in the actual bouts, not the politics behind them.
…Let’s get one thing straight. There’s not a single person out there being kept away from embracing the sport of boxing because they’re unsure as to who’s the REAL super featherweight champ. Nobody who wants to follow boxing is being discouraged by the fact that there are four sanctioning bodies, often recognizing four different champions. That’s a boxing nerd’s lament and nothing more.
Most fans are either born into boxing fandom or pick it up via TV. They like the sport, like the action, like the characters involved in the sport. But it’s ridiculous to claim that fans are dissuaded from following the sport because of what essentially amounts to the politics of its business. As if potential fans of the NBA stay away from basketball because they’re confused by the salary cap concept or possible baseball enthusiasts refuse to follow MLB because they don’t fully understand the free agency rules.
‘But when there was one champ, the sport was much more popular,’ the hopeless reformists say.
Well, before man landed on the moon, the sport was more popular, too…and before the internet, before velcro, before bagel-slice toasters, too.”
As always, though, fight fans will decide what sells and what doesn’t.
