The history of the WBA heavyweight title is long, starting in 1921; back when it was known as the National Boxing Association, with Jack Dempsey as the first Heavyweight Champion. In 1962 the NBA changed their name to the World Boxing Association.

Since the name change, the WBA has had legendary world champions, including Muhammad Ali, Joe Frazier, George Foreman, Mike Tyson, Evander Holyfield, Lennox Lewis, and many more.

In 2001, the WBA introduced the new world title called the “WBA Super World” title and turned the original world title into the “WBA Regular World” title.

Some believed the introduction of the super world title devalued the regular world title.

The first heavyweight super world champion was Wladimir Klitschko after he defeated David Haye, who was the regular WBA world champion at the time in 2011.

What confused a lot of people was the WBA interim world title being used regularly, creating three world champions from WBA.

However, instead of recognising them as equal world champions, they were each put as the number one-ranked position and claimed as mandatory challengers, which made them look more like regional titles than world titles.

There is now a fourth world title added into the WBA; the “WBA Gold World”. However, this article isn’t about how many world titles there are, it’s about what has happened to the regular world title.

The WBA regular world title in the past six years has had what you could describe as the worst luck out of all the world titles.

It’s suffered from failed drug tests, legal issues, and all manner of problems happening one after another.

Let’s start in July 2014, when Ruslan Chagaev defeated Fres Oquendo by majority decision. The interesting part of this is that Fres Oquendo had a rematch clause which was scheduled in November 2014 which never happened. Additionally, Oquendo failed the post-fight drug test.

He tested positive for two banned substances (tamoxifen and anastrozole). Despite this failed drug test, Oquendo took WBA and Ruslan Chagaev promoters to court in order to keep his mandatory challenge status, which he won and has kept hold of until the present day.

On a side note, the interim title took place in September 2014, with Luis Ortiz knocking out Lateef Kayode in the first round.

The fight result was changed to a no-contest due to Ortiz testing positive for a banned substance, for which he received a one-year suspension.

Ruslan Chagaev originally was going to retire from boxing, which would have put Fres Oquendo in the front line for a vacant world title, but instead, Ruslan Chagaev did a u-turn and was allowed to defend his world title in 2015 against Francesco Pianeta.

At this time, Luis Ortiz won the interim title and successfully defended it in 2015 after his suspension was up.

In 2016, the WBA tried to enforce a WBA World title tournament to unify the multiple WBA world titles.

The tournament was to have the winner of Wladimir Klitschko vs Tyson Fury to fight the winner of Luis Ortiz vs Alexander Ustinov (which never happened). On the other side of the tournament would have set the winner of Ruslan Chagaev vs Lucas Browne to take on Fres Oquendo.

Of course, the two sides of the tournament would then face off in the finals to unify the WBA titles. As you know, Tyson Fury beat Wladimir Klitschko, but I am not going to talk about that story.

Ruslan Chagaev vs Lucas Browne did take place in March 2016. Ruslan Chagaev was winning the fight in this, his world title defence, but Lucas Browne managed to win the fight by TKO. Everyone was happy because some light was shed onto this dark chaotic title.

However, after the fight, Lucas Browne tested positive from a banned substance which he claimed he ingested from contaminated meat.

Lucas kept his win over Ruslan Chagaev, but Chagaev was given his title back. The WBA tried to put together Ruslan Chagaev vs Fres Oquendo, but Ruslan Chagaev retired (and this time he stayed retired) which made the WBA title vacant.

The WBA then attempted to schedule Lucas Browne vs Shannon Briggs for the world title.

By this time, Tyson Fury had vacated his title, and for once the WBA went from having three world champions to no world champions, as Luis Ortiz also vacated his interim WBA title to go down the WBC route.

On top of this Lucas Browne got tested for drugs and again came back positive, due to this Lucas Browne was completely removed from the World title picture. The WBA tried to put together Shannon Briggs vs Fres Oquendo.

Fres Oquendo kept his legal right to be mandatory challenger even though he had not fought in over three years and was at the time in his mid-40s. Getting this fight together became a real issue, as the purse bidding war was a bit lacklustre.

Eventually, an agreement was reached, and the fight was set to happen in Spring (or Autumn for New Zealand) of 2017. However, Shannon Briggs tested positive for enhanced levels of testosterone which removed him from the world title picture.

In 2017 we saw Anthony Joshua beat Wladimir Klitschko to win the WBA Super World title.

In late 2017, Manuel Charr defeated Alexander Ustinov by unanimous decision to pick up the vacant WBA World Heavyweight title. Again, it seemed that more light would be shed in this dark time of the WBA title.

Fres Oquendo still had legal right at the world title and again WBA tried to set up a fight against the current world champion; Manuel Charr.

But history repeated itself, with Manuel Charr testing positive for a banned substance. Charr’s title run was thus in limbo, so the WBA tried to put together Fres Oquendo vs highly ranked boxer Jarrel Miller.

Fres Oquendo declined the fight, as there wasn’t enough time to do accurate VADA testing.

Bogdan Dinu took Fres’ place in the fight against Jarrel Miller. Originally, it was going to be for the vacant WBA regular title; however, the WBA decided to keep Charr as the champion to give him the benefit of the doubt with his failed drug test, scheduling Bogdan Dinu vs Jarrel Miller for a NABA title, which Jarrel won.

In 2018, Trevor Cosmo Bryan won the interim WBA title against BJ Flores. Trevor Cosmo Bryan was highly ranked in WBA but was only top 50 in Boxrec, which made people question his worthiness of a world title opportunity.

In 2019, WBA tried to put together Charr vs Fres Oquendo for the WBA world title. Fres Oquendo failed to sign the contract for the fight. Due to this, Fres Oquendo was removed as a mandatory challenger but was still ranked 15th in the WBA world rankings.

Fres Oquendo is still going through a legal process to keep his position as ranked a mandatory position, which kept Charr from fighting in 2019.

Also in 2019, Joe Joyce won the WBA Gold World title against Bermane Stiverne, creating the WBA’s fourth world champion.

Currently, Manuel Charr is the WBA regular champion, despite not fighting since 2017. Trevor Cosmo Bryan is the interim WBA champion despite not fighting since 2018.

Fres Oquendo is still fighting a legal battle to be mandatory world challenger despite not fighting since 2014. Manuel Charr has stated there will be an announcement soon, but we have heard it all before.

The world heavyweight boxing titles are in a mess currently, with Anthony Joshua forced to vacate either his WBO or IBF world titles, WBA having four world champions, and WBC having three world champions (if you include the silver title).

One solution would be to unify the seven world champions and to get rid of the mandatory challengers at the same time, by way of a World Boxing Super Series Muhammad Ali Tournament. Here is my proposed tournament:

Fight 1

Anthony Joshua

Vs

Kubrat Pulev

For IBF, WBA Super, IBO

Fight 2

Adam Kownacki

Vs

Luis Ortiz

WBA/IBF Mandatory

Fight 3

Oleksandr Usyk

Vs

Dereck Chisora

WBO World title

Fight 4

Joseph Parker

Vs

Shawndell Terell Winters

WBO Mandatory

Fight 5

Manual Charr

Vs

Fres Oquendo

WBA Regular

Fight 6

Joe Joyce

Vs

Daniel Dubois

WBA Gold, WBC Silver

Fight 7

Dillian Whyte

Vs

Andy Ruiz

WBC interim

Fight 8

Deontay Wilder

Vs

Tyson Fury

For WBC and The Ring

Even though the likelihood of the above is extremely slim, it is nice to dream…