Only one linear HW champion was not knocked down in title fights.

He might not be the Morlock lineal champ.

But there's really no rules or regulations when it comes to linearity and the ring is the best we've got.

 

I’m assuming we are talking about in linear title fights right? In which case Wlad is correct

 

Wlad vs Aj wasn’t for the lineal title though. I’m pretty sure anyway

 

Who knocked Max Baer down in a title fight?

 

I guess we were both right lol

 

Linear is undisputed. Holmes whole title came from it being taken away from Leon so Leon is the correct answer also. Holmes (no matter what The Ring says) was never undisputed. Thus not lineal.

 

Yes there are-THE MAN WHO BEAT THE MAN WHO BEAT THE MAN.

 

But when that man retires how is a new man discovered?

 

Both champs fight like Tyson did to become undisputed and then lineal.. Leon was undisputed Ali beat him. Ali retired then Tate and Weaver. Now Holmes beat Weaver a yr earlier so they said he was lineal but it was not. Just WBC.

 

Holmes was given the Ring belt after Mike Weaver beat John Tate for the WBA belt, using the curious logic that Holmes had previously beaten Weaver, even though Weaver was not the champion or a top contender at the time of their fight. But if Tate had beaten Weaver, as he was about 30 seconds away from doing, Holmes would not have been named the Ring champ.

Although the linear folks don't have Holmes pencilled in as the champ until he beat Ali in 1980. Apparently the two years inactive almost 40-year-old Ali was really the champ all along!

 

So to start a new lineage you have to unify all of the title claims?

The problem with that is multiple titles make it harder and harder to do so.

Plus you have politics stripping belt holders.

And also, Tyson never faced the WBO champion so your own criteria kinda makes it so that we haven't had a lineal champ since Ali retired.

Which, obviously, is nonsense.

Hence why we shall refer to this particular branch of linearity as the "Morlocks Championship"

 

The was no WBO back then and no we probably will not see a lineal champ again. The sport is too fractured to be fixed. I loved Holmes, but he was no more lineal champ than Mike Tyson was youngest heavyweight champ. Tyson didn't become undisputed until he unified all the belts; at which point he was older than Patterson.

 

Not an uncommon occurrence!