By Glenn Wilson

WBA,WBC,IBF,IBO and WBO, now as the song says E-I-E-I-O, because following boxing is sometimes like living on Old McDonald's farm, only on boxing's farm we have five roosters for one little henhouse.

Every organization has it's own champion, no matter how bad that particular fighter may be, he represents what they believe to be the recognized world champion. To make the situation even more confusing is the fact that no matter how talented a fighter may be, if he is the champion of another alphabet organization, then he becomes a nonentity, a fighter that simply does not exist.

Diehard fight fans are smart enough to differentiate between who the real champions and the pretenders, but the average person who only watches the big name fighters has trouble keeping up with the fight game.

Despite what the oganizations may try to tell the public, the bottom line is how much money these groups can rake in, to bring in the money you must control the champion. When a fighter becomes a champion it usually comes at a cost, first you claim to be a beltholder, which is a good thing, then you are notified by that sanctioning body that you must pay them a fee to fight. Imagine a Dad telling his son, "I love you son, but everytime you tell someone that you are my son, it will be necessary for you to give me one-forth of your allowance." The alphabet groups work on the same principle.

Don't get me wrong, the alphabet groups, which from now on in this story will be referred to as the AGs, just to add some more letters to the mix, do occasionally do some good. Witout the AGs many fighters would have never got the chance to fight for a title or possibly have a career defining payday and some fighter's legacies are built on being an AG titleholder.

Without the AGs we would have never witnessed the excitement of Ray "Boom Boom" Mancini winning the Lightweight title for his Father. Mancini was a throwback, one of the most popular and exciting fighters of his time, but truth be told, he probably never would have beaten Alexis Arguello in a rematch. But thanks to the WBA, Mancini was able to take his share of the crown from Arturo Frias in an action packed one round fight.

But for every feel good story like Mancini's, we are tortured as fight fans to see yet another John Ruiz title defense. Ruiz never had a legitimate claim on the Heavyweight title. Lennox Lewis was the legitimate undisputed Heavyweight champion of the world, yet the WBA in it's infinite wisdom felt compelled to dispute Lewis' undisputed claim, enter Ruiz and a split title.

As soon as three good reasons are given for the AGs to crawl away and die, one good reason presents itself for the AGs to breathe for one more day, in this case we got the chance to see Roy Jones, Jr. attempt to make history, although it is a somewhat distorted history, by winning a piece of the Heavyweight title.

Roy Jones, Jr., while being a great fighter that is bound for the Hall Of Fame, has had many detracters over the years, mainly because he chose to avoid big name fights and concentrate on fighting his AG mandatories, the problem usually being that most of these mandatories were guys who couldn't have bought their way into a top ten ranking but were connected enough to buy their way into a mandatory position.

At the same time it is hard to fault Jones thinking, as a fighter he wanted belts, recognition and big money, the things all fighters dream of, and Roy achieved all of these, but his legend takes a hit when thoughts of all the fights he could have had come to mind. So at some point the boxing public must understand what is in the heart and mind of a fighter, if a company with a shady reputation offered you big money, fame and recognition, even if you were the most honorable of people, it would be hard not to at least consider how much your life would change, and so goes the dilemma that most fighters face today.

But as soon as the heart starts to feel forgiveness setting in, we are intellectually assaulted as if we were the mindless dweebs that the AGs take most of the boxing public to be. Case in point, Zab Judah and Carlos Baldomir, when it was announced that Baldomir would not be paying the IBF a sanctioning fee, the IBF announced that it's belt would not be on the line during their fight. So when Baldomir fought the fight of his life and the judges actually called the fight right, boxing had a new undisputed Welterweight champion of the world. Except in the IBF's world Judah never lost, hell in their minds there was never even a fight.

So now the average fight fan, who doesn't always keep up with boxing, believes that Floyd Mayweather is the new Welterweight champion. But then again this is what we have come to expect, many fighters claim to have won belts in two different weight classes, when in fact they won belts in the same weight class. This is done because the AGs have not only tampered with the championships, but they have gone so far as to rename boxing's divisions. The 130 pound division, for years known as the Junior Lightweight division, suddenly also became known as the Super Featherweight division, completely ridiculous.

Boxing is filled with great fighters and great personalities, but what is needed is for these two groups to continually speak out and press for what is best for boxing. The Ring got the ball rolling with their championship policy, this is the kind of thing that could, and lets hope it should, continue a ripple effect until congress wises up and does what is right.

Boxing has friends in high places, Senator John McCain being the most recognizable supporter, also Teddy Atlas constantly preaches about reform and a nationwide commission, but unfortunately the politicians, just like the AGs, refuse to act on what is right because it is not in their best interest. All of this translates into the fact that it will not line their pockets or grant them favors.

So when all is said and done the AGs will still have their claws firmly sunk into boxing. We often hear stories of how unscrupulous promoters screw over fighters, well the AGs and some of the most notorious promoters are in bed together, they feed off of one another. Get the AGs under control and soon many of the so called bad decisions will start to go away.

With politicians unable or more fittingly, unwilling to help our sport, who is left to turn to to help control these out of control organizations, the answer lies at the heart of boxing, the fighters themselves. Our sport exists and thrives on the courage of the men who step inside the ring, these same men could actually control the fate of the AGs. If just a few of these great warriors would turn their backs on these crooks then the sport would improve dramatically. We have seen fighters in recent years say no to they AG mandatories and yes to big fights that the fans want to see. These fighters know that these fights guarantee them big money and the fighter's best friend, notoriety.

I'm afraid that we may never see the day when the AGs are a thing of the past, but hope burns eternal and that appears to be all we can hold onto right now. So I will continue to dream of the day when I see only one "World Champion" per division.