Why do people say "Lineal" when they mean "Ring"

Were the 4 belts WBA WBC IBF and WBO ever unified by a single fighter? I can't recall a fight like that in the last 17 years. Maybe Hopkins?

With andrewa1's weird definition you will basically never have lineal champions because corrupt sanctions organizations and promoters do everything in their power to prevent that.

 

Very true, but it was clear that the brothers were never going to fight each other. FYI I didn't make the argument that you need to have all major titles for a new lineage to be established. I don't claim to be an expert on the factors that create a new lineage to be established in situations where the Lineal Title is vacant.

All I've been doing is reporting on who the Lineal Champions are and what the reasons were as to why they became Lineal Champions. This all started with Triple G fanboys claiming that Canelo wasn't the Lineal Champion. I pointed out very accurately what has to occur for a lineal championship to be vacated, which is seperate from what has to occur for a new lineage to be established once the title has already been vacated.

 

Lineal means nothing to me.....................the WBC has shamed boxing for good................all the damned crooked boxing orgs have................

 

I think you'll find Hopkins won all the marbles when he beat Oscar in 2004, and then Taylor won them all when he beat Hopkins the year after.

 

Guess what, who won the Ward - Kovalev fight is a matter of opinion, too isn't it? So therefore, who is the WBA, IBF and WBO Light Heavyweight Champ?

If you ask a Ward Fan, he'll say Ward, if you ask a Kovalev Fan, he'll say Kovalev. Do these opinions change who the actual WBA, IBF, and WBO Light Heavyweight Champ is in reality? Ward is the WBA, IBF ,and WBO Champ. He got the decision.

In all seriousness, I don't have a drawer full of rules regarding Lineal Championships. All I know is you can't be stripped of a Lineal Title. (like many Triple G proponents have argued) Canelo is the Lineal Champ until he retires or moves out of the division permanently. This is common sense. Canelo moving down to 154 to pick up a title vs Liam Smith doesn't change that. Him moving to 164.5 to fight Chavez in a non-title bout doesn't change that. He still is the Lineal Champion at Middleweight. All this other stuff about when a new lineage gets established means nothing as it relates to Canelo being champion now. We can debate whether or not Wlad deserved to be HW Lineal Champion in 2009. But doesn't change that Canelo is the MW Lineal Champ now. Not based on my rules, not based on my opinion. It's based on who the Lineal MW Champ is, backed by common sense and what we know Lineal to be as its defined.

 

That's because there's no consistency when new people are considered lineal. Robinson vs Bell wasn't the top two in the division. Holmes beat a shell of a retired fighter in Ali. Hart and Root were handpicked by the previous champion and so on and so forth.

Until there's a ranking body with enough prestige that is dedicated to tracking this stuff there'll never be consistency.

Golovkin fans have claimed Canelo isn't a champion ever since he's been a champion. Interestingly enough though Canelo himself has renounced any claims to be a champion just recently. Clears up the MW picture somewhat i should think.

What's even more interesting is since Golovkin fans (and everyone now) don't recognise Canelo as a champion, if the two do fight in September they then shouldn't recognise the winner as the champion neither.

I'd assume to be champion either Golovkin unifies every title claim or beats the next best MW (Jacobs in a rematch).

So whilst Canelo cleared up the MW scene somewhat with his strikingly honest appraisal of his championship credentials, the path to crowning a new champion is not an easy one to take right now.

 

Being at page 5, I guess every answer has already been given, but I'll put in my two cents anyway.

Ring isn't lineal, but they went hand in hand many times.
The reason many confuse the two, is back when Ring was respected as the authority on world ranking, they often decided the next lineage once it got broken.
Lineal isn't pure, in my recent poll I had 5 different options of who the current lineal welter was, and every option has merit. That's why voting was all over the place.
Undisputed isn't lineal and/or Ring either. Just look at Mike Tyson for instance.
Lineage has been broken so many times and decided in boardrooms by different publications as many times, often with different outcomes. Or publications disagree on if the lineage was actually broken in the first place, if they even saw the previous one as legit.
In the last decade, the Ring and/or lineal champions usually weren't seen as the best or #1 in the division. Some don't even fight in that division in the first place.

The Ring belt lost most of his value when it became Golden Boy's propaganda outlet. The lineal title is only useful nowadays as a troll weapon, when the division's best isn't the current holder, or is the disputed holder, meaning some publications have him as the lineal while others don't.

 

All of the stuff that gets decided in boardrooms may apply to the current welterweight division after Floyd retired. Apparently Pacquiao Bradley 3 crowned a new lineal champion after Floyd retired. (but it wasn't for the Ring Title, as the welterweight Ring title is apparently still vacant, and correct me if I'm wrong about this please)

It appeared to me that over time new lineages were established when there was a major fight in a division, consisting of either a lot of titles being on the line, or two big highly ranked names, or something like that. (otherwise it would stay vacant) Not a specific hard set of criteria, but something that at least had the ingredients of a major fight worthy of a new lineage. Pacquaio Bradley 3 didn't seem to rise to that level, and I would say the current Lineal Champion of Pacquiao is certainly one of the harder to understand or more debatable ones, so I agree with you on that.

However, in other weight divisions, throughout history, most of the new lineages that were established seemed to make sense as I go through them. Most if not all you had arguably two of the best fighters in the division, or multiple titles on the line, or something along those lines that seemed to make sense for a new lineage to start. And I don't think it's even that important where the new lineage starts, as it matters how long that lineage goes for, as the length of the lineage, more than where it starts, is what makes it more legitimate and historic if you get my drift.

The reasons why the Lineal Title at Middleweight is important to me is because out of all the divisions in boxing, Middleweight is at it's longest current lineage, and can be traced back to Bernard Hopkins. Despite the circumstances of Martinez being injured vs Cotto, and the catchweights and Canelo vacating the title and all that, I still think it's important that this lineage stands the test of time, and eventually (hopefully later this year) results in a Canelo(c) vs Triple G to continue the lineage further and get this division back on track.

Despite all criticism of Canelo, I see him as a Light Middleweight who is in the process of making a permanent move up to Middleweight, and when he was presented with the Cotto fight, he took it because that was the biggest fight out there, not because he was ready to be a Middleweight or defend that title. A lot of people are just impatient which is understandable. But we should have some answers by next weekend, so we won't have to wait too much longer to see how this is going to play out.

As far as how the Ring Belt and the Lineal Title are related, if anyone can shed more light what goes into that I'd like to hear more about it. Like why Vitali vs Corrie Saunders was for the Ring Title but not for Lineal, and why other bouts were for Lineal but not for the Ring. (like Pac Bradley 3 or countless other examples) I know I'm not the only one who would like to know more about what goes into these decisions, but regardless of whether we get these answers or not, it doesn't make the Lineal Championship any less real or significant, even if it has been politicized in some divisions in recent years. It's still something we should keep track of, because it allows us to link current champions to former champions.

 

Canelo is now fighting in a different division for his 2nd fight in a row. Big Dan no longer considers him the lineal champ at MW and I support that position. Canelo has CHOSEN not to fight in that division.

 

Fighting outside of a division doesn't stop someone from being Champion. Big Dan can consider him whatever he wants, but it doesn't change what he actually is.

 

Oh..sorry..I'll go with big dans opinion over yours. I'm sure most boxing fans would as well. Canelo has avoided MW. He picked up a worthless belt in another division and they are already floating a rematch with Jr if this fight does well. He has chosen NOT to fight at that weight so he has effectively left the division.

 

^
Contradictory statements. Link to rules? No? Then your opinion is as worthless as everybody else's.
v

For all I care, Canelo could really be the lineal champion (he's not) ... he could be the super-duper platinum plated Lineal Champion with frosties on top, it doesn't make him The Man at 160, it doesn't change the fact that he ducked Golovkin in a shameful display of cowardice and it doesn't change the fact that GGG would rearrange his face should they ever actually throw down before the Khazak is completely shot.

He beat Old Man Cotto at 155 and Glass Chin Khan at 155. That's what he's achieved. Those are the facts.

 

Wladimir was lineal, at latest, when he defeated Alexander Povetkin.

Vitali had been inactive for over a year and thus was unranked. If you ranked anybody other than Wlad and Povetkin as #1 and #2 going into that fight, you are a fool and you were wrong. As close to not even being an opinionated matter as it could be.

When people say lineal, I assume they mean their opinion of lineal. As in, their personal ranking within a division to be able to say, "this is" or "this isn't" the top two fighters facing off. Once that happens, the winning fighter who has it is lineal until they lose it. So you can have differing opinions there. It's all opinion that dates to ranking and also criteria for losing or keeping the belt with inactivity, weight classes, etc.

 

Lets see what happens next weekend and we will see if Canelo is still avoiding MW a few weeks from now.

 

To only consider someone "lineal champion" when they have amassed the four major belts is to give way too much appreciation and credit to those four major belts. "Lineal champion" certainly is used to reference the winner of a true #1 vs. #2 matchup within a division. And that's fine and more accurate to do nowadays, being how little that ever happens.