The arguments can stop ... a new RING Heavyweight Championship Lineage Begins February 22

RING Magazine’s #1 contender Tyson Fury and its #2 contender Deontay Wilder will meet on February 22 to ‘officially’ crown the RING’s new World Heavyweight Champion.

As was the case when RING’s #1 rated Archie Moore and #2 rated Floyd Patterson met in Chicago in November 1956, the winner of Fury-Wilder will also 'officially' restart the LINEAL Heavyweight Championship chain.

There has been some debate, since the retirement of Lennox Lewis in 2004, regarding who has held a legitimate claim to the 'World' title, thanks in part to the refusal of the Klitschko brothers to face each other when both were clearly the top two heavyweights in the division.

Vitali Klitschko was originally named RING champ in 2004 when he stopped Corrie Sanders, even though Sanders rated #3 by RING (and not #2). This caused a lot of complaints from readers of the magazine and boxing fans in general, after the staff of the magazine amended its longtime rule that a new lineage would only begin (after a champ retires or leaves a division) when the #1 contender faced the #2 contender and a winner declared.

After Vitali retired (due to injuries), the magazine awarded Wlad Klitschko the RING title belt in 2009 when he stopped #3 rated Ruslan Chagaev. Again, fans argued with the decision to award a title in a #1 vs. #3 matchup. The decision seemed even more peculiar considering the #2 contender was Vitali Klitschko, who returned to action in 2008.

After decisioning Wlad Klitschko in 2015, Tyson Fury was also named RING champ, only to retire after failing a drug test in 2016 and announcing he was suffering from depression.

Believing Fury wouldn’t return, RING magazine declared the title vacant in early 2018 (just six months before Fury did return). To add to the confusion, ESPN, after signing Fury to an exclusive deal, began billing all his fights as Lineal title fights.

Now, this can all be put to a rest.

All the previous disagreements aside, the upcoming Tyson Fury-Deontay Wilder fight features the RING’s #1 and #2 contenders, both of whom are undefeated, and the magazine has announced the winner will be presented with the RING CHAMPIONSHIP BELT and listed in their upcoming ratings as WORLD CHAMPION.

Moving forward, fans who have argued against the Lineal title claim of Fury, or the validity of Wilder’s previous 10 successful WBC title defenses, can rest easy.

The winner of the upcoming Fury-Wilder bout will take his place among RING Heavyweight Champions like Dempsey, Tunney, Louis, Marciano, Ali, Frazier, Foreman, Tyson, etc. … and every subsequent defense by the winner will be seen by historians as a WORLD heavyweight title fight.

This is the second meeting between the two. The first time Fury and Wilder met in 2018, which ended in a draw, RING rated Anthony Joshua #1 and Wilder #2.

In 2019, Joshua was dropped four times and stopped by Andy Ruiz in Madison Square Garden. Joshua is currently rated #3 by RING, behind Fury and Wilder, neither of whom has lost.

The #1-rated Fury has a record of 29-0-1 with 20 knockouts. The #2-rated Wilder has a record of 42-0-1 with 41 knockouts.

As previously mentioned, it will be the first time the RING’s #1 and #2 contenders will meet to crown a new RING champion since #1-rated Archie Moore was knocked out in five rounds by #2 rated Floyd Patterson in November 1956. The lineage restarted by that fight ran for the next 48 years, until the retirement of Lennox Lewis.

Hopefully, the fight between Tyson Fury and Deontay Wilder on February 22 will begin another LINEAL streak that lasts for decades.

 

Lineal (when I was growing up it was referred to as Linear) is the straight line from the world champ to the next world champ.

There have always been organizations in the history of boxing that have tried to take control of the title and profit from it. Sanctioning bodies today take a percentage of the purses from the boxers they "recognize" as champs. If the boxers don't pay the sanctioning fees, then the orgs don't recognize those men anymore. It's all about profit. Orgs in the past would even demand boxers pay fees (sometimes thousands of dollars) just to be considered for a title shot. (The fighters could pay the fee and still not get the shot.)

RING began recognizing and presenting belts to the fighters considered the World Champion in each division roughly 100 years ago (1922).

Once you received a RING championship belt, you were recognized as the World Champion. The RING didn't take a cut of the purses or force boxers to pay fees in order to get or keep their championships. For that reason, they were considered more objective than the others.

And a champ could only lose his title if he was defeated in the ring. Then the man who beat him became World Champion.

If a fighter retired or moved out of the weight class, the top two contenders competed to become the next World Champion in that division.

It seemed like a very simple premise. And it worked quite well. That remained consistent for most of the century, and the RING Champ was recognized as the legit lineage for every division.

That is until a group of editors and staff of the magazine around the turn of the 21st Century decided to make changes.

As the sanctioning bodies (WBC, WBA, IBF, WBO) began fiddling with their rules, and moved weigh ins back a day, and fighters began drying out and rehydrating, and boxers began moving up and down divisions regularly, it created gaps at the top of the RING ratings.

In the past, where middleweights like Marvin Hagler might spend his whole career at middle, now boxers who would normally be middleweights were drying out and winning World Title fights at Welter. Then Super Welter. And Middle.

As a fallout from that change, RING found itself with a lot of VACANCIES among their WORLD CHAMPS, because sometimes the top two contenders at a weight wouldn't get around to fighting each other and filling the void before they moved up in weight, too.

So, to fill all those vacant WORLD CHAMPION slots that were piling up in their ratings, the editors, about 20 years ago, made the POOR decision of altering their rule and accepting #1 contenders vs. #3 contenders to fill the void when a champ moved out of a division, which really muddled things, because even RING didn't think they were the two best fighters in the division.

Add to that mess the two best heavyweights (the Klitschkos) refusing to fight each other (justifiably so) and Fury beating Wlad and then reportedly failing his drug test and retiring himself, that really threw the picture into doubt.

LONG STORY SHORT, all that chaos and mess aside, in two weeks, we'll finally have the RING's #1 heavyweight vs the RING #2 heavyweight, two undefeated boxers, fighting to determine the WORLD Heavyweight championship.

And, as was the case when Jack Sharkey and Max Schmeling fought to restart the chain when Gene Tunney retired, and Archie Moore and Floyd Patterson fought to restart the chain when Marciano retired, the man who wins will be the World Heavyweight Champion.

The next person to beat him in the ring will then claim the title. And lineage will continue on.

 

As I posted in another thread with people 'grousing' about Wilder's record ... just view his current record like you would Floyd Patterson's record before he fought Moore or Max Schmeling's before he fought Jack Sharkey the first time.

Like Patterson and Schmeling, it's the first time Wilder has officially fought for the "World" Heavyweight Championship, according to RING.

This fight should clear the air for one night.

Everyone can watch and know the man who walks out is the World Heavyweight Champion.

And then we can all get back to grumbling about which RING contenders the World Champion will or won't fight next.

 

Most of the World Heavyweight Champions over the past 100 years and their RING belts.

Gene Tunney receives his RING Championship belt in 1926, while Dempsey displays his.
https://media.gettyimages.com/photo...he-title-from-picture-id640201250?s=2048x2048

Max Schmeling receives his RING Championship belt in 1930.
https://images.fineartamerica.com/images-medium-large/max-schmeling-the-morning-everett.jpg

Jack Sharkey receives his RING Championship belt in 1932.
https://www.josportsinc.com/item_images/1172160242.jpg

Primo Carnera receives his RING Championship belt in 1933.
https://media.gettyimages.com/photo...-wears-the-belt-picture-id538348199?s=612x612

Joe Louis receives his RING Championship belt in 1937.
https://www.minotavrosbooks.com/pictures/001409_4.JPG?v=1551372682

Jersey Joe Walcott receives his RING Championship belt in 1951.
https://www.thefightcity.com/wp-con...nal-walcott-receives-championship-belt999.jpg

Rocky Marciano receives his RING Championship belt in 1952 (which he would vacate).
https://media.gettyimages.com/photo...arciano-of-ma-picture-id514703294?s=2048x2048

Floyd Patterson receives his first RING Championship belt in 1956.
https://i.pinimg.com/474x/4e/ea/08/4eea08f3cd910d289c33c894abdcf187--floyd-patterson-nat.jpg

Ingemar Johansson receives his RING Championship belt in 1959.
https://boxrec.com/media/images//th...hansson.jpg/450px-Fleischer_and_Johansson.jpg

Sonny Liston wearing his RING Championship belt in 1962.
https://image14.photobiz.com/9743/18_20180510170757_6067085_xlarge.jpg

Muhammad Ali receives his first RING Championship belt in 1964.
https://media.gettyimages.com/photo...ampionship-is-picture-id517474662?s=2048x2048

https://hips.hearstapps.com/hmg-pro...2322.jpg?crop=1xw:1xh;center,top&resize=980:*

George Foreman shows his first RING Championship belt (year unknown).
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DVDpc4CUMAEPSqE.jpg
https://www.flickr.com/photos/flagman00/4152593169

Muhammad Ali presented with his second RING Championship belt in March 1975 (in the ring before Wepner).
https://media.gettyimages.com/photo...orious-with-belt-picture-id81459776?s=612x612

Mike Tyson wearing his RING Championship belt (year unknown)
https://i.pinimg.com/236x/f8/c6/56/f8c65642b28b8526698b5dcd75e5c707--mike-tyson-mike-dantoni.jpg

Evander Holyfield wearing one of his RING Championship belts (year unknown)
https://media.gettyimages.com/photo...during-a-portrait-session-picture-id160061601

Lennox Lewis with his RING Championship belt in 2000 (which he vacated in 2004).
https://qph.fs.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-1c20633a4859847b92d37b78dcf7c93a

Vitali Klitschko with his RING Championship belt in 2004 (which he vacated in 2005).
https://c8.alamy.com/comp/TYCJT1/wb...er-18-2004-upi-photoroger-williams-TYCJT1.jpg

Wlad Klitschko's RING Championship belt won in 2009.
https://c8.alamy.com/comp/CMA9K4/wl...-bern-switzerland-press-conference-CMA9K4.jpg

Tyson Fury's RING Championship belt won in 2015 (which he vacated).
https://www.ringtv.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/rsz_dt_ring_fury_2.jpg

Since he officially retired and vacated the title, Fury could join Floyd Patterson, Muhammad Ali, George Foreman, Evander Holyfield and Lennox Lewis as a multiple winner of the RING belt with a victory over Wilder.