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NEW YORK, NY – APRIL 21: Gervonta Davis celebrates after he TKO’s Jesus Cuellar in the third round to win the WBA Super Featherweight Championship bout at Barclays Center on April 21, 2018 in New York City. (Photo by Mike Stobe/Getty Images)
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NEW YORK, NY – APRIL 21: Gervonta Davis celebrates after he TKO’s Jesus Cuellar in the third round to win the WBA Super Featherweight Championship bout at Barclays Center on April 21, 2018 in New York City. (Photo by Mike Stobe/Getty Images)
For a long time now, too many governing bodies and too many belts in boxing have created extensive confusion among the fans. This also creates tremendous confusion among fighters as to who’s the true champ of the division. That said, to eradicate this conundrum and to arrive at one plain conclusion, the World Boxing Association, also known as the WBA, has come up with a stern step.
The WBA has cut all its interim titles across all the weight classes to make the dynamics of every division easy for fighters and the fans.
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Now this leaves every weight class in the WBA category with one ‘super’ champion, who has the ultimate strap. Whereas one ‘regular’ champion who has the secondary belt of that weight division.
This will reduce the confusion among the fans for obvious reasons and work well for other contenders in the division. But this didn’t go well for some fighters who held the WBA interim belt.
❌ The WBA have scrapped all of their WBA 'interim' belts with immediate effect. The former holders (including Daniel Dubois at heavyweight and Chris Eubank Jr at middleweight) will now be ordered into final eliminators or as direct mandatories for the world champions.
— Michael Benson (@MichaelBensonn) August 25, 2021
In the heavyweight roster, Daniel Dubois held the WBA interim title. He fought for this vacant strap back in June 2021, wherein he defeated Bogdan Dinu to claim the same. But now, he’s stripped off his interim status per WBA’s new policy.
That said, he’ll now either have to fight for an eliminator or directly get a shot towards the champ as the mandatory contender.
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On the other hand, fighters like Gervonta Davis, who have the WBA regular belt to their name, don’t have to worry, as their title is still viable in the division. However, to be on the safer end, these fighters will have to compete against ‘super’ champions soon.
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LONDON, ENGLAND – MAY 20: Gervonta Davis of The United States celebrates following his fight with Liam Walsh of England in the IBF World Junior Lightweight Championship match at Copper Box Arena on May 20, 2017 in London, England. (Photo by Alex Pantling/Getty Images)
Is this the ideal move by WBA?
A few days back, the WBA president, Gilberto Mendoza, spoke about reducing the number of belts. And at last, the WBA kept its promise.
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Several fans and fighters will unquestionably welcome this move as it’ll benefit the sport after all. Citing this, other boxing governing bodies, too, should give a thought to reducing the belts and keeping one/two actual champions in the division.
What do you make of WBA’s decision? Do you think this will bring revolutionary changes ahead?
