Whatever Happened to The Man Beating The Man to be The Man???

[Exhibitman]

Saturday night we had a first for this century: Oleksandr Usyk unified the heavyweight championship by beating Tyson Fury and winning the World Boxing Association (WBA), International Boxing Federation (IBF), World Boxing Organisation (WBO), and World Boxing Council (WBC) world heavyweight titles. Fantastic, the baddest man on the planet is now proven. Welll, it was fun while it lasted: the IBF is going to strip its version so it can put it on the line for two tomato cans to fight in two weeks for it, followed by the winner to face Anthony 'Glass Jaw' Joshua after that. Meanwhile, the other three titles will be on the line in October for the rematch.

One of the reasons I've drifted away from modern boxing is this kind of nonsense. For 200+ years, a fighter had to beat the man to be the man. The exceptions were when the man retired or refused to fight for a long time. Not anymore. These damned greedy sanctioning organizations are so eager for purse fees that they have devalued the titles to the point where they are only slightly more impressive than wrestling belts.

[G1911]

I'm a lineal supremacist, these fake belts are just marketing.

The biggest issue, for me though, is all the suspicious or rigged fights still going on. Canelo vs. GGG 1 and 2, Fury Wilder 1, etc. When we do get a good matchup, it's often with a tilted scale and doesn't seem fully honest unless we get a knockout.

I had a very hard time getting to the scores the judges did for Usyk v. Fury. 115-112 Usyk was egregiously wrong. Good match though. That Usyk can even hang with the top heavyweights is great, that he can beat at least some of the very top is amazing.

[jayshum]

What is the reason the IBF is stripping their title from Usyk? I don't really follow boxing, but I thought the point of this fight was to have a unified title.

[D. Bergin]

I'll admit, I've been out of the loop for a few years now, on the present day boxing scene. Once HBO gave up on boxing, and the biggest paydays/events became celebrity and novelty events, rather then having anything to do with higher level boxing, I started to lose interest in keeping track in what was going on.

However, fans and sports writers have been left to piece together lineal titles for decades now.

You still have to beat the man, to be the man, but the sanctioning bodies often have nothing to do with that.

"Undisputed" nowadays is only ever temporary. No fighter or fight manager in their right minds want to pay sanctioning fees to 3 to 5 different outfits, every time they defend their title.

...and if you follow all the various weight classes, it can get real murky on who the actual man is when there is outright avoidance between different boxers and/or promotional outfits.

I'm also not sure you should continue being "The Man", if you never agree to fight the 3 or 4 top guys directly behind you in the rankings...and not necessarily the sanctioning body rankings, which let's be honest, can be quite "rank" sometimes.

[steve B]

There's only one fight I'm waiting for. And oddly I hope it's over quickly.

Almost want it enough to get PPV for the first time ever.