Guide me to the lineal heavyweight champion please.

It’s bull****

 

It had no real meaning until Ali was stripped of one of his belts.

It just means the man who beat the man.

However there are two sub sets of lineal proponents, those who recognise a champions right to retire his championship and those who believe he remains a champion even in retirement.

For me the champion now is Usyk, but for everyone the champion will be the victor of their fight.

 

The whole lineal discussion is that it's the pure way to determine the "actual" champion traced back to the first guy, but the issue is there hasn't been a pure way for ages anymore.
The lineages have been broken many times and then some panel has to decide on which fight is or isn't for the vacant "linealship"... Which is as contradicting as it sounds.
It even gets more murky when another panel points at another fight having been for the vacant linealship or disagrees and points to another guy (like happened to the HW's and LHW's) or that a perceived lineal champion unretires.

It's just a whole damn mess.

 

I believe the whole recognizing a champion who retired as still the champion came from bare knuckle where you could attack a man randomly essentially even when he was old and if you beat him you "legitimately" took his title. Obviously this can't be the case for gloved professional era. If a champion retires like Lennox Lewis, then a new lineage must necessarily begin.

A box -off between the #1 and #2 should generally suffice.

All lineal titles are important in my opinion it's just that the biggest prize is still Heavyweight.

It's also interesting that the lineal champion is not always the best or most talented. For example Foreman won the WBA and IBF after knocking out Moorer (second lineal reign for Foreman). He was beaten by Briggs and Lewis gained it from beating Briggs.

In my opinion Vitali picked up the lineal but some believe he didn't and believed it went Foreman-Briggs-Lewis- W Klitschko-Fury.

 

It's a nonsense.
The literal definition of a lineal champion is an unbroken line back to the original. It's been severed many times and requires a consensus to start it again. Therefore it's already been broken.
The real problems come when you get someone like Tyson Fury, who milks the idea. He has the 'title' but hasn't been acting like a champion by fighting the main threats in the division. So, even if you believe in it - it has no credibility if you don't actually face meaningful opposition. Is Usyk now 'lineal' because he's faced better opponents recently? Can you change the title from one boxer to another if one doesn't want to face the other??
It's just a marketing gimmick to sell fights and is open to abuse. We should scrap the concept entirely.

 

Usyk didn't beat the man who beat the man though. The lineal is supposed to be pure and without the shady dealings of the alphabets.
Fury did beat Klitschko and never lost in the ring. He claimed to have retired several times but whenever his team was asked by the organizations (as far as I know) they said he is not retired



Great resource is
Lineal boxing champion dot com

 

And it only gets churned out for heavyweights. No other division even attempts the idea. Heavyweight obviously has some mythical golden-era aspect to it which we like to tap into.
But if it's so precious why doesn't the concept exist across all the divisions ?

 

The ring magazine did ask Fury and Fury confirmed his retirement hence why he's no longer the ring champ.

Usyk and AJ were ranked 1&2 and when Usyk won Fury then announced his comeback.

Like I say, it will all be sorted when they fight anyways.

 

It does.

Have you not seen the raging debates about Jones Jr and DM?

Or at MW when Martinez was stripped of all his titles?

Of Hatton at LWW when he was stripped of his?

Lots and lots of examples throughout history.

It's why they talk about Floyd and Pac and the amount of times they were lineal champion instead of just ABC.

It gets spoken about more at HW because HW boxing gets spoken about more than every other division combined.

 

I don't think It's the same. The concept, in lower divisions, seems to fall on who is seen as 'the man' in the division at that time. It's not really referenced that it 'goes back to Monzon ' for example. Or goes back to Willie Pep. Whereas the heavies always seem keen to tap into the idea of that rich history, going back to Sullivan and Dempsey etc. It's used to market and sell fights in a totally different way.

 

Of course it is.

It means more at HW because everything means more at HW.

 

Respectfully, you didn't address the points I made. And, yes, I lived through the Hatton era, Jones Jr \ Darius M era. Yes, there was debate about who was the man. But I don't recall there ever being discussion about who was lineal. Again, I think it's gets churned out as important for the heavyweights, whereas who is undisputed or 'the man' seems to be the focus in other divisions. I rewatched the full Hopkins / Trinidad broadcast the other day, for example... the long anticipated climax of the middleweight tournament to crown an undisputed champion. No mention of lineal there.

 

This is site interesting.

If that logic is going to be used in some semi-codified way ... there needs to be some clarity about retirement.

Eg. a stated retirement and a 2 year period of inactivity, or any retirement and/or 1 year of inactivity over the age of 40 = forfeiture, unless there's a pending fight signed or something like that. Maybe call it the Tyson Fury clause.