Alphabet Soup – A Guide to Championships in Boxing

One of the most confusing and frustrating things for any observer of boxing to deal with is the seemingly infinite variety of championships and sanctioning bodies that litter the sport. As far as the vast majority of us are concerned, a sport should have one world champion and no more, otherwise what does the title even mean? In truth, it is a long time since boxing enjoyed such a state of affairs, maybe even longer than you think. Even below world level, boxing is cluttered with too many championships, many of which are more or less worthless. How, though, can the newcomer tell the genuine prizes from the paper titles? In this guide I hope to show how this state of affairs came about and give an accurate guide to the titles that really matter.

In Britain, the first goal of any up and coming boxer is to secure a British Championship. The belt one wins upon becoming British Champion is called a Lonsdale Belt because Lord Lonsdale introduced the belts in 1909 under the auspices of the National Sporting Club. In 1936 the British Boxing Board of Control took over the awarding of Lonsdale belts, an arrangement that has endured to this day. Fighters will often talk about winning the Lonsdale Belt outright – this occurs when the champion has successfully defended his British Championship twice. Boxers used to be able to win an unlimited supply of Lonsdale belts by making repeated defences of the British title but this is no longer permitted, although a boxer may still win Lonsdale belts at different weight classes.

The British Championship is the oldest championship in boxing and remains prestigious and valid. Beware, however, for there are many other British titles, English titles and so on administered by less-prestigious groups. The best of these seek to institute a semi-professional level to give those boxers unable or unwilling to turn fully professional a chance to earn some money. Ultimately, if a British boxer holds a Lonsdale Belt awarded by the BBBofC then that is a serious achievement deserving of respect. Any other “British Championship” is far less likely to represent triumph over serious competition. One must also be careful not to be confused by amateur boxing championships, of which there are many. A fighter’s amateur boxing pedigree can sometimes be a useful guide to how they will fare in the pro ranks but, ultimately, professional boxing is a very different beast.

After the British title, where does the aspiring boxer go next? The first port of call for many is the Commonwealth Championship. The Commonwealth Boxing Council administer championships in all of the standard weight classes and these are generally recognised as being a genuine, albeit small, step up from a British Championship. A quick look at the list of recent champions will illustrate, however, that the vast majority of Commonwealth Champions are, in fact, British. The Commonwealth Championship is a worthy goal but since many of the Commonwealth nations are not big on boxing it does not represent a much greater challenge than securing a British Championship. It is not uncommon for boxers to hold both belts simultaneously, as in the case of Derek Chisora, currently British and Commonwealth Heavyweight Champion.

A bigger step-up is the European Championship, administered by the European Boxing Union and another championship with a long history. Indeed, the European Championships as we know them today have been around for fully sixty years. Europe produces many good fighters and a European Championship is very definitely nothing to be sneezed at. Sadly, things do get complicated at this level as well as domestically. There also exist European Union Championships, which, confusingly are also administered by the EBU. These championships do not carry anything like the prestige of the real European Championships and should largely be ignored, as should the titles of other organisations such as the European Boxing Federation. If a fighter holds the EBU Championship then he is the genuine European Champion. Anything else is not the same.

The situation in America is similarly muddied up. Countless North American and US Champions exist, not to mention regional championships plus the whole plethora of amateur titles won on the US amateur boxing scene. By and large, NABF (North American Boxing Federation) Championships are the ones to look out for, although NABO (North American Boxing Organization) titles are also respectable. The oft-referred to Golden Gloves competition is the chief amateur competition in America. Being a Golden Gloves winner is a major achievement but doe not necessarily make one a great professional boxer. State Championships and similar regional titles are hard to gauge and are probably best disregarded unless they proceed from one of the afore-mentioned sanctioning bodies.

Beyond American and European level lies World level, of course and it is here that things get really confusing. Before we deal with World Championships, however, there are some other indeterminate championships to look at. These consist of Intercontinental and International Championships and are awarded by most of the sanctioning bodies at world level. What do they mean? Not much, to be honest. Even getting explanations of them on the sanctioning bodies’ own websites is a struggle. Strictly speaking, Intercontinental Championships should be contested between boxers from two continents, usually North and South America or North America and Europe while International Champions are supposed to be the best of those boxers that have outgrown their domestic scene but are not yet quite ready for World level. In truth they are best ignored. One can reasonably assume that anyone who holds one is at the level of a European Champion or an NABF Champion but the level of achievement is not the same.

And so, finally, we come to the mixed-up and frustrating World Championship situation. Many organisations purport to crown boxing world champions. How did this happen and which championships actually mean anything? These are good questions and, hopefully, I can provide the answers. Before the 1960s the most powerful organisation in world boxing was the USA’s National Boxing Association. From 1921 the NBA started recognising World Champions and it is these men who are generally regarded as the historical boxing world champions, although the New York State Athletic Commission also recognised alternative champions during this period. The situation began to get more complicated in the 1960s. In 1962 the National Boxing Association changed its name to the World Boxing Association to cement its position as the world’s leading governing body for boxing. However, the following year officials from eleven countries met to form the World Boxing Council, a group whose stated aim was to unify the world’s various regional boxing commissions.

From this point on, the WBA and the WBC competed in the administration and sanctioning of boxing championships; while initially the two bodies largely recognised the same men as champions, this would increasingly change so that, by the 1980s the two groups were frequently at odds. This situation was exacerbated in 1974 when Latin American countries largely gained control of the WBA. This left the WBC as effectively in charge in North America and Europe while the WBA ruled South America. Groups like the European Boxing Union and the NABF became affiliated with the WBC, who recognised the champions and contenders of such regional groups, giving the WBC a sense of international legitimacy. A similar arrangement existed between the WBA and the United States Boxing Association. However, in 1983 USBA President Bob Lee failed in his bid to become President of the WBA and withdrew from the group, forming the International Boxing Federation. The IBF now became the third major sanctioning body in world boxing, a position that was strengthened when Heavyweight Champion Larry Holmes forfeited his WBC title in order to be recognised as the IBF champ.

The WBA was soon to be struck by another breakaway when, in 1988, a group of Caribbean businessmen split to form the World Boxing Organization. With the birth of the WBO all four of today’s main sanctioning bodies were in existence, although new “alphabets” have continued to appear and disappear at an alarming rate ever since. As might be expected, for a long time there was considerable hostility between these groups. For example, the WBC refused to have any dealings with the WBO well into the 1990s, requiring that any WBO champion that wished to fight for a WBC championship had first to relinquish their WBO title. It is this sort of obstacle that has for so long made it difficult to get truly undisputed world champions in professional boxing. The irony is, of course, that while the WBC took the moral high ground in regarding groups like the WBO as “renegade” organisations, they themselves were formed in direct opposition to the existing WBA.

As the 1990s progressed the WBO began to gain respect. Initially regarded as a paper title, the prestige of the WBO was enhanced by great champions like Marco Antonio Barrera, Oscar de la Hoya and Chris Eubank. As these men held onto their titles for long periods they became more and more valuable in the eyes of others until eventually the International Boxing Hall of Fame recognized WBO Championships as being equivalent to the championships of the “big three”. Since 2000, most observers have accorded the WBO equal significance. This, of course, invites the question of whether or not another group might achieve the same feat. It seems unlikely. None of the many sanctioning bodies that have sprung up in the last twenty years or so have anything like the history of the big four. Even the WBO and IBF, as breakaway groups, can claim a link to the history of the sport as embodied in the WBA. Moreover, the last thing the sport needs is another major sanctioning group!

If anybody were to do it, however, one senses that it would be the International Boxing Organization. Unlike their rivals, the IBO have gone out of their way to be progressive and different. They use a computerized system to rank fighters based on wins, losses and cold, hard numbers, thereby hopefully eliminating the politicking associated with boxing. When Ricky Hatton fought Paulie Malignaggi in 2008 for the IBO Light-Welterweight Championship, the IBO belt was the only one on the line but the fight was widely regarded as being the most genuine Light-Welterweight title bout out there. If the IBO can get more fights like that then, like the WBO before them, they may well break into the ranks of “proper” sanctioning bodies.

As it stands, then, the IBF, WBA, WBC and WBO championships are recognised as “real” world championships, while those of other groups are not. How then, does one determine who is the real, genuine one and only Champion of the World? There are currently two main ways. These days, the big sanctioning bodies have become a bit more relaxed about letting their champions fight the champions of other groups and unification fights are becoming more common. Just this week I watched Yuriorkis Gamboa add the IBF Featherweight title to the WBA title he already held (in a fight that actually took place in September). By and large, if a boxer holds two of the “big four” belts he will probably be recognised by most as being the Undisputed Champion of his weight category – unless, of course, another boxer holds the other two. If a boxer can capture three of the said titles, that should seal the deal, as when David Haye beat Enzo Maccarinelli to become WBA, WBC and WBO Cruiserweight Champion.

Perhaps the most definitive test, however, is winning the championship awarded by “The Ring” magazine. It may seem odd from the standpoint of other sports but boxing’s most prestigious magazine is increasingly regarded as the most objective and impartial judge of real boxing ability. The Ring has long maintained its own top ten ranking system for each weight category and, while they obviously acknowledge the holders of the various belts, they bestow their own championships purely on their own terms. When the number one and number two men in a weight category (or, very occasionally, the number one and number three men) clash, the magazine’s editors will award their championship to the winner, regardless of which other titles may or may not be on the line. Once awarded, The Ring Championship can be lost only in the ring or by leaving the weight division. The next person to beat the champion becomes the new Ring magazine champion and so on.

The integrity of the system can be demonstrated by the willingness of the magazine’s staff to leave belts vacant. The Super-Middleweight division was brought into boxing in 1984 (for boxers above Middleweight but below Light-Heavyweight) but since no fight between their top contenders took place the division remained without a champion for many years as far as The Ring magazine was concerned. It was not until 2007, when Joe Calzaghe beat Mikkel Kessler, that the magazine recognized a Super-Middleweight Champion of the World. Since Calzaghe retired unbeaten, the title was immediately declared vacant, and will remain so until the number one and two contenders meet each other in the ring. In fact, of the seventeen weight divisions, only five currently have undisputed champions by this criterion, a somewhat damning indictment of the state of boxing today.

That, then, is the state of play. Boxing is a confusing business at the best of times but hopefully this has helped clear it up a bit. Here’s hoping that we see more and more unification bouts until we finally get to a stage where we have only seventeen world boxing champions in the men’s business – one for each weight class.

December 1, 2010 | Categories: Boxing | Tags: BBBofC, Bob Lee, Chris Eubank, David Haye, EBU, Enzo Maccarinelli, IBF, IBO, Joe Calzaghe, Larry Holmes, Marco Antonio Barrera, Mikkel Kessler, Oscar de la Hoya, The Ring, WBA, WBC, WBO | 1 Comment