INTERIM TITLES - GOOD OR BAD FOR BOXING?

‘Interim’ world champions and ‘Regular’ world champions, two titles which the hardcore boxing cult believe shouldn’t even exist or be used in the context of the sport.

Whether you like it or not, though, ‘Interim’ and ‘Regular’ champions are here to stay.

Brought in to essentially crown a champion who isn’t actually the full champion of that weight division within that particular sanctioning body, these titles have been on the line for some of the biggest fights in the past 20+ years, most recently when Daniel Dubois stopped Filip Hrgovic in Saudi Arabia.

With 20 active ‘Interim’ or ‘Regular’ champions in boxing right now, 14 male and six female, these are titles that do carry some weight but, at the same time, are also frowned upon amongst fighters and fans alike.

So, what is the actual point in them?

Well, what it does is make clear who the mandatory challenger is within a particular weight division and sanctioning body.

“So, why don’t they just have final eliminators?”, I hear you ask.

Well, the sanctioning bodies don’t accrue their three percent if there is simply a final eliminator between two fighters with no belt on the line.

Ultimately, boxing is about money, and while some people may see the ‘Interim’ and ‘Regular’ titles as a form of greed for the people at the top of these sanctioning bodies, some might argue they’re giving more fighters the opportunity to refer to themselves as a ‘world champion’ even though, in reality, that might not necessarily be the case.

The general consensus in boxing in the past 20 years is that the sport just needs one world title belt per weight division.

However, as a business, boxing isn’t that simple. It hasn’t been for a long time and won’t be any time soon.

The one thing which is realistically possible, however, is making one world champion per weight, per sanctioning body.

We have seen a spike in undisputed world title fights of late and that is something which, as boxing fans, we have been deprived of for too long. But just because that’s happening, it doesn’t mean those governing bodies should be making more world titles.

Things such as ‘Champion In Recess’, which is handed to a fighter when they want to challenge for a world title in a different weight, are becoming far more common. If a fighter wants to go and test themselves in a different weight class, they should just vacate their world title and put all their eggs into the basket of their new division.

The sentiment is good to create more ‘world champions’ but when you look at the structure of the UFC, and how much criticism they have received for making Tom Aspinall ‘Interim’ world champion because Jon Jones would much rather fight Stipe Miocic, it goes to show it isn’t just boxing fans who turn their noses up at this sort of nonsense.

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