Who's the lineal HW champion?

Makes no sense calling Fury any sort of champion after losing all those belts without even fighting,such a s*** bag for not rematching Wlad who was keen as **** to get his revenge.

 

Yeh, I agree. Despite what I said in my previous post - Fury was acting nothing like a camp at that point. And as you allude to ... good chance he wouldn't have stayed lineal for long had he given Wlad a timely rematch.

But it is what it is. Joshua and Wilder never settled things while Fury was away ... so he keeps it for a bit longer now he's back. At least a HW belts unification seems on the cards one way or another over the next 18 months. If not Usyk will probably have to end up travelling to London and Vegas to get it done.

 

That's a very personalized view of lineal

 

There can be only none.

Fury's retirement/ban vacated the lineage. 1 (Joshua) vs 2 (Wilder) creates a new one.

 

Nobody. Lennox Lewis has more claim to it than Tyson Fury.

 

Which parts are personal ?

 

Well, before I get into that let me be clear, I respect your opinion and don't mean this as a "you wrong you must think this" kind of thing, hence why I used the word personal over wrong or propagandist or any other form of insulting your path to lineal.

So first you're using a ranking system that fits the narrative you're looking for best. The Tranny ranks have nothing to do with the WBA/WBC split between recognized champions, so nothing to do with lineal as folks mean it. What's the tranny ranks most official representation the IBO? Yeah, just doesn't have the history nor the support.

Then, you have to break the rules of the ranking board used to best fit your narrative because even if you use a johnny come lately system to explain something that has roots in the 70s you still can't get the narrative you're looking for without breaking it's rules two.

Finally you omit the fact that Tyson Fury coming out of retirement to void the reign of any claimant after him wouldn't be the first time that's happened in HW boxing.

So yeah, I say personalized because if you feel that way buddy go on and do you, but for the most of us you're not speaking to lineal in any regard.


Again, I don't mean to be a dick I'm just shooting straight with ya. What I got out of your post was basically "If you use X ranking system and apply Y special rules while eliminating Z traditions you get Joshua as lineal" which is fine but honestly the first time I've ever heard such a personalized route.

Why Tranny ranks? Because you reckon them proper right? You being the optimal word.

Why does Wlad get automatically ranked? Because you reckon he ought to be.

Why isn't Fury's claim valid post his return fight? Because you don't reckon it ought to be.

Alls fine and dandy but that's well personalized. Lots of " I's " in your post not so much "traditionally".

 

I'll address your points.

But before I do, let me say that unless you have a man-who-beat-the man linearity, anything else has some degree of arbitrariness. Rocky Marciano retired and took linearity with him, but eventually, agreement was reached and we got a general acceptance of Floyd, Sonny, Ali... etc, ups until things got murky with the WBA/WBC issues you mentioned that caused the linearity road to diverge in the sixties and seventies.

As I mentioned earlier, many regarded Holmes as the new linear champ when he defeated Norton, but some did not agree until he had disposed of the returning lineal champ, Ali. From there on, there was general agreement that Holmes was the man.

It got all murky again not much later, and I won't go over the details as I'm sure you're aware of the history.

So jumping ahead until the present ( or recent past), we had a host of ABC organizations, the WBA and WBC from the old days, and the IBF and WBO being the principal organizations. As you know, there are, several more and this whole mess is regrettable.

All of these organizations have ranking systems which are rarely in agreement. Add in the RING rankings which were at one time as highly respected as any other system, and you have a true mess.

When the RING was acquired by GOLDEN BOY, it's credibility took a bit of a hit for obvious conflict-of-interest reasons.

So, around six years ago, a group of interested boxing aficionados from all around the world, including @Stonehands89 and @McGrain from this site, who had no financial stake in the rankings, formed the TRANSNATIONAL BOXING RANKINGS (TBRB), what you vexingly describe as the "Tranny ranks."

https://www.boxingforum24.com/threads/the-transnational-boxing-rankings.449172/#post-14389999

These rankings are the 'official' rankings of the site we are posting on.

And, while I don't always agree with their take either, they are the rankings I give most credence to.

Therefore, other than their removal of Wlad from the rankings for inactivity due to the fall-through of the Fury rematch, I Agree that Wlad and AJ were the two top HWs when they met, and hence, I consider AJ the man on account of his victory in that bout where they met.

As I mentioned, I understand that there are some who regard Fury as the lineal champ, and as I mentioned, that point of disagreement won't be removed entirely until AJ defeats Fury or defeats someone who has defeated Fury.

Additionally, I did not declare AJ to be the lineal champ. I stated that Fury could be considered the lineal champ emeritus.... (but)..."...I believe AJ has the strongest claim to being the actual linear champ."

Moreover, you could gather from my sentence that included "...if you fetishized about such things," that I don't put too much stock in the concept, especially in times of murkiness such as we have now in the HW division.

Liston is 7-9 in my all-time list of HWs and he only managed one successful defence of the lineal title.




So to summarize:

Fury = Lineal champ emeritus
AJ = (IMO) closest thing we have to a current lineal champ.

I don't put great stock in lineality as it relates at present to the HW division.

 

Didn't shorten to disrespect it's just you know what you've said.


That's plenty fair I reckon, can't hardly tell a man who knows the history half decent how he should interpret it. That said I don't mean these as a counterpoints but an honest curiosity....oh and since you said your not actually interested don't feel obligated to respond just because I typed a lot. I'll put it out there and if you reckon your up for it have at it bud but I don't half expect anything.

How do you feel about champions who retired unbeaten and came back from retirement and without fighting a single person being considered the champion solely because they claimed it again? I think Jem Ward is the most absurd case of it what with his doing it I'm pretty sure about five times in his career. Jem's still considered the man to this day until Burke fights O'Rourke but Burke-O'Rourke is years after Jem's initial retirement and in that time other than saying " No he ain't the champ because I am" Jem did nothing to be champion.

Also, and this might seem a bit off subject but I am curious, how do you feel about Hart? Jeffries elected Hart the same way Corbett elected Maher. James retired and said the winner of this contest, hart-root, is the new champion. Hart wins, loses to Burns, Burns to Johnson, and James comes out of retirement to push the issue but loses. Which is fine in that James-Jack vacuum, but Peter Maher is not considered champion so whatever "rules" that applied to Hart did not apply to Maher. Corbett announces the winner of Maher-O'Donnell would be champion. Maher won, but the fans were against it and so Maher isn't considered champion to this day. The lineage would still have Fitz next as Fitz whooped Maher some months later and then Corbett himself.

Makes it kind of selective doesn't it? Like you can't really just say " well this is how we handled it in the past so this is how it's handled" because different points in the past that had similar circumstances do not have similar outcomes. So I reckon what is missing is fan perception.

Jem was champion because the fans said so. Maher ain't because the fans said so. Hart and Burns are because the fans said so. I think Tyson Fury has won that battle of public opinion.

How do you have an active emeritus?

You can use examples of the past to make your point, but so can I. You can use your tranny ranking board, but it's no more official than whatever I pull out of my ass....and I don't mean that disrespectfully I mean dude if you're going to use BS use your BS because I'm not any more impressed by a team of bullshitters than I am a solo artist . You can redefine what emeritus means, but that's semantics. It's all very personalized to make sense to you, but from where I'm sitting it seems like you're trying to force something that just isn't so and to do that your need alternative resources. I suspect probably just to promote said resource.

Lineal didn't exist in Marciano's time. Most fans were unaware of the multiple belts and only knew of one champion. When Lee was champion no one in America knew Charles was disputed. Those are sanctioned champions during a time when fans were happy with sanctioning body's champions. What I mean is tradition prior wouldn't apply; that's champion prerogative - something the IBU,NBA,and NYSAC purposefully stamped out. The lineal concept doesn't come into play until multiple champions come into play. Mid 60s at earliest. Seems like how the NBA and NYSAC handled post Marciano was how the fans perceived it. They didn't feel any need to make up a champion, they just waited on the bodies, no?

 

Cool, but they were mostly known for a while as lineal. Not exactly sure when that stopped but it had a long run considering they've been around since Dempsey.

 

Busy right now, but I'll get back to you on this.

Regards.

Cuchulain

 

This seems quite simple to me.

There are 4 HW belts, and while Wlad was a special case, eventually the public demands that the belts get unified.

The process is underway. Had Joshua and Wilder totally unified (as they could have) while Fury was inactive ... a new lineal line would have been initiated.

They didn't, so the lineal sort of stays at Fury*.

As I remember it, the 90s and early 2000's was a period of a lot of circle jerking in the HW division, with Don King involved much of the time. But I get the feeling that the way media is structured now, total unification will become more common. Usyk - has just achieved it at Cruiser. A total unification, pretty much defaults things to a new lineal line if the lineal was until that point outside of the equation.

 

Technically Fury, probably none of them. Fury has been out too long to genuinely be considered the man, but by the same token, he wasn't out long enough for a clear number one and number two to emerge,