Is there any difference between the Ring championship and the lineal championship, or are they the same thing?
Usually it is the same thing..but Lineal means the man who beat the man who beat the man and can be traced back for years..The Ring USUALLY coincides with that but sometimes it doesnt
The lineal title gets passed from one champion to the guy who beats him. A new lineage is formed when the consensus number one and two fight each other and, in rare exceptions, when either the first and third or second and third fight each other. The Ring title is the same is that regard. It's handed over when one champion beats another and when the title is vacant, it gets given to the winner of a bout between the two best fighters in the division. My issue with the lineal title is that it can fall into the hands of a guy like Erdei, who can fight bum after bum and still be considered the lineal champion. If that happened to a guy carrying The Ring title, they'd get stripped but because there is no actual, physical lineal title, an average fighter like Erdei can be lineal for 5 years without beating a serious contender. They're pretty much the same but I think The Ring title is a more accurate representation of who the best fighter in the division is.
Garcia should not really be The Ring champ. They changed the rules so that the belt will be handed out more easily which sucks. Just pointing out an bad example.
not really. For example Wladimir is not the lineal heavyweight champ but he is the ring champ. The whole 1 vs 3 thing is straight up false. If anything if there are three legitimate aspirants to the top spot then even 1 vs 2 would not crown a lineal champion since the ring rankings are not the official rankings for lineality
Yeah, I'm not in favour of them changing their rules. They obviously want the title to be more present so the fans have a clearer indication of who the champion is, which I understand, but that means that guys who aren't the best get seen as the best. Garcia is not the best 140lber in the world and shouldn't be given that accolade. One thing about the lineal title though, is that it can be very inactive. There hasn't been a bantamweight lineal champion is about 15 years. I don't think Rafael Marquez was lineal even though he was by far the best bantam in the world at one point.
I believe that sometimes in order to crown a new lineal champ the fighter should unify all titles. But sometimes the belt holders are such a joke compared to the top ranked fighters that it's really unnecessary. There are other situations as well for example I wouldn't have considered Ward the lineal champ when he beat Froch, but after Froch demolished Bute in his very next fight it's fair to say that Ward is the lineal champ even though he wasn't the one who beat Bute.
Nah, there's no physical title unlike with The Ring. It'd be better if there was because it'd give the title more legitimacy but as it is, being lineal champion is only something boxing fans are aware of.
Your not the champ until you get the ring belt. very rarely will you see a fighter holding the ring belt and not be considered the best in the division. That's why Sergio Martinez has really annoyed me in the build up to tomorrows fight, he keeps talking about Chavez being the champ when he didn't earn it ect now us real fans know what he means and whats going on but the casuals who just tune in to see 24/7 will think that Chavez is the actual champ and Martinez the Challenger. i think the fight has been builled up and promoted in that way too which is just wrong
You'd think BWAA would make a lineal title and give it out to the best fighter in each division, none of this bull**** with the number one and two having to fight each other, just give it to the number one guy that everybody regards as the best
So, from what I can gather from here, a lineal champion is the fighter who beat the consensus best fighter in the division, hence "man who beat the man"