It's not a wpa world championship. It is a world 14.1 championship as it was billed. Just like an apa world championship is a world title because they say it is.
Just like you have a state championship just because whomever put on that tournament called it that.
It's really simple. History belongs to the person who wields the pen. The Billiard Congress of America maintains the record book. The BCA is the North American member of the WPA. So any person who wants to have their name recorded as a World Champion in the record book has to win a WPA sanctioned World Championship.
An event can be named whatever someone wants to as long as that something is not in violation of someone else's intellectual property. Events use deceptive marketing all the time to lure participants and spectators and backers. People on the outside always want to be on the inside.
There are many ways that Dragon could market this event that draw on the rich history of the game without making it into a conflict with the WPA. Of course the allure is being crowned WORLD champion. But what is that worth when it's not lastingly recorded?
If Dragon Promotions wants to crown true world champions then they need to create their own competing organization and be completely separate from the BCA/WPA. Put out their own rule books, their own hall of fame, their own records books. In the end history will decide who gets honored as true world champions and who does not.
The media should then correctly identify the winners as WPA World Champions, or DP World Champions. In the absence of cooperation their should at least be distinction. Blurring the lines does no good and only invites confusion. The winner of the ongoing 14.1 event might feel like a world champion and some people might call him a world champion but officially he won't be recorded as a world champion.
lol.
Lou Figueroa