00:00 Boxing's popularity has declined in part due to the confusing array of titles and organizations that now exist, each with their own set of initials and all handing out titles.

01:29 The tradition of giving boxers a belt started in 1810 when King George III of Great Britain gave a jewel-encrusted belt to bare knuckles fighter Tom Cribb when he defeated American Tom Molyneux for the World Championship.

02:48 In the late 19th and early 20th century, bare knuckle prize fighting was illegal in the US, but the National Police Gazette declared John L. Sullivan as the champion in 1885, and Wyoming became the first state to legalize prize fighting in 1918, followed by New York in 1920.

04:04 In the 1960s, the World Boxing Association and the World Boxing Council were the two main boxing organizations, but in the 1980s, the International Boxing Federation and the World Boxing Organization were created, adding to the confusion in the sport.

05:24 There are four major title-granting organizations in boxing today, with a total of 132 different world champions across men's and women's boxing, and some organizations recognize multiple champions in the same weight class.

06:49 There are over 6,000 championships across all divisions and governing bodies in boxing, leading to attempts to circumvent the sanctioning bodies by organizations like Ring Magazine and Box Rack.

08:12 The proliferation of titles and governing bodies in boxing is driven by money, as each organization receives a fee for title bouts, which tend to generate more revenue, and having more titles allows more boxers to hold titles, while the companies that promote matches are separate from the sanctioning bodies, making it unlikely that the alphabet soup of boxing will be cleaned up anytime soon.