Undisputed championship (boxing)
There were many undisputed champions before the number of major sanctioning bodies recognizing each other increased to four in 2007, but there have been only 21 boxers (10 male and 11 female) to hold all four titles simultaneously.
The longest split was ten years, of the middleweight title, between Mickey Walker's move up to heavyweight in 1931 and NBA champion Tony Zale's defeat of NYSAC contender Georgie Abrams in 1941.
The committee, however, was disbanded in 1955 when NBA, along with its new members (which included the Orient, Mexican and South American federations and boxing commissions of the Philippines and Thailand) left WCC citing lack of control over the organisation.
[10] The reason for the move were concerns about WBA's alleged lack of desire to support professional boxing outside of the U.S..[11] In April 1983, members of United States Boxing Association along with Robert W. Lee (a former WBA vice-president) voted to expand the organisation and form the USBA-International.
Another major sanctioning body, the World Boxing Organization, was established in 1988 in San Juan, Puerto Rico by a group of local businessmen.
Roy Jones Jr. was called the undisputed light heavyweight champion after unifying the WBA, WBC, and IBF titles in June 1999.
[25] Speaking of Jones' claim to being undisputed champion, one writer opined that the distinction "could just as easily belong to current WBO titleist Dariusz Michalczewski.
"[26] Five months after Lennox Lewis unified the WBA, WBC, and IBF titles to become the undisputed heavyweight champion, a U.S. Federal Judge ruled that Lewis would be stripped by the WBA of their world championship belt for fighting Michael Grant instead of the association's #1 contender, John Ruiz.
His reign as a unified world champion ended in September 2002, when he rejected the chance to fight the IBF's #1 contender, Chris Byrd, and was therefore stripped by the organisation of their belt.
[28][29] After Joe Calzaghe's super middleweight victory over Mikkel Kessler in November 2007, he was frequently described as "undisputed champion".
[38][39] The unified champion is defined as a boxer that holds at least two world championships of major sanctioning bodies (WBA, WBC, IBF, or WBO) in their respective division.
[40][41][42] Around 2004, the World Boxing Association recognized three different types: the unified champion (two-titles holder in the weight division or category, obliged to defend the title against WBA's No.
