It’s a good start.

Wednesday, as reported at BoxingScene by Jake Donovan, the World Boxing Association did more than talk about changing their chaotic title picture. They’ve said they would address the issue in the past and nothing happened. This time, something did. The WBA took a concrete step, withdrawing recognition of all their interim titlists.

It’s just a step. Those interim titlists all paid their sanctioning fees along the way. They will have to be accounted for and right now that means the promise of mandatory cracks at higher WBA titles. The ultimate stated goal is to get back to just one WBA champion per weight class.   

Putting aside whether we need boxing’s sanctioning bodies at all, or whether we need so many of them, reality matters. Boxers, their teams, and television networks have made room for the WBC, WBA, IBF, and WBO. 

That’s reality. 

The outcome of Mykal Fox-Gabriel Maestre was reality too. 

It was too much reality on a US network television platform. Boxing has plenty of questionable decisions. This wasn’t one of them. It was far worse. Mykal Fox looked to just about every eye as the rightful winner, with a knockdown to boot. Then Mykal Fox lost. 

Fox-Maestre was, to the mind’s of many, a genuine injustice. There’s a special block of fights that fall in that camp, the sort of outcomes that actually force genuine reaction.

James Toney-Dave Tiberi was so bad it got the attention of Congress. The first Lennox Lewis-Evander Holyfield draw decision raged on in coverage for months. According to BoxRec, CJ Ross hasn’t scored a professional fight since scoring Floyd Mayweather-Saul Alvarez a draw. All three judges in Paul Williams-Erislandy Lara were suspended. 

Those are just a few examples. This one had the US-based Association of Boxing Commissions put its foot down and threaten the sanctioning of WBA title fights.  

Boxing is in a moment when its popularity appears to be growing in younger demographics for the first time in a generation. ESPN and Fox are investing real air time and coverage that wasn’t there a decade ago, Fox-Maestre was the sort of decision that reminded of one way boxing shoehorned itself into the label of ‘niche’ sport. 

Boxing lost a lot of public trust.

The WBA has been an easy target for the press given the volume of belts it has handed out over the last twenty years. Interim titles go back farther but the move to differentiate between world champions and super world champions after Lennox Lewis lost their belt in court in 2000 created an extra layer of confusion. 

It lead to things like Josh Taylor becoming ‘undisputed’ this year at Jr. welterweight against unified titlist Jose Ramirez, defending a WBA belt in doing so, only for Gervonta Davis to then lay claim to being a three-division champion weeks later by winning a WBA belt from Mario Barrios.

That’s not credible but it’s been going on long enough it didn’t amount to much more than typical press and social media grousing. The money more belts generated in fees certainly incentivized this situation for the WBA but so too did promoters and fighters willing to pay them when it was simpler than working together.  

Fox-Maestre was contested for one of the WBA’s sub-belts at welterweight. Ironically, it’s an example of how the sanctioning bodies aren’t solely to be blamed for boxing’s ills. Networks don’t mind promoting title fights, any title fights, when it suits them. It created a perfect storm.

The thing about storms though is they pass.

Wednesday might have been a good start but what will matter is what the WBA title picture looks like two years from now. When the storm passes, do things begin to slide backwards again? 

And what about the rest of boxing? 

The WBA’s isn’t the only messy title picture. For example, the WBC introduced ‘Franchise’ champions in recent years that sort of function the same way WBA ‘super’ titles do, allowing for the WBC to keep their toe in multiple big fights. All four sanctioning bodies have employed interim titlists at various times. None of it overall is good for the sport. The WBA being the most prolific offender doesn’t let anyone else off the hook.

Four sanctioning bodies will always feel like too many. Subdividing them further across seventeen weight classes has been madness. Change has to start somewhere.

Maybe it started Wednesday. 

We just won’t know for sure for a while.

Cliff Rold is the Managing Editor of BoxingScene, a founding member of the Transnational Boxing Rankings Board, a member of the International Boxing Research Organization, and a member of the Boxing Writers Association of America.