Will Usyk vs Joshua be for the vacant lineal belt?

I mean don't get me wrong, I like the idea that the champion is the champion until he loses. But retirement will always mess that up.

Tunney, Marciano and Lewis are the 3 famous cases of retiring as champ and never coming back.

But this is hindsight. Not at the actual time.

Tunney had been retired less than 2 years before a new champ was crowned.

Marciano had been retired about a year before a new champ was crowned.

Lewis, well that's convoluted with the whole 1v2 thing so we'll sidebar that one.

But there are also champs who came back after retiring, and history shows whilst a vocal few still saw them as champ, it's not how they were actually classified at the time.

Jeffries came back and lost to Johnson (so we're Hart, Burns and Johnson never champ until this point?)
Louis came back and lost to Charles
Ali came back and lost to Holmes.

Which brings us to Fury. Fury retired after beating Wlad. But he came back and fought twice, drew with Wilder, fought twice, beat Wilder, beat Wilder again, beat Whyte and retired again.

So the two schools of thught diverge here somewhat. Some would argue Fury has defended his championship 8 times and is likely to defend it a 9th.

Most would agree, when you retire, you retire your claim. If you come back, get back in line.

 

Ring Magazine: "But, but, he said he was retired." Idiots.

Who didn't see this coming?

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If you said you quit your job, your employer accepted that, and you returned a week later to start your shift... Would you be the idiot or your employer? All they did was take HIS word for it.

 

I understand that, but they essentially asked if he was retired and thus vacating his belt. He said yes, so they removed the belt from him.

Boxing needs to take a harder line on people "retiring" and coming back a week later. It holds up the sport and is unfair on contenders trying to get top fights.

 

It's reasonably common practice. Same with fighters leaving a division and moving up in weight.

 

Who is the current lineal HW champion?

 

Oleksandr Usyk.

Fury has come out of retirement to challenge him.

 

The Ring probably made a big deal of confirming with Tyson Fury because he announced his retirement again a week before their rated #1 & #2 were set to fight & he willingly vacated. Fury wasn't forced to announce his retirement again & he could have easily said he was waiting until after the Usyk vs Joshua fight to see what happens but he didn't, he chose to vacate their belt. Therefore the opportunity to fight for the vacate belt was given to Usyk & Joshua.

The Ring has vacated/ stripped many previous titles based on retirements, inactivity, not facing a top 5 opponent, moving divisions, PEDs use etc but Fury announcing his retirement again just days before their current #1 & #2 contenders were set to fight lead to this scenario

 

Ring jumped the gun by stripping Fury. He never officially retired and last fought only 4 months ago.

 

The two times Mayweather retired, basically any time a ring champion retires.

Although it obviously depends on what "policy" is occurring at the time.

When Lewis retired they used the WBC deadline to confirm his retirement.

So not every single time, but definitely not unprecedented.

 

Your last line here should end the thread, which began with the lineal championship being a 'belt'. It's a promotional claim and nothing else.

 

Lineal HW champion is something we never really cared for on this era before ESPN started to use it on their marketing. The whole title is a joke at this point.