Middleweight World Championship Series Middleweight World Championship Series The Middleweight World Championship Series was a boxing round-robin tournament staged by Don King Productions. The goal of the series was to produce a unified Middleweight boxing champion. The victor took the WBC, WBA, IBF and vacant Ring Magazine 160-pound belts home, and became the first undisputed middleweight king since Marvellous Marvin Hagler held the distinction from 1979 until 1987. The victor was also awarded a specially commissioned "Sugar" Ray Robinson trophy. The contenders in the tournament were William Joppy(WBA champion), Keith Holmes(WBC champion), Bernard Hopkins(IBF champion), and Félix Trinidad. The semifinals pitted Trinidad against Joppy
Undisputed champion about WBA's alleged lack of desire to support professional boxing outside of the USA. In April 1983, members of United States Boxing Association along with Robert W. Lee (a former WBA vice-president) voted to expand the organisation and form the USBA-International. The organization later changed the name to International Boxing Federation. The inaugural IBF Heavyweight Champion was Larry Holmes, who relinquished the WBC title to accept IBF's recognition, thus helping the newly formed organization to establish its legitimacy. The fragmentation of titles was thus increased. After some negotiations, the heavyweight title was unified in the heavyweight unification series, a series