The original definition of champion would be to be the best at a given sport. If you're the champion of the NBA, you're the best team in the league. You win the NCAA tournament, you're considered the National Champions (Tarheels, baby BAYBAY!) I think you get my point.
However, I think the relevance of being called champion has changed over the years from being a position of accomplishment to a simple title, almost like calling someone Mr. or Mrs. Pride goes out of the window, and financial and popularity interests have taken it's place.
In no sport is does this image ring more true than in boxing. Several boxing writers and analysts have spoken about the problems with the several alphabet organizations that hand out titles as if they were condoms at a free clinic, thus I won't go into details about that problem. However, now boxing fans are getting into the act, particularly in reaction to Saturday night's fight between Benard Hopkins and new "undisputed" middleweight champion Jermain Taylor.
I haven't seen the fight yet, but all accounts had it as a very close fight, with most of them leaning Taylor's way. If you think Hopkins won outright, that's fine. However, my beef is the argument that Hopkins fans have saying that he shouldn't have lost his belts after 20 title defenses due to a split decision, and that Taylor should have had won them through a unaminous decision by more than a couple of rounds.
If you're a champion, and you call yourself the best, then you should be able to win in a fair and properly called fight. Why should the challenger have the scales tipped against him in the champion's favor? The whole idea of having a championship fight is to find out who's the better fighter. If the champion didn't fight better than the challenger, yet is still given the decision, why should he still be considered champ?
If we applied this logic to other sports, NFL teams would have to beat the New England Patriots by at least two scores, or lose the game. The Spurs would have to fall by double digits; in fact, they would have never won the NBA Title because they would have had to beat the Pistons in six! This is the sort of logic that these fans are bringing to the table.
Hopkins deserves a rematch, and Taylor's going to give it to him. Good. But will the same ones that said Hopkins shouldn't have lost the title on a split decision now say Taylor should be given that same luxury as well?
I doubt it.