BOXINGTALK'S TUESDAY MAILBAG: TAKE II
By G. Leon

G, I'm not old enough to remember the days when boxing only had one title per weight class, but I do watch classic footage when there was only one champion in each division. While I would prefer there only be one champion in each division today, I do think that the three belts have a few benefits (but not many at all). Now here me out on this one. I do not like these "silver" titles and "super" champions. They need to do away with that garbage. I do think that since we can't just have one belt that the three main belts: IBF, WBC, and WBA are the only ones that should matter. It would be much better if these three titles were the ONLY THREE titles in each division. One of the beneftis to the current set up is the idea of having three champions that could potentially fight each other to make on unified champion. Now I know with all the boxing politics that a Unified champ rarely ever happens anymore, but we can look to the super six tournament as a standard setter. What i'm saying is that if we could have a tournament in each division, with the top fighters participating, we could potentially have a ton of excitement promotional wise and in the fights. Man how good would if be if we could hear during introductions "and now introducing THE UNIFIED Heavyweight Champ of the World". That would be great.What I do not like about the sanctioning bodies is all the corruption and obvious shake down of fighters. All these extra belts are total nonsense as well. I applaud guys like Mayweather (even though he has done some things I don't like) that say the hell with the sanctioning bodies and don't fight for the belts. Now I know in the past he was all about the belts, but finally someone has woken up and gotten a whif of the coffee. These sanctioning bodies are nothing but corrupt organized gangs. They make their money by forcing the fighters to pay these sanctioning fees and I think it only hurts boxing. But since these belts are probably never going to go away I think that the WBC, IBF, and WBA need to get together and just decide that one belt per weight class is enough.
Chris from Chicago

Leon's Response: I don't know about who likes Silver belts, super champs, diamond champs or interim champs for that matter. Every hot division should have a tournament. The Super Six is the best thing going on in boxing. The structing of tournaments assures us that the best will be fighting the best and that's what boxing needs. If the Klitschko's fought each other that would happen rather quickly, the problem with the heavyweight division is we're still waiting for somebody to be good enough to beat one in order to get to the other. Nowadays the fighters look to use the belt until they're big enough that they don't need them anymore. The sanctioning bodies take 3% of the purse. That 3% is more than Floyd's gives his advisors.

Greg, I think behind all of Floyd's mental chess is, he sees something in Pacquio and knows it will be a long night. And he says to himself, "at my age and my unbeaten record, do I really want to go through with this"? And the answer right now is, "no".

Leon's Response: Floyd isn't really talking too much so I'm not going to speculate about where his head is at. I'm sure he's financially good again so he won't be in a rush to fight. He walked away from a ODLH rematch, which enabled Manny Pacquiao to become the straw that stirs the drink. What makes you think he's going to rush anything following that last payday. I don't think some of you guys realize just how well he did with the Mosley fight.

What up G!  Great piece on the Arum/Haymon bull sh8t.  Sop we as fans have to suffer, or get deprived of the biggest fight to be made, because they can't ball-check themselves?  That's big!  I kind of figured it had something to do with their problems with each other.  There were too many fishy "facts" floating in the water.  Anyway, I think Floyd would do more than 700, 000 fighting Martinez, Berto, or Williams.  I could see a cool 800,000 - 900,ooo easy with Williams and Berto.  I think the casual fan knows more about them than Martinez.  But even with Sergio, he could beat that number, and get another title in another weight division.  Either way, I see him coming out on top.  Arum and the Pacquiaou clan are really taking me to the point where I really don't care anymore.  I don't know if anyone else feels that way, but I do.  I love Pac and May, but at this point, Pac can do whatever.  Whoever Floyd fights (a legitimate fight) other than Pacquiao, I'm paying to see. Keep up the great work!
Mickael

Leon's Response: Glad you enjoyed it. I'm not so sure Floyd would do more than 700,000 against Williams or Berto because they haven't fought at that level yet. I think Williams is the more deserving of the two based on his appearances with Maragrito, Winky and Martinez. However, Berto might be the more recognizable of the two since he's always out and about and in the middle of something. I wouldn't be shocked if Mayweather didn't fight until next May. The Martinez fight would be a good look, especially for the middleweight title, but the last thing Floyd needs is a Latino fighting him with his hands down, that is quite capable of making him look bad.

G, glad you’re back with the mailbag. I really wish promoter start doing their job and thinking about their employees too. Going in that direction, I will like you to explain me by the numbers why in the hell promoters want to keep the fights inside the house. It better be at least seven figures for the promoter and at least six figures for the boxers. If not Bob the Snake must be consider an MMA like promoter.  I just read that a lifetime ban for Margarito is HARSH. So what types of behavior deserve a lifetime ban? Loading gloves and killing the opponent? That’s why Puerto Rico is out of control; you can kill a person and get back to street like nothing. After Luis Resto and Panama incident, all Commissions should it make clear that any type of cheating that can risk the health of your opponent is equal to automatic expulsion for LIFE.  I will like to read your opinion on this; you are very knowledgeable and probably can calm me down. Keep the good work.

Leon's Response: I believe the Haymon-Arum piece details why he would want to keep it in house. ALL promoters look to do this as often as possible. Golden Boy has a PPV coming up with ALL of their guys on Saturday night and another one on September 18. Arum does it all the time. Allan Green's fight with Carlos De Leon was a fight between two DiBella guys. When he had enough horses to make it happen, Don King did it all the time. It's all about control baby.  Why ban him for life when they allowed him to fight right after he got caught?  He just needs to be very carefully monitored. California allowed the event to go on and then suspended him. Surely that had nothing to do with any of the monies they would have lost had they immediately cancelled the event once Margarito got exposed.

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