Does a draw count as a title defense?

He did not, Lewis successfully defended against Holyfield...

 

yes it does

 

Well lewis was only defending his paper belt. Holyfield was the champ going into the ring. Lewis became the real champ that night.

 

A draw absolutely counts as a title defense and it should. It basically means the defending champion held off his attacker.

Jorodz picture above is actually the analogy I think of most often. If an attacker trying to sieze a castle suffers a draw, he doesnt lose the battle but doesnt accomplish his goal either. Hence the defenders of the castle have successfully defended their castle, even though they didnt win.

 

Lewis was technically lineal though not Holyfield

 

Yeah he held the lineal and wbc belts on paper but no way can anyone tell me beating shannon briggs made lewis a champ.

Holyfield v tyson was the fight for the hw championship.

 

I don't see how Tyson beating Seldon or Holyfield beating Bobby Czyz made their claim to the title any stronger than Lewis's.

Holyfield vs Lewis was the fight for the undisputed heavyweight title.

 

It did though. The champ, actually.

 

Holding the linear title on paper. Dammit, Luffley, you are a rugged individualist. I'll give you that.

Aye...and it doesn't matter how pineapple head got it to give to Lewis, it's just that he technically was the linear champion. Foreman was out of the picture for good anyway. Well, seemingly. He might come back again. When Holy beats Povetkin and...nah.

 

Yeah the lineal champ, but if shannon briggs was the holder of the lineal belt then what worth is it? Surely you never considered briggs the best hw in the world?

 

Holyfield was the challenger and tyson was the champ.

Destroying bruno and seldon elevated him to the top of the pile.

Lewis beat mccall for the vacant wbc belt.

In 95 bowe was clearly the best hw in the world imo, but his fights with golota lowered his position without elevating andrew into pole position. Big george was no longer relevant and there was a void. Tyson came in and filled the void.

Holy then knocked out tyson, made him quit in the rematch and knocked out moorer, again better than anything lewis did until 99 by my reckoning.

Any dispute about who the real champ was, was settled in the holy - lewis rematch.

 

It's a valid viewpoint I believe I mean when foreman fought briggs it was practically two unranked guys fighting and foreman deserved the decision comfortably in my humble opinion.

As you say technically lewis became the lineal champ when he beat the cannon but I see not how that fight can be classed as a championship fight on anything other than paper.

Massive props to lewis for unifying the claims though! Briggs, mccall, holyfield, golota, in that timeframe he really cleaned up and by year end 99 there was little doubt who the premiere hw was (unless you're silly enough to score the rematch in favour of holyfield!)

 

Lewis was **** and a paper champ. And people can ***** and complain about the decision in the first Lewis-Holy fight but the second decision was way worse. Two wrongs dont make a right, if Lewis won the first then Holy certainly won the second which would have made him the unified champion, but it was Lewis who walked away with the titles off a shitty decision, at least in the first they didnt steal Lewis' paper championship.

 

The thing which made Briggs' "lineal championship" void, is that he needed a horrid GIFT decision to beat a 48 year old man to take it.

 

Exactly until the rematch between the real deal and the lion there was no emphasis on linearity considering the shitty series of fights that led to shannon being the "champ"