Talk:World heavyweight boxing championship records and statistics

Why does this page need to be updated every day? surely it can be done say every two weeks. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Morpheus7 (talk • contribs) 13:33, 11 April 2018 (UTC)

Is top 20 the appropriate number?
Just would like to hear some opinions some from other hardcore boxing fans, boxers, writers etc, if 20 is too much or too little, should the list include every champ in history? or maybe only top 10 or 15? or just leave it the way it is? cheers and god bless :)

No no:) I think and know that a top 20 it okay:)

Not to much and not too little. Lets just leave it as it is. Cheers:) — Preceding unsigned comment added by David-golota (talk • contribs) 20:31, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

In my humble opinion, if you only consider the champions that are, let's say, undoubtfull, champs that were regarded widely as "THE" champion (W. Klitschko, Lewis, Hollyfield, Tyson, M. Spinks, Holmes, Ali, Foreman, Frazier, young Ali, Liston, Patterson, Marciano, Walcott, Charles, Louis, Tunney, Dempsey, Johnson, Burns), which is already 20, a group to which you can quite legitimately add Baer, Carnera, Braddock, Schmeling and Sharkey on the one hand, and the first ones on the other: Hart, Jeffries, Fitz, Corbett and Sullivan, that would get us to 30, and it would give a complete panorama. Idk. Personally, I'd go for that many. If you want to add some more from the contemporary alphabet soup, guys who are generally much less legitimate, you could find yourself, according to your own taste, easily with 40, 50 names. So once again, in my humble (and I mean that, humble, it's a suggestion), the traditional list of linear guys up to the alphabet time's champions who were widely regarded as "THE" champ, would be ideal, and would get us at around 30. -Frank Arouet — Preceding unsigned comment added by Frank D. Arouet (talk • contribs) 17:24, 29 June 2022 (UTC)

Modern title Era & Universal title era
Just a random thought, when i was looking at tennis stats they had 2 separate era's, and it got me thinking. In a way boxing has 2 era's, the old Universal 1 championship per weight class era, and the alphabet title era where there's so many belts & more weight classes, but i guess there's allot of ways to look at it, would love to hear your thoughts guys :) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Aussieswimmer (talk • contribs) 00:28, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

Well that is true and I agree. But if you look at the list half of the boxers are from the Universal title are and the other half is from the Modern title era.

But that is also something that makes the Heavyweight divison so great. It has no weight limit and is so old :) David-golota (talk) 18:53, 8 January 2012 (UTC) David-golota

Yeah thats a good point, plus i find i funny how so many articles call it a weak division, however it has the most registered professionals than any other weight class. - Aussieswimmer — Preceding unsigned comment added by Aussieswimmer (talk • contribs) 00:32, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

Yeah the Heavyweight divison has always been the "best" and the most prestiuges one. Well it is only "weak" because the challengers to the Klitschko are so bad, compare to the Klitschko's. ^^David-golota (talk) 00:51, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

Ali's 3 years of inactivity
Just curious should we really count his title reign while he was inactive for 3 years? It's only a few months longer than Vitali's absence that he took, while i wasn't alive at the time, dad says all the magazines regarded Frazier as the champ and Ali's comeback tune-ups fights before the first Frazier match ups weren't regarded as title defenses. Eager to hear other people's views. cheers and god bless — Preceding unsigned comment added by Aussieswimmer (talk • contribs) 00:33, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

yeah I actually agree with you. Dont know why Ali has that. But on the other hand. He did not retire and James J. Corbett & Jess Willard was champions for 4 years and only made 1 defense. But Im split.David-golota (talk) 14:48, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

About inactivity
According to this list Vitali Klitschko and Muhammad Ali’s long title reigns do not count because of the three years of inactive between title defenses, and Brian Nielsen becouse he spent two years between defences. However it also list Jack Dempsey and John L. Sullivan as having reigned for 7 years despite the fact they were also inactive for over three years. It also list Jack Johnson (inactive for over 2 years), Jim Corbett (Inactive for over 3 years), and Jess Willard (inactive for 3 years). I would agree that Klitschko probably douse not deserve to be credited with a 7 year rein; however that is because he officially retired and the title was given to somebody else not because of inactivity. Either Ali and Nielson should be returned to the list or, Dempsey, Sullivan, Johnson, Carbett, and Willard should be removed from it. We need to apply the same qualifications to everyone on this list not pick and chouse.

Neilsen & Ali
Neislen is not on the main list because IBO is not a major organisation, there is no "return to the list" he was never on the list to begin with. Ali's title reign that went for 7 years was stretched out by the ring magazine belt which was not a major belt either (at the time) nor were his tune up fights before the Frazier loss regarded as real title defenses, therefore that is why they are not eligible.

— Preceding unsigned comment added by Aussieswimmer (talk)

Dates
How about a column in the table giving the date the individual first became champion?CountMacula (talk) 15:20, 21 May 2013 (UTC)

Wladimir Klitschko 1st reign
IS there anyway we could add Wladimir Klitschko's 1st reign on the list? WBO (10/14/2000-3/8/2003) 2 years, 4 months, 22 days 5 title defenses. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.179.210.11 (talk) 04:12, 5 December 2014 (UTC)


 * The WBO was not recognized as a major sanctioning body until 2004.
 * Lennox Lewis was considered undisputed by all major sanctioning bodies & The Ring when he beat Evander Holyfield, therefore Wladimir Klitschko's first reign was when WBO was still a secondary belt
 * Bernard Hopkins is considered the first champion of the 4 belt era President For Life (talk) 10:22, 19 June 2022 (UTC)
 * It looks like his first WBO title is included on all but "Most opponents beaten in title fights - All championship reigns", but Vitali's earlier WBO title is included in the same table. I agree that it wasn't considered a major title when Lewis was undisputed, but I'm not so sure about the "4 belt era". Undisputed championship (boxing) has notes that say "The WBO was not yet recognized as a major title at the time." for Hopkins and Taylor.--Jahalive (talk) 17:30, 19 June 2022 (UTC)
 * The general thinking is that the WBO belt became accepted as a major belt in 2004, when the WBC finally started recognizing WBO champions in it's rankings. Now, the IBF didn't do it until 2006. But one thing I know is that it wasn't accepted as a major belt in 2000 when Wlad won it. President For Life (talk) 02:45, 21 June 2022 (UTC)

Wins against the most opponents
Are the various categories of "wins against the most opponents" and the "Avg. of win & BO" things that are covered by any reliable sources?--SaskatchewanSenator (talk) 20:10, 24 April 2019 (UTC)
 * The main source of all title fights is BoxRec. It's cited at the very bottom among external links.--Виктор Не Вацко (talk) 23:32, 7 May 2019 (UTC+2)
 * Does BoxRec list "wins against the most opponents" and the "Avg. of win & BO"?--SaskatchewanSenator (talk) 19:44, 16 May 2019 (UTC)
 * Rewritten.--Виктор Не Вацко (talk) 18:47, 22 May 2019 (UTC+2)
 * What is/was rewritten?--SaskatchewanSenator (talk) 23:02, 22 May 2019 (UTC)
 * I see you removed the "Avg. of wins & BO" but is "opponents beaten in title fights" something that is covered by reliable sources?--SaskatchewanSenator (talk) 22:33, 19 June 2019 (UTC)

I think that putting this section here is misleading. Traditionally, you judge a champion's reign by the number of successful defenses, or the consecutive title wins. Not the number of "opponents" beaten. It's a bit as if you had found a way to put W. Klitschko ahead of the great Joe Louis, which is ludicrous. You have to think that Louis has also had countless so-called exhibitions with 6 ounces gloves in which real contenders tried to knock him out. Not Klitschko, of course. Louis might have had 100 of these "exhibitions" in which he knocked out many good contenders of the time. Will you include that as "beaten opponents"? This is so utterly ridiculous and imo, borderline racist. It's at least big bs. It's very misleading for the profane. I really disagree with the way this is all presented, and the first list here should be the traditional number of title defenses. Moreover, Louis' title holding length was consecutive, not broken in 2, like for Klitschko. But no, you manage to create several lists in which Klitschko is ahead of Louis. Once again, it's utterly ridiculous and terribly misleading for someone who doesn't know the sport's history. -Frank Arouet.


 * First of all, this is Wikipedia, not a boxing forum. You're not welcomed to throw accusations left and right like that. Second, number of beaten opponents is something that is frequently mentioned by Ukrainian and Russian sources, so it belongs here just as much as anything else. English-language media is not the end-all and be-all of boxing information. And, if you do have some information about Joe Louis' victorious fights for the title that haven't been mentioned by IBHOF or BoxRec - feel free to share them on Wikipedia, such valuable information is definitely welcomed. IvanchukW (talk) 17:52, 16 April 2022 (UTC)


 * Hey, bozo, this IS an english language article. If you want to go by what's fair in Russia or Ukraine, by all means, do it on a Ukrainian or Russian language site. Not here. I repeat that traditionally, you never mention the number of opponents. You're only doing this to put Klitschko ahead of Joe Louis in the most disgustingly racist way. -Frank Arouet. 96.22.165.165 (talk) 00:26, 11 May 2022 (UTC)
 * As to asking if I have info "about Louis' victorious fights for the title that haven't been mentioned by IBHOF or BoxRec", I'll say that much: If you recognized Klitschko's wins as he only had a "belt", the "WBO" "title" for instance, you then need to mention that Louis won the Brittish Board of Control Heavyweight championship of the world on June 15, 1951, as mentioned by BoxRec, and defended it 2 times until losing it to Marciano. Which does make Louis the winner over 3 more opponents, and therefore 2 more than Klitschko (GO SEE ON BOXREC IF IT'S WHAT YOU ABIDE BY!!!). [Finally, many of the exhibitions I'm taking about in which Louis kayoed yet some more opponents are mentioned on Cyberboxing zone and on other sources that shouldn't be hard to find.] Klitschko has NOTHING over Louis. Louis was from the get-go THE heavyweight champion of the world. Not either Klitschkos. To manipulate facts in order to put Klitschko ahead of the great Joe Louis is DISGUSTING! 96.22.165.165 (talk) 00:44, 11 May 2022 (UTC)


 * I'll say it one more time - this is not a boxing forum. Insults and unjustified accusations are not allowed here, Frank. About Joe Louis' victorious fights, IBHOF does not recognize BBBofC titles as worldwide caliber. If you don't believe me, you can buy the latest IBHOF book (that of 2011, I believe) to check it out yourself. That's why they aren't here. Third, I don't know a rule that says that sources in a non-English language have less value than English language sources, even if we're in the English Wikipedia. Where does it say that? If you find one, feel free to delete statistics about beaten opponents yourself, you're allowed to do that. IvanchukW (talk) 19:03, 14 May 2022 (UTC)
 * I'll give you that I might have reacted too strongly. Yet, by answering, and I quote you, "number of beaten opponents is something that is frequently mentioned by Ukrainian and Russian sources, so it belongs here just as much as anything else. English-language media is not the end-all and be-all of boxing information", you essentially admit what I'm saying, that you are indeed manipulating numers in order to give the impression, IvanchukW, that a fighter from Ukraine had some kind of superiority over THE champion who's reign is, and was, obviously the longest, continuous, widely regarded as totally legitimate, championship reign ever at heavyweight. If it's fine in Ukraine/Russia to do so, well, do it there. But it's not something that is done in the English speaking world and therefore is misleading to an English reader who doesn't know boxing history. I'll also repeat that it conveys a twisted view of reality and erroneous notions about successive champions and their reigns.
 * Moreover, you don't seem to realize that the reason why we always mention the number of successful title defenses, and not the number of opponents: if the number of "opponents" is higher, it's either that the champion hasn't had decent opponents enough to give them a rematch, or either that he, as a champion, was not strong enough, or good enough, or legitimate enough, to give rematches to the good ones! Fighting less opponents in relation to more title defenses simply means that a champion has fought a greater quality of opposition, and has been decent enough as a champion to grant rematches to these challengers. In other words, it's not something positive to mention that there were more opponents relatively to title defenses; it's a negative. It has ABSOLUTELY NO PLACE HERE. It's not something mentioned traditionally, there is no record book or note mentioning that, no encyclopedia, no good history documentary, etc, precisely because of these reasons.
 * You're also telling me that the IBHOF is not considering this or that: this is an encyclopedia! Not the official IBHOF outlet! What I meant was that, giving importance to a "champion" and his title defenses when he, for instance, only had the WBO belt, is far from being as legitimate from any defenses by unified champions Marciano, Louis, Charles, Frazier, etc. It doesn't have anything to do with this. If you don't want to be misleading in an encyclopedia, if you are going to give importance to "titles", then you need to be fully explanatory in your presentation, and show that in the past, championship were either already unified and undisputed, or generally unified quite fast to create unanimity. The way this is presented here increases confusion rather than supplying a reader with decent information.
 * To summarize, it is absolutely obvious that this section is superfluous, misleading and I'd even go as far as saying that it's even difficult to figure what, exactly, it is there to convey. It should be taken down. - Frank Arouet. 96.22.165.165 (talk) 04:47, 29 June 2022 (UTC)
 * No worries, we all sometimes lose our temper about something. It happens to all of us. I'm sorry but it seems to me that you're just upset that an American fighter is not No.1, I apologize if I'm wrong about this but it feels like you dislike the fact that a fighter that is not a big deal in the US is No.1 somewhere. I don't disregard English-US media, I don't know why you got that impression. Is that because I have beaten opponents above wins, like Jahalive mentioned? Go ahead and swipe them, I honestly don't understand why is that a big deal but whatever. I regard both English-speaking media and Ukrainian-Russian-Polish media, hence why I keep most wins alongside most beaten opponents - I keep both. Wikipedia of whichever language is an encyclopedia that is not narrowed only to countries where the given language dominates. That's not the case at all. That's the point of encyclopedia, different cultures share informations between each other.
 * "What I meant was that, giving importance to a "champion" and his title defenses when he, for instance, only had the WBO belt, is far from being as legitimate from any defenses by unified champions Marciano, Louis, Charles, Frazier, etc" - I get your point, and I agree that the amount of legitimate championship belts has gotten way out of control and needs to be reduced, ideally to one. I couldn't agree more, and I think that the majority of boxing fans and media agrees with you. But that doesn't change the fact that it's a legitimate championship belt, whether we like it or not. IBHOF is the closest we'll have to a universally recognized boxing organization, and if it regards WBO as a major title since 1997, than we go with it. Just because the US did not view the WBO title a major one until 2004 (when Bernard Hopkins was given an exception to unify all four belts), doesn't mean anyone else is forbidden to. The UK regarded the WBO title as a major one since early 1990s, and Mexico regarded it as a major one since its very creation. And by the way, WBO became recognized by WBA, WBC and IBF all together only in 2007, not 2004. Up until 2007, only in big money fights boxers were allowed to fight for all four. Sure, we can say that IBHOF's opinion shouldn't be regarded as a universally recognized fact, but than we go down a wonderful rabbit hole in which you could argue that there hadn't been any world titles at all until 1949, because NBA and NYSAC had their jurisdiction narrowed to the US (and maybe Canada) only up until that point. These statistics rely on IBHOF as a universally recognized boxing organization, and if it's not the case, than we can safely nominate this article for deletion because there is nothing else that we can rely on to say which sanctioning body is major and which isn't which would BTW allow IBO to enter the discussion (because that's exactly what we need, more major titles).
 * Why there is most wins instead of most combined title defenses? This disregard of regaining title wins is something I've only seen in the US boxing media, no other media do that - not the majority of the UK media, not Spanish-language media, not Ukrainian, Russian, Polish media nor any other.
 * Regarding IBHOF - their encyclopedia is their official encyclopedia, and is the closest we'll have to what title IBHOF regards as major and from when. And this disregard of regaining title wins is something I've only seen in US boxing media, no other media do that - not the UK, not Spanish-language nor any other.
 * Also, if you want to make changes, do them yourself. I've hinted at least twice that if you don't like something, make those changes yourself. IvanchukW (talk) 12:23, 23 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Most sources rank championship records by consecutive title defenses and longest time of continuous reign, so those should be first in the list. There are way too many categories here. A bunch of them should be removed.--Jahalive (talk) 17:30, 3 June 2022 (UTC)
 * I guess "Statistics by era" can be removed, if we're going to keep statistics based on what is mentioned in the media and what is not and also based on general sports' statisctics rules. IvanchukW (talk) 12:34, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

Joe Frazier's title reign
NYSAC title has not been recognized as a world title since the creation of WBA and WBC. Frazier's world title reign started at 1970 when he defeated Jimmy Ellis. — IvanchukW (talk) 16:04, 26 May 2019 (UTC+2)

Considering how many world title fights were disputed in NY at the time, the NYSAC was far more recognized, acknowledged and legitimate than the WBO was at the beginning of the 2000s, and even more than it is still today. Any champion of the 70s was more credible than the alphabet soup title holders that came after, except for Holmes and Hagler, who had both gained their legitimacy in the ring previously. Frazier as the NYSAC champion was much more legitimate than Wlad Klitschko was as a simple WBO titlist. You are right to say that he became the unified champion after beating Ellis, but if you do recognize alphabet soup titlists, you need to recognize the NYSAC as well. This being said, I find that this entire article is absolutely horrendous, misleading, badly made, badly presented and badly formulated. It should be heavily corrected or scrapped altogether. - Frank Arouet — Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.22.165.165 (talk) 05:23, 29 June 2022 (UTC)