In today’s age, the landscape of boxing is changing.

Earlier this week, Floyd Mayweather Jr. was seen walking with Ryan Garcia and was stopped by an interviewer, couple minutes later, Mayweather said: “Lot of times people think ‘well I have a belt, I’m a star, I have two belts’… fighters today think because they have belts that they’re a star, that don’t make you a star, being well-rounded all around the board make you a star.”

That leaves the question to leave if winning belts equate to greatness? First off, I believed what Floyd said to be somewhat directed towards Devin Haney because the interviewer mentioned him before hand. According to BoxRec, Devin Haney currently holds three belts, the IBF World Lightweight champion, the WBA Super World Lightweight champion, and the WBO World Lightweight champion.

But is Haney a star? To me, yes. Floyd Mayweather Jr. himself won 15 world championships through his boxing career, but has been vocal lately about being proud more of the money he’s made. Look at Gervonta Davis, one of, if not biggest draw in boxing currently holds no belts, and it doesn’t look like he’ll be chasing any anytime soon. Tank won belts in the earlier part of his professional career, but then looked to the fights that would sell the most tickets. The Crawford and Spence fight had a belt involved, but nobody cared about that aspect. The magnitude of the fight itself is what grabbed headlines.

All the guys mentioned above are great or are on their way. Mayweather was able to do both, selling tickets, and ending his career undefeated. So perhaps he’s speaking from a point of privilege, but also as an OG to younger boxers. How often do we still here critics pick a part Floyd’s actual boxing career, he could’ve been 100-0, and there’s still folks who would say he ducked someone along the way. So now, making sure fighters get all the money they can from this sport is priority.

The casual fan doesn’t care about belts anymore, with so many championship belts now, it’s hard to keep up on which ones holds any actual weight. So the short answer to this would be, no, winning belts doesn’t mean a fighter is great anymore.