Undisputed champion recognised a different champion. The disputes were usually short-lived as a lucrative fight would be organised between the rival champions. The longest split was ten years, of the middleweight title, between Mickey Walker's move up to heavyweight in 1931 and NBA champion Tony Zale's defeat of NYSAC contender Georgie Abrams in 1941. An early use of "undisputed" appears in a "New York Times" preview of the 1941 fight. The growing popularity of boxing outside of the USA led to creation of various boxing organizations, each strengthening their influence (most notably BBBofC) and having their own champion. This resulted in a
Heavyweight boxing championship records and statistics single "Heavyweight Champion", is now referred to as the "Undisputed Champion" as the one fighter that has defeated all the other titlists. However, there is no officially declared definition of the term, as major boxing organizations refer to all boxers holding at least two world titles in their respective division as "Unified champions". Some title reigns are not recognized as official reigns due to long periods of inactivity, legitimacy of title, false billing and promotion. In March 1967, Muhammad Ali was systematically denied a boxing license in every state and stripped of his passport because of his refusal to be