Video: Fury is the lineal champ

No such thing as a lineal champion. There's only guys with belts and guys with no belts.

In my opinion, the man who beat the man is not how reigns are established. Whoever is the best most dominant guy doing the best work is the real champ. The rest is just window dressing for casuals.

Gggs reign started just before Martinez retire. Whether he had a belt or not he was obviously the best middleweight. GGG getting belts improved his claim but was not its actual foundation. The basis of any claim is competence.

If you lack competence and the respect of your community then it doesnt matter who you beat or what belts you have. Miguel Cotto wasn't ever a link in any chain because he wasn't even top five at any time.

Meanwhile, this is AJs reign at heavyweight. If you want to trace it's start, when it was abundantly clear he was the best, back to his victory over Klitschko I wouldn't object, but I don't think overthrowing the current champ is absolutely mandatory.

The reason for this is because of all the ducking and cherry picking that goes on. A guy like Floyd Mayweather can extend his reign three or four years after he's not the best welterweight in the world anymore. Not losing doesn't make a champion. Facing and beating the best does. If you cease to take on the most deserving challengers you've ceased behaving like a champ. You don't get to ice out the heir apparent by ignoring him. That's instant abnegation as far as I'm concerned. Don't fight your mandatories and you get stripped. It makes no sense to me calling Red Cochrain welterweight champ all those years Sugar Ray Robinson was in the division lighting everyone up.

And I'll even claim a precedent. Nat Fleischer in 1924 lists the light-heavyweight champ fifth best in his division with guys like Gene Tunney above him. The belt was gotten by politicking and the best contenders never got a shot.

Another recent example is Adonis Stevenson. He was considered third or fourth best his whole time as the 'lineal' champ.

Or should we consider Canelo's double robbery of GGG as being the continuation of a legitimate line?

In conclusion, lineal is bull****. The belts are all bull**** too. The only thing that counts is who you fought and who you're fighting.

 

This is all just evidence of the futility of the "Lineal Championship". The reason the concept was created in the first place was an attempt to remove the politics and grey areas of the various sanctioning bodies. Well it's clearly failed, because it only creates more politics and grey areas.

 

It's all terribly ironic, linear meaning straight path but it's anything but.

So many people saying Fury took a "brief break" from boxing , if going on an 80s style bender of drugs and adrenaline fueled suicide attempts constitutes a break from boxing then why are the same people against PED's ??. Consistency please.

Fury claims this as a way to create clout and stake a claim for fighting , I don't blame him he gotta have something to shout at them about. However to take him so literally when a few years ago he said the RING belt was the only true belt shows you he is willing to twist anything at the time to suit him.

Boxing fans cannot get caught up in his revelry because he is temperamental , would it shock anyone if Fury said tomorrow I cannot be bothered with all this and he "retires briefly again" ?. Still lineal champ? Whatever that is?.

Just hold your breath with Fury nothing is certain. With Frank Warren claws in you it could go horribly wrong very quickly.

 

Agree with alot of this and it's a very good post, but for continuity's sake there probably needs to be some structure and a hierarchy. Also, what of the principle that a champ keeps his belts (effectively a win) in a draw? That the champ must be beaten? Those are solid concepts, imo. It speaks to the fact that reaching the pinnacle is usually easier than staying there.

 

Yeah, I think you need to establish a level of dominance in the division also before you can claim to be the man. Just beating the top guy doesn't cut it for me. In Fury's case, he only fought for world championship once and never even defended it. Lineage for me would imply the guy who "took the reign" from the previous best champ and established himself as the best by fighting the best fighters in the division for a considerable period of time. After all, upsets happen all the time in boxing.

 

I asked that question.

I think the real problem is people assuming or outright saying this "lineal title" makes you the best heavyweight on the planet, it makes you Number 1.

Those two things should be separate anyway and that is the problem, they are two different things and if people make that distinction then there might be less resistance to the idea of Fury being "lineal champion".

I personally don't believe Fury right now has any legitimate claim to being lineal champion on account on a few things but even if he was that doesn't automatically make him the number 1 heavyweight, it's just a title, a title with no belt, a title that in the grand scheme of things doesn't mean anything in reality.

Because if Seferi did get that win, even if you wanted to call Seferi the lineal champion he wouldn't be regarded as the best heavyweight on the planet.. nobody would be that foolish or idiotic to seriously claim that.


So people need to separate lineal title with being the number 1 heavyweight and then the problem isn't really a problem regardless if you believe Fury is or isn't.

 

"Stone walls do not a prison make, nor iron bars a cage." -Richard Lovelace

Titles and belts don't make a champion.

 

And if it doesn't mean you're number one then what good is a ****ing title? Who gives a ****?