Is the winner of Margarito – Mosley the true welterweight champ?

Since former pound-for-pound #1 and welterweight champion Floyd Mayweather announced his retirement last June, there has been some question marks as to who should be regarded as the true kingpin at 147 pounds. Some say the bout this Saturday between reigning titleholder Antonio Margarito and former 3 division champ Sugar Shane Mosley should fill the void. The Ring Magazine disagrees.

 Since 2002, The Ring has a policy when it comes to naming who the current world champion is in a division and they even award belts to these champions. The criteria, as explained on The Ring’s website, is below:

Championship vacancies can be filled by winning a box-off between The Ring's number-one and number-two contenders, or, in certain instances, a box-off between our number-one and number-three contenders.

The only three occasions when a fighter will lose his championship status are when he retires, moves to another weight division, or is defeated in a championship bout.

Many members of the boxing media, including this writer, have adopted these guidelines as a way of determining who is the true champ in a given weight class. This policy is needed due to the confusion of many “sanctioning bodies” in boxing that award world championships.

 The WBA, WBC, IBF and WBO are the four most well known of these organizations and each of them currently recognize a different “champion” at welterweight, which is regarded as one of boxing’s deepest and most competitive divisions.

There are several other organizations of this nature, facetiously known as boxing’s “alphabet soup”, but thankfully some sanity normally prevails and they’re generally ignored.

Aside from the fact that having numerous different world “champs” in a single division is confusing to the average fan, the criteria that the sanctioning bodies use to award these championship belts is just as bogus.

Let’s explore the recent lineage of the four major world titles that exist.

WBA – After unified champion Zab Judah lost a 12 round welterweight fight to Carlos Baldomir, the WBA refused to recognize Baldomir as their new champion because he didn’t pay the organization a percentage of his purse as a “sanctioning fee” for the fight.

Because Judah had previously unified titles with the WBC and IBF, he was given the distinction of being the WBA’s “super champion”. The WBA then awarded a new “world title” to New York’s Luis Colazzo, who had previously defeated Massachusetts’ Jose Antonio Rivera to become the WBA’s “regular champion”.

After Judah lost to Baldomir and they refused to recognize Baldomir as the new champ, Colazzo was upgraded from the regular champion to organization’s “full champion”, as he was not “super” since the WBA’s belt was not unified with any other organizations.

Colazzo lost the belt to Ricky Hatton in his first defense of the title. When Hatton vacated the title after winning it in order to move back down in weight to the junior welterweight division, a fight for the vacant trinket was held between Puerto Rico’s Miguel Cotto and Carlos Quintana. Oddly enough, Cotto got a crack at the world title despite never having fought at welterweight previously.

Nevertheless, Cotto won the title.

Even though it can be questioned whether or not he deserved the shot at the vacant title to begin with, Cotto proved to be a very formidable champion. He racked up 5 title defenses including quality wins over former champs Judah and Mosley.

Cotto lost his belt last June when he was TKO’d in the 11^th round of his fight with Margarito, who will defend the belt this Saturday as the WBA’s welterweight champion.

WBC – When Floyd Mayweather retired with the WBC’s belt, he vacated the title. To fill the vacancy, the World Boxing Council mandated that contender Andre Berto and journeyman Miki Rodriguez fight for the vacant belt. Nevermind the fact that neither had fought nor beat a legitimate top ten contender at that point in their careers.

Berto has since defended the title twice against solid opposition: former junior lightweight titleholder Steve Forbes and former welterweight titleholder Luis Colazzo.

IBF – After Judah lost to Baldomir, the IBF allowed him to keep his title because he had paid a sanctioning fee and Baldomir had not.

It can be argued that he paid to keep his world title.

Judah lost the belt in his next defense to Floyd Mayweather, who vacated the belt without defending it, and then went on to win the WBC’s welterweight title with a victory over Baldomir.

The IBF set up a fight for the vacant belt between contender Kermit Cintron and journeyman Mark Suarez. The mismatch on paper turned out to be a mismatch for real as Cintron battered Suarez en route to a 6^th round TKO.

Cintron eventually lost the title to Margarito in 2007, who was subsequently stripped of the belt by the IBF for having the audacity to want to unify titles with the WBA’s beltholder Miguel Cotto.

The current IBF welterweight titleholder is Josh Clottey, who beat Zab Judah for the vacant belt.

WBO – The title is vacant after Paul Williams moved up in weight to the junior middleweight and middleweight divisions to find more lucrative fights.

 

 

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In comparison to the inconsistencies and illogical practices of the alphabet soup organizations, The Ring policy is a breather of fresh air. However, the criteria has come under criticism recently because the publication will not recognize this Saturday’s bout for The Ring’s welterweight championship.

Antonio Margarito is ranked #1 by the magazine. Shane Mosley is ranked #3. The Ring’s policy states that a vacancy can be filled in certain instances by a box-off between the #1 and #3 contenders.

However, the mag does not see this Saturday’s fight as being one of those times.

The reason? The #2 ranked Miguel Cotto, who was KO’d by Margarito, has a unanimous decision victory over Mosley from 2007. If Mosley wins, he will have beaten the #1 fighter in the division, but he already lost to the #2 fighter in the division, muddying the answer to the question, who is the welterweight champion?

It was Mosley’s last welterweight appearance that he lost to Cotto. His recent fight, a 12^th round KO of Ricardo Mayorga was a junior middleweight bout.

There has also been mention of former welterweight titleholder Paul Williams, who has since moved up in weight. What if he decided to move back down to 147 pounds?

While many find that last argument to be a stretch, the first argument does make sense.

Now if Margarito does win, as he is favored to do, he will hold victories over the #2 and #3 welterweights in the world, while holding the #1 spot himself. In turn, this would make him the de facto champion in the eyes of many. However , it could be deemed ridiculous to hold an official championship fight were the title was only on the line for one competitor.

The Ring championship policy may not make for the perfect situation this Saturday, but it sure is more credible than any titles handed out by the alphabet soup organizations.

How do you feel about The Ring Magazine’s championship policy? Will this Saturday’s fight determine who is the best welterweight in the world? Please post comments below.