Alphabet Soup: Juan Carlos Burgos Gets His Belts
(Editor’s note: Welcome back to our infrequent attempt to make sense of the nonsense spewed by boxing’s sanctioning bodies.)
In today’s edition, Thompson Boxing Promotions writes to inform us that Juan Carlos Burgos picked up the nifty hardware above today at the Paseo Inn Restaurant in Los Angeles. Burgos apparently won the WBO Latino Super featherweight, WBC International silver super featherweight, and the WBC Latino super featherweight titles by out-pointing previously unbeaten Luis Cruz on the undercard of Pacquiao-Marquez III in Las Vegas on Saturday night.
First things first, kudos to Burgos for winning a tough fight against a hard young puncher. Even though he’s reportedly moving back down to featherweight, the win justifiably earned him a spot in the Ring’s top ten at 130 lbs. We’re not completely against the idea of regional titles like the Latino belt either, though we have no idea what qualifies one to be the “International silver champion.”
But aside from current super featherweight world titlist Takahiro Ao in the 130-lb division the WBC currently recognizes a Youth Champion (Dante Jardon), NABF Champion (Diego Magdaleno), Caribbean Boxing Federation Champion (Gamaliel Diaz), Continental Americas Champion (Carlos Cardenas) that are all Mexican or Mexican-American. Even leaving aside Magdaleno, how can three boxers from the same country merit a regional title, with two more held by neighbors to the North and the South? Doubtless either Mr. Sulaiman would be quick with an excuse about the nature of the youth title, even though Jardon and Burgos are the same age.
The WBO demonstrates slightly more shame; Cruz was rated second behind American Adrien Broner (who I will be covering in Cincinnati next weekend) so perhaps their designation of Burgos would make sense if it didn’t ignore the superior accomplishments of fighters like Roman Martinez and Juan Carlos Salgado. To say nothing of the outright omission of the division’s several Japanese stars.
On the scale of outrage this ranks pretty low. We like Burgos and Cruz was a good win. But two belts? Definitely a C- at a minimum.
