By Jamie Wall of RNZ

IBF World Heavyweight title

About 10am, Sunday, February 23

Kingdom Arena, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

Joseph Parker is back in the ring on Sunday morning, fighting Briton Daniel Dubois in his first fight since March of last year.

Most importantly for the now 35-3 Kiwi heavyweight, it will be for a heavyweight title. Note that it’s ‘a’ heavyweight title and not ‘the’ heavyweight title.

Why are there so many titles and what does it all mean? To explain it we need to go all the way back to the beginning.

Tyson Fury and Oleksandr Usyk face off after weighing in ahead of the IBF, WBA, WBC and WBO heavyweight titles fight. Photo / Getty Images

Boxing is really, really old

Boxing, or at least a version of two people with bound fists punching one another for sport, has been around for almost as long as humans themselves. It was a part of the ancient Olympics in Greece, continued on through the Roman and Middle Ages, and was one of the first sports to have a codified set of rules across all competitions. So a lot of how champions were decided has to take in the context of the time period - it wasn’t easy to stage an international sporting event when competitors would run the risk of catching cholera just trying to get there, so the idea of multiple world champions goes back to the 19th century.

Governing bodies

The first official governing bodies were the National Boxing Association and New York State Athletic Commission. The NBA was formed to counterbalance the influence that the NYSAC had, however it meant that NBA and NYSAC often crowned different world champions in the same division, leading to confusion about who was the real champion. That would become a bigger issue over the years as more associations were formed to rival the NBA (which later was renamed the WBA) - the WBC, IBF and WBO being the most notable. There are literally dozens more that all have their own regional championships, but really these are the only ones you really need to worry about.

Why so many?

The Ukrainian boxer Wladimir Klitschko, former world heavyweight champion of the WBA, WBO, IBO and IBF. Photo / Photosport

While it seems overly complicated, especially compared to the UFC which has the only title that matters in mixed martial arts, having several world titles does serve one crucial purpose - if you can get it to work. A champion who fights another champion can unify the titles, a massive selling point in a sport that relies on hype and media interest. More interest means more money, but historically that has meant far more disagreements over how that money is shared out. Then there’s the problematic issue that all these associations have all had serious corruption allegations made against them at some point, but that’s a topic for another day.

Vacant, interim and super titles

If a boxer retires, gets injured or otherwise goes through a long period of inactivity, they relinquish the title. It is either then awarded as an interim title to the next-ranked boxer or is declared vacant and is decided in the ring. Then there’s ‘super’ titles, which is an honorary award for career achievement in the WBO but and actual fighting title in the WBA. It allows the WBA to effectively have two champions in each class, therefore increasing the amount of money they can make. That’s also not to be confused with super weight classes, which are a whole other thing.

What about the lineal champion?

Muhammed Ali v Joe Frazier in 1971. Photo / Photosport

A lineal champion is simply held by whoever held the title previously. James L. Sullivan, known as the ‘Boston Strong Boy’ is the first recognised world champion (although some source trace it back to the early 18th century), winning the NBA title in March of 1892. Later that year, he was beaten by James J. Corbett, and so on into the 20th century when it was passed along through legendary names like Floyd Patterson, Sonny Liston, Muhammed Ali, Joe Frazier and George Foreman. Usyk is the current lineal champion, which confusingly has a couple of different iterations, the commonly accepted one being awarded by The Ring magazine. However, even that is not exactly a straight line, with the magazine halting the championship in 1989, only to resurrect it in 2002.

How has Saudi money changed things?

President of the FIA Mohammed Ben Sulayem chats with Red Bull driver Max Verstappen during the Formula 1 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, 2024. Photo / Photosport

Massively. Arguably no sport has changed more thanks to the seemingly unlimited amount of cash Saudi Arabia is willing to throw around lately, with Riyadh quickly supplanting the US as the epicentre of the heavyweight division. All of the major boxing associations have jumped at the chance to get a piece of the action, meaning that high quality fight cards are all of a sudden much easier to organise and far more frequent.

Who is the current world champion?

Oleksandr Usyk following the WBA, WBC, WBO, IBO World Heavyweight championship contest against Tyson Fury. Photo / Getty Images

Thanks in no small part to the aforementioned Saudi influence, Oleksandr Usyk has managed to become the first undisputed heavyweight champion when he defeated Tyson Fury in May of last year. In addition to the WBA, IBF and WBO titles he already held, Usyk took Fury’s WBC title as well. The Ukrainian immediately vacated the IBF title, because at least one title needed to be on the line elsewhere in order to bill his next challenge as another unifying fight, which was duly awarded to Dubois.

Is Parker actually fighting for a world title?

Daniel Dubois goes head to head with Joseph Parker during their press conference in London. Photo / Getty

Yes, whoever wins this fight can certainly call themselves world champion - at least according to the IBF. Also, the strength of a title rests on the strength of its champion and while Dubois initially had to do nothing to claim the vacant IBF title, he certainly defended it in spectacular fashion by destroying Anthony Joshua in September with a fifth round knockout.

However, there is no debate that this is either a proving ground for either Parker or Dubois to eventually face Usyk again, or to simply use the title to manufacture another big series of fights for themselves. While Dubois has made no secret of his desire to challenge Usyk, Parker may well choose to avoid him and make his money elsewhere over what would presumably be a longer period.

It is worth remembering Parker set to pick up around NZD $7 million for a fight that’s not even the main event. While that seems like a decent pay day, it pales in comparison to when Usyk last fought Fury. Both men split a purse almost 50 times that amount. So yeah, if you somehow haven’t noticed by now - it’s all about money.