Boxing Weights?

[ChooseLife]

I've taken a real interest in boxing lately (watching not doing)

and I understand almost all of the rules when they are fighting except the weight divisions, how is Ricky Hatton able to jump up and down into different weight divisions, was his fight vs Mayweather at Welterweight his natural weight? When he was fighting Kostazu as light welsterweight I take it that was 1 division lighter than he was?

Why would you be allowed to jump down and fight lighter fighters?

Oh and since he jumped up a weight, did he loose the belt he won against Kostazu?

Whats a unified belt?

Stuff thats been bugging me for a while... cheers guys!

[Danderhall Hibs]

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I've taken a real interest in boxing lately (watching not doing)

and I understand almost all of the rules when they are fighting except the weight divisions, how is Ricky Hatton able to jump up and down into different weight divisions, was his fight vs Mayweather at Welterweight his natural weight? When he was fighting Kostazu as light welsterweight I take it that was 1 division lighter than he was?

Why would you be allowed to jump down and fight lighter fighters?

Oh and since he jumped up a weight, did he loose the belt he won against Kostazu?

Whats a unified belt?

Stuff thats been bugging me for a while... cheers guys!

The weight limits usually differ by about half a stone so it's easy for boxers to move up/down. Light-welterweight is 10 stones and Welterweight is 10 st 7 pounds IIRC.

A unified belt is when a boxer wins all (or the recognised good belts) at one weight. Calzaghe at super-middleweight has got them all for his division so he's unified them. Whereas Alex Arthur has 1 of 4 belts at his weight so that division is un-unified.

A champion usually gets given an mandatory opponent by the organisation, e.g WBC - they'll say you must fight XYZ by a certain date or forfeit your belt. If Hatton (for example) decided the mandatory challenger wasn't worth the fight he'd have to give the belt up. All these organisations have their own rankings list to help them decide who is the next contender.

Alex Arthur was top of the WBO list at his weight so the champ was forced to fight him - the champ didn't/couldn't so he was stripped of his belt and Arthur made WBO champion.

Hope this makes sense.

[ChooseLife]

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The weight limits usually differ by about half a stone so it's easy for boxers to move up/down. Light-welterweight is 10 stones and Welterweight is 10 st 7 pounds IIRC.

A unified belt is when a boxer wins all (or the recognised good belts) at one weight. Calzaghe at super-middleweight has got them all for his division so he's unified them. Whereas Alex Arthur has 1 of 4 belts at his weight so that division is un-unified.

A champion usually gets given an mandatory opponent by the organisation, e.g WBC - they'll say you must fight XYZ by a certain date or forfeit your belt. If Hatton (for example) decided the mandatory challenger wasn't worth the fight he'd have to give the belt up. All these organisations have their own rankings list to help them decide who is the next contender.

Alex Arthur was top of the WBO list at his weight so the champ was forced to fight him - the champ didn't/couldn't so he was stripped of his belt and Arthur made WBO champion.

Hope this makes sense.

Thanks for that bud,

So if a fighter unifies all the belts in his devision, will he have to defend them individually or all at the once, maybe a stupid question cause if it was all at once wouldn't there always be a unified champion?

[Pretty Boy]

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Thanks for that bud,

So if a fighter unifies all the belts in his devision, will he have to defend them individually or all at the once, maybe a stupid question cause if it was all at once wouldn't there always be a unified champion?

It's possible to defend all belts at once or individually. For example you could defend the IBF, WBA, WBC and WBO belts all at once, however if the mandatory challenger was only for say the WBO belt you could put only that belt on the line and keep the others.

Personally i like the Ring magazine style where they look at quality of opponents, style, fights fought and won and award their own belt to the fighter at each weight levels they feel are worthy.