Disrespecting your World Title

With our present era of Super Belts, Diamond Belts, etc it is clear that World Titles have lost the respect of almost every fan in the sport as it doesn't seem too hard to get your hands on some form of title.

Going back a bit further when titles meant something, who do you think the earliest fighters who showed disrespect to their belt that they tried so hard to win.

We all know that Riddick Bowe threw his Heavyweight Title in a bin to avoid fighting Lewis, which is a bit of a kick in the teeth to the fans who paid their hard earned money to watch him win it.

By this I mean, fighters who gave up their crown too easy instead of fighting too keep it like they should have.

Mayweather refused to pay sanctioning fees when he fought Mosley.

Scottrf wrote:Mayweather refused to pay sanctioning fees when he fought Mosley.

Yea mate, was thinking about Mayweather when he fought Mosely.

Also had Pacquiao in mind when he fought Margarito for the Light Middle belt and then gave it up straight away. I think there were 2 or 3 fights he could of had against guys at that weight to at least show that he was worthy of fighting for it in the first place.

Cheers for the input!

And to be fair Scott, that was more of disrespecting the WBO itself as it was Mosely's title.

Thought it was the WBA, but either way, yeah he seems happy enough to fight for the WBC.

Might be controversial but one could argue the No Decision era and colour line policy disrespected what the title meant.

The no decision era would probably one of the earliest where fighters often fought simply not to get knocked out in order to hang onto their titles rather than going out to win. There are a number examples of fighters but Freddie Welsh (especially against McFarland) and Abe Attell (against Jim Driscoll) would be early examples I can think of.

The colour line mightnt have always been the fault of the fighter in question but it would appear the likes of Jack Johnson seldom defended their titles against the best qualified challenger and the idea that fighting a fellow black man would not have sold appears to have debunked over time with many sources indicating high purse value in fighting Sam Langford.

Reborn-DeeMcK-Reborn wrote: We all know that Riddick Bowe threw his Heavyweight Title in a bin to avoid fighting Lewis,

Honeyghan also did this but for diffrent reasons. He was pictured dropping his WBA belt into a bin because he didn't want to fight a South African fighter due to apartheid. I think it was Harold Volbrecht.

I sort-of get the no decision era.

Devisions being subjective and all too frequently corrupt - whereas knockouts, generally, are not subjective.

Attell and Welsh exploited the rule for all it was worth - but its not as though they just had to avoid being knocked out for ever and they'd keep the title for ever - proper "championship" bouts would be arranged where they could lose the title on points.

Yeah I see the principal behind the ND rule but dont really think it ever worked in practice. Even when the newspapers got involved with NWS decisions its still pretty unsatisfactory as they are just journalists giving there opinion rather than official judges. Its unclear how qualified they are to score a fight. I would hate to see Steve Bunce or Jim Watt scoring fights for example.

manos de piedra wrote:Yeah I see the principal behind the ND rule but dont really think it ever worked in practice. Even when the newspapers got involved with NWS decisions its still pretty unsatisfactory as they are just journalists giving there opinion rather than official judges. Its unclear how qualified they are to score a fight. I would hate to see Steve Bunce or Jim Watt scoring fights for example.

Agreed. I tend to worry if I ever score a fight the same way as Watt - most of the time I may as well be watching a different fight from him.

Although with some of the judging going on lately whos to say the average journalist would do any worse to be honest.

Atila wrote:

Reborn-DeeMcK-Reborn wrote: We all know that Riddick Bowe threw his Heavyweight Title in a bin to avoid fighting Lewis,

Honeyghan also did this but for diffrent reasons. He was pictured dropping his WBA belt into a bin because he didn't want to fight a South African fighter due to apartheid. I think it was Harold Volbrecht.

make me laugh picturing this happening, Honey with a surprised look on his face down a dark alley dropping his belt into a bin.

Don't see the sense in that either, putting the belt in a bin would surely not take the "champion" tag off you as the Governing body would still have you listed as it....unless you climbed through the WB-whatever's window, opened up a file with the document that says you are the champion and rip it up and throw it in the bin.

Atila wrote:

Reborn-DeeMcK-Reborn wrote: We all know that Riddick Bowe threw his Heavyweight Title in a bin to avoid fighting Lewis,

Honeyghan also did this but for diffrent reasons. He was pictured dropping his WBA belt into a bin because he didn't want to fight a South African fighter due to apartheid. I think it was Harold Volbrecht.

More to the point I think he didn't want to face Breland, would would have then been the WBA mandatory contender. He could have easily beaten the South African and got plenty of opportunity to air his views on apartheid

Does anyone care about the titles anymore? I wathched last weekends fight and can honestly say I don't remember, or care, what titles were on the line. This is the best way forward IMO.