Pacquiao vs Marquez IV: WBO invents new title belt for December 8 fight

The fourth fight between Manny Pacquiao and Juan Manuel Marquez on December 8 didn't have a title on the line. Until now.

After Pacquiao lost his WBO welterweight title to Timothy Bradley in June, and Marquez is giving up his WBO junior welterweight title to move up in weight, that sanctioning body has won the race to create an insignificant, ridiculous title belt for their bout, creating the "Champion of the Decade" belt.

This is a real thing.

Let's forget about the transparent and laughable greed of these "sanctioning bodies" for a minute and focus on something much funnier: How simply childish and creepy this stuff is getting, like overprotective weirdo parents trying to make their dumb kids feel better.

"Good win, Manny! You're CHAMPION OF THE DECADE!"

"yaaaaaaaaaay"

I accept that fighters care about title belts, the normal ones. Andre Berto seems uncomfortable with the idea that he would fight for anything less than another trinket that nobody really cares much about or pays any attention to.

However, these things, these "WBC Diamond" and "WBO Champion of the Decade" things, are really, really weird to me. Because noooooobodyyyyyyy cares. Nobody cares at all. These things aren't even acknowledged. Some creep sanctioning body dude will stand between them with this belt at the press conferences -- I hope they at least go to the trouble of making it look different than a normal WBO belt -- and that will be the most acknowledgment it ever receives. I mean, maybe Ronnie Nathanielsz will work it into every Pacquiao story, but that's it.

Anyway, this is a thing that's happening. You probably don't care. I don't really care, other than I'm beginning to find it all downright weird more than despicable or disgusting or wretched or whatever.