Last September, following a unanimous decision defeat to super middleweight kingpin Canelo Alvarez, Gennadiy Golovkin cheerfully insisted the loss would not be the end of him. “Remember I have three belts [at middleweight],” Golovkin said.
To some, the answer may have been puzzling; before the fight, Golovkin had been formally recognized as a two-belt champion. The third belonged to the International Boxing Organization (IBO), a title Golovkin held for 12 years before voluntarily relinquishing it in June.
In boxing there are four widely recognized sanctioning bodies: The World Boxing Association (WBA), World Boxing Council (WBC), International Boxing Federation (IBF) and World Boxing Organization (WBO). Each is responsible for generating titles for boxing’s 17 weight classes (the WBC, which recently created the bridgerweight division, has 18). They produce rankings, order matchups and supervise events.
