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

[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.