Who's the lineal HW champion?

So if Wilder beats Fury, is he the new lineal champion or does he still need to beat Joshua also?

 

In response to this point, I used the TBRB rankings (with a minor caveat) which I believe this boxing cite recognizes as the most reliable.

Glad was ranked #1 by TBRB in October 2016... http://www.tbrb.org/2016/10/30/11-october-2016/

...but was gone the following month... http://www.tbrb.org/2017/11/29/14-november-2017/

The reason he was gone was inactivity. And this is where the minor caveat I mentioned comes in. I don't believe that Wlad should have lost his ranking due to inactivity. For almost the entire period of inactivity, he was scheduled to rematch Fury. This matchup was postponed and eventually cancelled due to Fury's 'disintegration.'

Hardly Wlad's fault.

So I still had him at # 1 when he faced AJ.


And AJ was TBR's official #1 at the time of the Wlad-Fury fight... http://www.tbrb.org/2017/04/02/14-march-2017/

So we had the two top HWs meeting up in April 2017.

And it was a great fight that could have gone either way.

But Anthony Joshua won it, and Wlad retired, therefore IMO, AJ has the best claim to being the current lineal HW champion of the world.




AJ is now in the position of Larry Holmes back when he bested Ken Norton to start a new Lineage. That lineage was still in doubt by some, until Larry defeated a totally shot, but lineal champ emeritus, Ali.

AJ has the best claim, and that claim will become undeniable IF and WHEN he defeats Fury, or a conqueror of Fury.

 

lineal champ is defined as a consensus champ meaning everyone agreed. Can one be stripped of the lineal? never heard of that before. so maybe old fat broke down fury is the lineal champ. that ought to get the young lions licking their chops.

 

For a big example that shows hypocrisy, most everybody did not reinsert Mayweather as the WW lineal champion after he came back from his brief retirement and faced Marquez. His time away from the sport was near half that of Fury and his first two opponents upon returning, Marquez and Mosley, were infinitely more legitimate.

There is a case to be made for Fury but that likely means ignoring ones' established rules/means of acquiring/retaining the lineal title claim.

I feel Joshua vs. Parker is clearly a better claim for Joshua to be lineal than Joshua vs. Wladimir. I don't rank Wilder over Povetkin now and I didn't rank Wilder over Parker when Joshua signed to face Parker.

 

Yes, one can be "stripped" of the non-physical title.

Most everyone accepts a retirement as ending the lineal claim. Fury announced his retirement, and re-announced it, about a dozen times during his two and a half years off.

 

micheal spinks was retired came back to fight tyson. and spinks was considered the lineal champ. This lineal championship is voted on by people that matter in boxing. I think you have to loose it in the ring. or another vote needs to be taken. So far their are two camps joshua, wilder and neither is conceding anything and there is no consensus. old fury is the man. fight bid and sign fury up.

 

Two and a half years retired and when he did return he faced Sefer Seferi Seferito...

...life moves on.

 

Yep, the only man who could void Wilder's claim to lineal if he beat Fury is Lennox.

 

But what if Vitali beats Lennox in their sparring exhibition!

 

Bull**** aside I didn't know about this. Off for details.

 

Jack Dempsey and Muhammad Ali sat on the sidelines for a few years each (for different reasons) and were still considered lineal heavyweight champs.

Unless someone retires with the belt (like Marciano or Tunney), to be the man you’ve got to beat the man.

 

Nobody is because there is no such thing as the Lineal Champion. It's not tangible. It doesnt actually exist.

 

I would rather say a lineal champion will emerge when Fury, Wilder, Joshua fight each other. Then one of those three will become the champion.

 

I think it's Fury. If Joshua and Wilder had got their acts together and fought each other in the time when Fury was inactive, then the winner of that fight could claim it.

It's sort of Fury* at the moment.

An interesting side question is who is lineal at Cruiser? If it's now Usyk, what happens when he moves up?

The good thing about HW is that the lineal champs rarely change weight class. Fury did sort of move up to his own weight class tho, for a while.