Undisputed or Mutiple Championship: Which is the Better Gauge of Greatness?
By Teodoro Medina Reynoso
PhilBoxing.com
Wed, 13 Dec 2023
Welterweight Terrence "Bud" Crawford and super bantamweight Naoya "The Monster" are touted as #1 and #1.a as the world's best pound for pound boxer today.
Crawford is listed higher for winning undisputed champion status in his second weight division — the welterweights after claiming such honor and distinction earlier at junior welterweight or super lightweight. Bud is also a three division champion as he had held major belts at lightweight before moving up.
Naoya is bidding to win undisputed status in his second weight class — the super bantamweight — after winning all major titles at the bantamweights. The Japanese Monster is currently a four division world champion after winning major belts earlier at light flyweight and the junior bantamweight or super flyweight (where unfortunately he did not stay long enough to have trade mitts with the likes of Chocolatito Gonzalez and Juan Francisco Estrada).
Naoya is scheduled to clash against Filipino unified world titlist Marlon Tapales this coming December 26, 2023 in Japan for all the marbles so to speak.
The two are the greatest arguments of boxing proponents or advocates who are pushing for undisputed championships as the better measure of boxing greatness than winning many weight division world titles (an obvious dig at Manny Pacquiao who holds the record of winning world titles in eight weight classes).
But is being undisputed in one or more weight division a better gauge of boxing greatness or immortality than that achieved by Pacquiao?
One has to look to what happened to Josh Taylor or to Oleksander Usyk earlier.
Crawford and Inoue may have been rewarded for their feats with high global ranking and esteem from boxing experts and aficionados. But such accolades were elusive to both Taylor and Usyk for some reasons, subjective and whimsical.
Taylor became undisputed champion at super lightweight by winning all the major belts between 2019-2021. But last year, he was reduced to just owning the WBO title after the other major boxing organizations withdrew their recognitions due to a poor title defense performance against Jack Catteral and/or alleged failure to defend their titles against a challenger of their choice. How flimsy or whimsical can those reasons be!
Taylor later even lost that WBO belt to Teofimo Lopez, himself a former undisputed champion at lightweight who felt did not get his just dessert after achieving the feat. And now the super lightweight division is back to the "normal" four titleholders that now included another former undisputed lightweight champion Devin Haney who, like Lopez, did not enjoy any career boom after achieving the same feat at 135 lbs.
Usyk was the first to achieve undisputed status at cruiserweight, winning all the belts that matter. But that also did not do any wonder for his career. Now he is campaigning in his second division where he is bidding to attain undisputed status after claiming most of the major titles against Anthony Joshua. The Ukrainian is reportedly set to clash against WBC and Ring Magazine lineal world heavyweight champion Tyson Fury for all the marbles early next year in Saudi Arabia
Curiously, both Taylor and Usyk never cracked the list of the top ten pound for pound fighter in the world of the venerable Ring Magazine after attaining undisputed status at super lightweight and cruiserweight respectively Neither did former undisputed junior middleweight champion Jermell Charlo.
For a while, Canelo Alvarez topped the Ring and most listing of the best fighter of the world especially when he won majority of the belts at middleweight and when he became undisputed at super middleweight. But one awful performance in his failed quest for a solitary belt at light heavyweight against Dmitri Bivol sent his credentials crashing down!
Given these, the arguments that being undisputed champion is the better measure of greatness than Pacquiao's unprecedented eight world division titles are full of holes to say the least.
The author Teodoro Medina Reynoso is a veteran boxing radio talk show host living in the Philippines. He can be reached at teddyreynoso@yahoo.com and by phone 09215309477.
Click here to view a list of other articles written by Teodoro Medina Reynoso.
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