The president of the World Boxing Association, Gilberto Mendoza, is putting together a plan to reduce the number of belts that his organization holds in each respective weight class.
Certain divisions have as many as four WBA champions – with super, regular, interim and gold belts being occupied.
Mendoza may eliminate the “regular” and interim belts in each division and give more priority to the “Gold” titles.
Over the course of the last few years, countless fans have turned on the sanctioning bodies – due to the mass abundance of world titles in every division – and the WBA is by far the worst offender.
Mendoza wants to initiate the first phase of his plan in the month of October.
“A plan is coming, we are not looking to do it for popularity, but we are going to definitely reduce the number of titles. That flexibility that we had with the titles, we are going to eliminate it little by little,” Mendoza told ESPN Deportes.
“It is something that the public has asked for, even if I am not one hundred percent in agreement with that change. I feel that with more titles we give the fighters more opportunities, but I understand that the public is very important [to the sport].
“I know that on other occasions I have said [that I would reduced the number of titles] and I have not been able to fulfill that, but now I am going to do it, I’m saying this with my feet on the ground – after having analyzed the numbers, after having analyzed the situation that has been generated and the number of controversies there have been, and with respect to the level of legal conflicts it will also simplify things for the WBA.
“I am not telling you that I am going to stay with a single champion [in each division], but yes, most of the divisions I am going to stay [with one champion]. It is a difficult plan, I hope that in October we will start it, I do not know how long it can take. I do not know in which divisions the interim belts will be removed and in which divisions the regular and the super champions will remain. We are going to strengthen the Gold belts that we have.”