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
IWA Undisputed World Heavyweight Championship scheluded defense due to a storyline injury, which resulted in the title being stripped from him. The interim General Manager went on to proclaim himself champion, issuing an open challenge which was accepted by EWO's first contender, a masked wrestler known only as "Bonecrusher", who won it Ina squash match. The confrontations between Cotto and Pérez continued in two of IWA's events expanding to include EWO's CEO, Richard Rondón, as well. On February 25, 2012, following more intervention from the IWA, Cotto issued a challenge to end the conflict, an unification match for the EWO Championship and IWA Undisputed World