I had an interesting discussion a while ago about the title of World Champion or any champion for that matter. This chat stemmed from our memories of the IPT match between Mike Sigel and Loree Jon Jones. Everybody, I think, agrees that the idea that Mike Sigel is the IPT World 8 ball champion is very arbitrary. But then it seems that all titles to one degree or another are arbitrary.
Lets say you had a tour that had every top player in world competing on it. The first tournament will be called Tour Stop #1. All the players play the tournament and lets say Mika Immonen wins, he is now Tour Stop #1 champion. Now the next tournament is the world championship. All the same players compete, and Efren Reyes wins the world title.
What seperates the first tournament from the second? We had the same players competing. It is just the arbitrary use of the phrase World Champion.
In a real life scenario, the WPA World Championships are no more difficult to win than the US Open. In fact some people might argue that the US Open is even more difficult. Yet the WPA title seems to have a little more prestige than the US Open.
For much of the 20th century the world title was contended by a smaller group (by todays standards) of top proffessionals. This group in no way represented the world, but yet the winner was considered world champion. Baseball is a similar example.
As usual I don't seem to have much of a point, other than a realization of how everything can be quite arbitrary. So just to have some fun, my friend and I held the inaugural Canadian championship One-pocket and Canadian Championship Russian Pyramid challenge matches (against eachother). It is a strictly invitational sort of dealie.
You will be happy to know that I, AZB board member, am the first Canadian Russian Pyramid Champion. I ran 8 racks and out (not even sure if we were playing it right) to win 11-0. But unfortunately I lost the one pocket match 6-5. Im sorry if the latter has dissapointed you all, but we will have a re-match in two weeks, and I will try to bring the title home.
Lets say you had a tour that had every top player in world competing on it. The first tournament will be called Tour Stop #1. All the players play the tournament and lets say Mika Immonen wins, he is now Tour Stop #1 champion. Now the next tournament is the world championship. All the same players compete, and Efren Reyes wins the world title.
What seperates the first tournament from the second? We had the same players competing. It is just the arbitrary use of the phrase World Champion.
In a real life scenario, the WPA World Championships are no more difficult to win than the US Open. In fact some people might argue that the US Open is even more difficult. Yet the WPA title seems to have a little more prestige than the US Open.
For much of the 20th century the world title was contended by a smaller group (by todays standards) of top proffessionals. This group in no way represented the world, but yet the winner was considered world champion. Baseball is a similar example.
As usual I don't seem to have much of a point, other than a realization of how everything can be quite arbitrary. So just to have some fun, my friend and I held the inaugural Canadian championship One-pocket and Canadian Championship Russian Pyramid challenge matches (against eachother). It is a strictly invitational sort of dealie.
You will be happy to know that I, AZB board member, am the first Canadian Russian Pyramid Champion. I ran 8 racks and out (not even sure if we were playing it right) to win 11-0. But unfortunately I lost the one pocket match 6-5. Im sorry if the latter has dissapointed you all, but we will have a re-match in two weeks, and I will try to bring the title home.
Who is to say that one player is better than the other? He just happened to win the
