That whole short period of lineage was pretty tenuos IMO. An argument could be made for mediocre Axl Schulz, who was robbed against Foreman. Foreman refused a rematch, fought Savarese and Grimsley (I forget the order), and evidentially the suits, the powers that be, had enough of Foreman's cherry picking and free agent status, and when Briggs went the distance---they gave it to him---thus eliminating Foreman completely from contention. If we didn't ignore bull**** decisions and considered Schulz lineal HW champion, then basically the title went back to the man Foreman won it from in Michael Moorer, Schulz 'won' the IBF title from Botha after 'winning' the lineal title from Foreman, and then lost via SD to Michael Moorer, who would then lose to Evander Holyfield. However, even in the Moorer v Schultz SD a case can be made for a Draw! Hence we are getting nowhere!
Beeing lineal should not be opinion base....You either are or.your not. If it needs to be debated hes not.
Well Vitali should be retiring in the next year or so. After that Wlad can pick up the remaining title. There can be NO disputing who is THE champ then. Like everyone else has said, the linear title is meaningless as the line has been broken. This is the beginning of a new line.
Well when Vitali retires, Im sure Wlad will be able to beat whoever fights for it. The sheer number of sanctioning bodies will make it difficult though. But once Vitali retires,there can be NO dispute as to who the man in the division is.
Unless Pulev takes the IBF from him. He will have to fight Pulev (if pulev wins his next bout) and AK next year
Those who go by you stay champion till you retire then it's 1v2 to form a new champ would disagree that Holmes was ever champ. Ali retired with the "new lineage" and 1v2 didnt occur again until Tyson v Spinks. I do personally like the idea of 1v2 and a champ losing his belt in the ring only but that only really works when everyone is singing by the same hymn sheet. Imagine if every reporter, interviewer and analyst said to Jones "you're great but you ain't a champion until you beat DM". Given that level of prestige I'm sure the fight would have come off, but it didn't because Jones had about 8 other belts, 4 of which do hold prestige (wba, wbc, ibf, ring) and because of that there was no necessity on Jones part to fight DM. In the current climate lineage is an idealistic concept, and unfortunately nothing more.
It's the Klitschko lineage. Something that has never been done before. I appreciate it for what it is.
Plus bear in mind 1v2 to crown a new champion hasn't been the standard throughout history. For instance Robinson v Bell wasn't 1v2. I'm just all a bit meh regarding the award of linearity atleast until it means something anyways.