Will Usyk vs Joshua be for the vacant lineal belt?

Well you're the one misrepresenting things, which is why I ask to you was he the defending champ.

According to your Bible of boxing Ali vacated his championship claim 4th July 1979. Holmes vs Ali was for the vacant ring belt.

Referring to your bible of boxing, by the way, they stripped Ali for not going to war, they did this March 1970 and awarded it to Frazier because he'd just beaten Ellis. This is despite the fact that Ali would go on to fight twice more thay very same year.

But Ali wasn't a defending champion against Bonavena, Quarry or Frazier. Same as he wasn't a defending champion against Holmes. Same as Fury didn't successfully defend his championship with a draw against Wilder.

 

The WBC did ask for confirmation though, so why not get it sooner? Why after the Usyk/ Joshua rematch?

 

If a boxer has officially retired then than then the belt to becoming instantly vacant.

Ring have finally done the right thing. Ring should of made their title vacant when Fury first retired and made Wlad vs AJ for vacant title.

WBC reluctance to act accordingly now is no surprise. We Be Crooks are the poorest ruined organisation. They should make Parker vs Joyce for title but knowing them they will make it for Wilder vs Helenius lol.

 

It's because Fury hasn't retired, this is all just nonsense.

They've given him till the 26th to vacate the belt - as it's clear a fight with the winner will already have been discussed.

 

He is worried AJ will win, and then will be unquestionably seen above Wilder.

I genuinely think that's his problem here.

 

Having studied the history of the lineage in some detail, I think anybody giving a definitive answer to this is ignoring the historical precedents.

Sometimes the lineage is obvious. If there is a clear champion, somebody beats them and stays active, then they are the lineal champion.

It becomes less obvious in cases where the lineal champion is inactive for a sustained period, or where they announce their retirement.

John L Sullivan announced his retirement in June 1890 to become an actor, and told the press on multiple occasions that he was retired. When Frank Slavin won the Police Gazette belt in September 1890, he challenged Sullivan, who refused on the grounds that he was retired.

Slavin then defended his belt against Kilrain in June 1891. Sullivan decided he wanted to return to the ring, and challenged Slavin in November 1891. Sullivan still considered himself champion despite his retirement and inactivity of over 2 years.

In January 1892, it became obvious that Slavin could not convince his backers to raise the money required to match Sullivan’s challenge, so he forfeited the Police Gazette belt which was returned to Sullivan. At this point Sullivan had been inactive for 2 and a half years, but was still recognised as champion by most.

In March 1892, Sullivan challenged any white fighter who could raise $35,000, preferring Slavin, Mitchell or Corbett. He refused to fight a black man, which excluded Peter Jackson.

Corbett raised the money and signed articles to fight Sullivan.

In May 1892, Peter Jackson beat Frank Slavin and became the clear #1 active fighter, having drawn with Corbett the previous year. Similar to Joshua-Usyk, this was arguably a fight between the top 2 contenders, and was certainly at worst #1 vs #3. However, Jackson was not generally recognised as champion. At this point, Sullivan had been inactive for 2 years and 10 months.

In September 1892, after over 3 years of inactivity, Sullivan returned to the ring against Corbett. Corbett won the fight, and won the lineal title as it is generally recognised today. At the time, prominent fighters such as Charlie Mitchell said that Jackson had more of a right to call himself champion than Corbett. Jackson himself said that Corbett’s claim to the world title could not be clear until he beat him.

Negotiations between Corbett and Jackson fell through, and Jackson retired, which ultimately settled the argument in Corbett’s favour.

Moving on, Corbett retired in November 1895 after a period of inactivity, and nominated Peter Maher as his successor. In February 1896, Maher was beaten by Bob Fitzsimmons, who was recognised by pretty much everybody as the new champion. Corbett then challenged Fitz, and later argued that Fitz had forfeited the title by not accepting his challenge within 6 months.

In August 1896, John L Sullivan agreed that Fitz had forfeited the title. Maybe point that out to people who think that stripping champions who haven’t lost or retired is an invention of the sanctioning bodies!

So at this point there were 2 rival champions. Fitz claimed to be champion having beaten Maher, and Corbett claimed to be champion as a result of Fitz forfeiting his title to him. Both agreed that Fitz had been champion for a period.

However, despite Fitz obviously being recognised as champion at the time, you won’t find him in most lineal lists until he beat Corbett. I think this is mostly revisionism to keep things neat, but Corbett’s retirement undeniably made things messy.

I will skip over the fixed fight that Fitz had with Sharkey in December 1896 (which either was or wasn’t a world title fight depending on which lineage you subscribe to).

The matter was settled in March 1897 when Fitz fought Corbett, and Fitz was the winner. He was now undeniably the lineal champion, either a 2-time champion (according to Corbett and Sullivan’s logic) or a 1-time champion who had defended his title (according to his logic).

The issue was unsettled again 2 days later, when Fitzsimmons announced his retirement. He had promised his wife that this would be his last fight, much like Fury after his fight with Whyte.

Fitzsimmons was then inactive for almost 2 years. However, when he decided to return in January 1899 and signed to fight Jeffries, he was still recognised as the reigning Champion.

More recent examples include Frazier vs. Ellis during Ali’s absence, or Patterson vs. Moore following Marciano’s retirement. If Ali hadn’t returned, we would recognise Frazier as lineal champion following that win. If Marciano had returned, most people probably wouldn’t recognise Patterson in the same way most don’t recognise Fitzsimmons.

In the present day case, I think Fury has a strong claim to be lineal. Even there there is disagreement, as the TBRB stripped him in 2016 then said he won it back against Wilder in 2020, whereas Ring stripped him in 2018 but said he retained the lineal title, and also gave him their belt back along with TBRB. So Ring see his as a 1-time lineal champion whereas TBRB see him as a 2-time lineal champion. CBZ also see him as 2-time, whereas LinealBoxingChampion see him as 1-time.

Most seem to agree that before his retirement announcement Fury was lineal champion, either 1-time since 2015 or 2-time since 2020.

In itself, his retirement doesn’t exclude him from still being champion, as seen with Sullivan, Corbett, Fitzsimmons and Ali. However, it does establish some doubt, and this doubt will be increased if we get a winner in the Usyk-Joshua fight, which will establish a clear rival champion. The longer Fury stays retired, the better claim Usyk or Joshua will have to the lineal title. If he never returns, this fight will start a new lineage. That said, should Fury return within a reasonable time period he will probably still be seen as the true champion, and a fight between the rival champions will be the only way to remove all doubt.

 

Yeah but one of his arguments has always been Wilder fought the best in the whole of the sport 3 times whilst AJ has never even contested the lineal belt.

 

Lineal has always been messy, especially when the line is broken. With Hart there were other claimants, Ali retiring threw doubt around when/ if Holmes became lineal, Robinson had the mob to contend with before finally getting a shot at the welterweight title. Was Bell really the second best contender? All three, Hart, Holmes & Robinson were probably considered the best in their divisions at the time. Lineage is very messy though. Slightly off topic, Henry Armstrong should have lost his welterweight championship to Lou Ambers in their fight in August 1939 as both welter & light championships should have been on the line, as they were previously against Feldman in March of the same year. Armstrong would have won the welter championship back with his win over Jenkins, who had beaten Ambers. As I said, lineage has always been messy

 

Even if Fury announces a comeback late on Saturday, so what? The gangly fruitcake will be the boy who cried wolf, having disrespected the title once too often. Obviously it's half-expected. He's a wrong un, from a family of wrong uns.

...DubbleChin just deliberately lies and misinterperates things in whichever way will back up his personal opinion. The cheeky **** will then ignore what other posters say to him and try telling them what they reallly think. He used to do that on the torrent forums. It's how he debates.

He's another wrong un.

 

I don't care who wins. Hell, I caught flack for rooting for Joshua last time. People said I hated Usyk.

 

People say you hated Usyk because you did a thread mocking his chances of success in the division lol

 

One thing you need to remember as well in this instance is the part to play that belts have.

Namely if someone is a champion, and they retire and vacate their belt, the stance that they are still champion doesn't really correlate with reality.

Now, of course, the winner won't really be embraced as the best HW because the spectre of Fury remains, especially if he returns from retirement. Much like how Lewis hung over Vitali for the remainder of his career.

Continue to research these things though, tracing lineage is a fun past time.