Álvarez will become the first undisputed super-middleweight champion if he defeats his American opponent on Saturday
There were times in the last century when boxing was the dominant and most popular sport in America. During those lost decades, in the 1920s and 1930s, only eight boxers at a time could call themselves world champions. There were eight weight divisions, compared with 17 today, and each was ruled by one world champion known across the sporting globe. Such select purity made boxing compelling and easy to follow.
This year the venerable British trade publication, Boxing News, made a principled stand against today’s contrasting plethora of world champions. Their editor, Matt Christie, wrote: “It’s impossible to think of another sport in which there are so many ‘world champions’ who have achieved this status without proving themselves to be the best in the world. By my calculations, 74 of the 81 active ‘world champions’ have not won a contest that could have resulted in them being universally declared the best in their division.”