Champion of World Championship Flavors

[The Old LefHook]

There are many flavors of championship these days. I don't even know if I can list all the flavors employed by the various alphabet soups, but I will try before proceeding.

1 Regular champion
2 Interm champion
3 Super champion
4 Champion in recess
5 Champion emeritus
6 Silver Champion

That is a lot of championship sanctioning fees, by burka. I don't know if that lists all the flavors of world championship, or not. It seems like a good project for some of our keen scholars. Some of those flavors might not exist anymore. They might be defunct appellations. But they might all still exist in one organization or another, for they all represent fees. I have probably left some out, is more likely.

Anyway, to whichever scholar untangles this, then please also tell me which fighter holds the distinction of having held more flavors of championship than any other.

[The Old LefHook]

It appears I left out the ever popular diamond belt championship. And there seems to be another belt from WBC with the word eternity in its title. Its qualifications are rather close to champion emeritus. The growing list now looks like this:

1 Regular champion
2 Interm champion
3 Super champion
4 Champion in recess
5 Champion emeritus
6 Silver Champion
7 Diamond championship
8 Eternity championship

Of course, I still do not know who the belt holders of these titles were. Was Golovkin ever a diamond belt holder?

[Anthony342]

Undisputed and Lineal are all that matters. Forget about the rest because they're just a huge circle jerk by all corrupt the alphabet soup sanctioning bodies. Either you beat the top guy or you beat all the belt holders. There shouldn't be two belt holders either for the same sanctioning body either, regular and super. Make up your damn minds already. Either pick one or fight each other to decide one champion, douchebags.

[The Old LefHook]

Pacquiao has held a diamond belt. That one is for 'historic fights between two high profile boxers.' They create a belt on the spot. WBC stuff, of course. They also do a diamond ring for best P4P fighter of the decade, which Pacquiao has also won. They have by far the most belts of any soup. Manny's very first belt was for the lineal flyweight championship. That is another appellation we forgot to add to the list, along with "undisputed," champion.

Manny also tried for the famous 'Champion of the decade,' belt in his Dec. 2012 match with Marquez, but was knocked cold, so Marquez took that special belt home.

Apparently, Manny has won lineal championships in a record five divisions. In 2007 Manny was awarded the designation 'emeritus champion,' by the WBC in the super featherweight division. He has also been a unified champion, because you only need to claim more than a single org's belt at the same time to be a so-called unified champ. Manny has also been a regular champion many times.

When Pacquiao beat Cotto he was awarded the WBO's super championship at welterweight, so the Pacman has also been a super champion.

So far, the updated list of all championship flavors, now looks like this:

1 Regular champion
2 Interim champion
3 Super champion
4 Champion in recess
5 Champion emeritus
6 Silver Champion
7 Diamond championship
8 Eternity championship
9 Unified champion
10 Undisputed champion
11 Champion of the decade
12 Lineal championship

So far, the list of Manny's flavors, looks like this:

1 Regular champion*
2 Interm champion
3 Super champion*
4 Champion in recess
5 Champion emeritus*
6 Silver Champion
7 Diamond championship*
8 Eternity championship
9 Unified champion*
10 Undisputed champion
11 Champion of the decade
12 Lineal champion*

Pacquiao has never been an undisputed champion, and so far has tasted only six flavors of championship.

[The Old LefHook]

Undisputed and Lineal are all that matters. Forget about the rest because they're just a huge circle jerk by all corrupt the alphabet soup sanctioning bodies. Either you beat the top guy or you beat all the belt holders. There shouldn't be two belt holders either for the same sanctioning body either, regular and super. Make up your damn minds already. Either pick one or fight each other to decide one champion, douchebags.

Well of course you already know I know what you say is true. Because I am keeping track of phony belts does not mean I am assigning them importance. It is something to do, like keeping track of comic book issues. When you line up all these belts together you see at once how out of control it is. I don't think I had ever seen them all together.

[The Old LefHook]

Golovkin is nipping at Pacquiao's heels with five flavors of world championship himself. We do not count intercontinental titles, though international titles do count. Golovkin has won an interm title, something Pac and Mayweather have never (accomplished)? GGG also has a champion in recess status and a super championship to his glory. That's a rare one. He was a unified champ as well (which these days actually means partially unified).

Certain fringe and paper champions now need to be checked for high flavor counts. How is John Ruiz doing? Not enough titles altogether, I guess.

How about Holyfied. He had a lot of titles. He would certainly have one more to his credit if he had been given the Valuev fight fairly.

Mayweather's ledger has a surprising paucity of championship flavors.

[Anthony342]

Golovkin is nipping at Pacquiao's heels with five flavors of world championship himself. We do not count intercontinental titles, though international titles do count. Golovkin has won an interm title, something Pac and Mayweather have never (accomplished)? GGG also has a champion in recess status and a super championship to his glory. That's a rare one. He was a unified champ as well (which these days actually means partially unified).

Certain fringe and paper champions now need to be checked for high flavor counts. How is John Ruiz doing? Not enough titles altogether, I guess.

How about Holyfied. He had a lot of titles. He would certainly have one more to his credit if he had been given the Valuev fight fairly.

Mayweather's ledger has a surprising paucity of championship flavors.

Intercontinental title, good name. WWE actually calls one of its lower tiered "mid card" title belts the "Intercontinental Title", as well as the "US Title", which comes from the old NWA/WCW promotion, as well as most of the old territories. It started with Pat Patterson and while the World Title was known for being held by muscle men like Bruno Sammartino and Hulk Hogan, The Intercontinental Title was considered more the "worker's title", as the better wrestlers usually held it, like Patterson, Randy Savage and Ricky Steamboat. Most of the time anyway. Not sure if you're a wrestling fan and were aware of that, so thought I'd point that out. Too bad WWE is a joke these days, other than a few guys at the top. AEW isn't too bad, but really needs to build up a tag and women's division to be viable competition. At least they have strong singles matches and Jim Ross at commentary though.

Oh yeah and for a few years in the 2010s, WWE even used to have a pay per view where the champions of both brands would face each other and the winners would be called the "Champion of Champions." The 2009 and 2010 editions of the Smackdown vs. Raw home console video games even had titles belts by that name the player could win with an existing WWE Superstar or a created one, which was fun IMO.

[The Old LefHook]

They are just rasslers, not real fighters.

[The Old LefHook]

I heard or read somewhere that the WBA has the most flavors of championship belts--5. Can anyone verify or dispute this?

[GhostofDempsey]

I can't keep count of how many belts the WBC created just for Floyd and Canelo alone, just to rake in sanctioning fees. The Emerald Belt, the Money Belt, the Adolfo Lopez belt, the Eternal Championship, the Green Championship...on and on it goes.