Vitali Klitschko 2004-5 status in your eyes

Lineal champ? No. #1 HW? Yes.

My understanding is that a boxer can attain lineage under either of two circumstances:

1. Beating the lineal champion;
2. Winning a #1 vs #2 fight in the instance the lineal title is vacant;

If you believe the same, then the sole question is how you determine the rankings. I base them on the Ring rankings and iirc, which is no guarantee, Vitali was #1 and Byrd #2 when the former fought Sanders.

 

Lineal is such a nebulous concept I truly don't like it I just prefer looking at who's the best fighter in the division at that point. But I think it was pretty clear he was the number 1 after giving Lewis a handful forcing him to retire and then beating Sanders who beat his brother. No one else was really at his level at that point until his brother came along and beat Byrd of course.

 

He was the heavyweight champion with whatever label you wanted and the Don King champion was the leader of the G League.

 

That pretty much sums it up in a nutshell.

I don't know any record that holds Vitali as a Lineal champ.

The next to be anointed, after Lewis, was Wlad, some way down the line.

However, this is where it gets a bit blurred, with some declaring Wlad Lineal after Chagaev - Others only recognizing the new lineage, after Wlad/Pov.

 

Yes. I consider him lineal champ until his first retirement. At the time Vitali v Sanders was the logical fight to make for the title. It only becomes a problem later on because of Wlad.

What confuses me about this situation is people acting like you need 1v2 to start a new lineage. And that 1v3 is somehow illegitimite if its not 1v2. Theres no precedent or for this idea it just pops up during this incident with people acting like its a sacred tradition. No it just came out of the blue. Before this there had been 2 new HW lineages that hadn't been determined by some form of tournament.

5)Maher v 14?)O Donnell
1)Johnson v 5)Hart

You don't even need to have 2 top 5ers. Fact that gets overlooked is its not even possible to make a match stronger than 1v3. You can only do 2v4 which wasn't done. There was no alternative HW lineage in 2004 people just wanted Vitali to fight Byrd instead of Sanders. Vitali would retire but fighting 3 instead of 2 doesn't put an asterisk on a title. He could hae fought 2 later.


The source I use for rankings integrates HW and MW for its early HW rankings and only provides a full ranking for the end of the year. So I made an estimate for O Donnell.

 

The claim is made weak from the outset by virtue of the fact it is non-existent. Sanders was #3.
That Byrd was the #2 and already held a 'W' over Vitali just adds to the lack of credibility (if it could be any less).

I'm not sure what Rafael thinks he's writing about, to be frank. However, when I referred to a "record" I meant a historical archive (listed records). Not even The Ring records Vitali as having been Lineal.

 

My honest answer to your question on Hart is, I've never considered the question before. He is listed as such here - https://boxing.fandom.com/wiki/List_of_lineal_boxing_world_champions. Iirc, I don't think there were published rankings back then and the two contenders, i.e. Hart and Root, for the vacant championship were nominated by the retiring Jeffries. So, based on the criteria of the time, now you've asked, yes I suppose I do. Not that, that impacts how I rank Hart.

 

The Ring gave him lineage.

 

That's not how I read the article (or how most people would, I suspect). Rafael merely refers to "many" - not a 'majority' or "consensus". He makes no reference to who the "many" actually were, either.

It would be fair to suggest, however, that a little confusion might have been caused by The Ring applying 'editorial discretion', and allowing the #1 and #3 fight for the Ring Championship.

In other words, The Ring Championship was then made quite distinct from the Lineal Championship. This was made all the more clear by what I mentioned previously, i.e., Not even The Ring Editors themselves consider Vitali to have been the Lineal Champion.

Few, if any, credible outlets referred to the Vitali/Sanders contest as being for the Lineal Championship. Although, I would be genuinely be interested in having a read of any you can find.

 

Arguably Hart vs Root was #1 vs #2, as nominated by the retiring champion in the absence of published rankings.

In the Charles and Holmes examples, I think the rationale is that lineage can only pass if the #1 and #2 fight whilst the lineal champion is retired. They didn't and so lineage remained with Louis and Ali until they lost. So, apologies for not choosing my words carefully in my point 2. I should have said "when #1 and #2 fight whilst the lineal champion is retired". A key concept of lineage is that the lineal title can never be vacant. Lineage can only pass from one to another.

The key point is the lineal champion can be different to who the universally recognised champion is. Holmes was the universally recognised champion before he beat Ali, he wasn't lineal champion until after he beat him.

Please note, the above is solely contained to my interpretation of the generally accepted criteria for lineage passing. It doesn't mean I think lineage in cases such as these should effect how boxers are ranked from an historical perspective.