THE CASE FOR VITALI KLITSCHKO BEING THE LINEAL WORLD HEAVYWEIGHT CHAMPION (PART II)

Part I available here: https://www.boxingforum24.com/threa...eal-world-heavyweight-champion-part-i.747128/

Dan Rafael, years later in 2012, in his piece "Why heavyweight title lineage matters: wrote: "Vitali Klitschko stopped Sanders in the eighth round in April 2004 in an excellent fight. Besides winning a vacant alphabet belt, Klitschko was also awarded the vacant Ring magazine title, which had been created to clearly identify the legitimate champion in each division (before the magazine's championship policy had been radically altered and muddled).There are many who view Vitali's victory over Sanders as his having re-established the lineage following Lewis' retirement. Others aren't so sure."

Before the Klitschko vs Williams title defence, Irish Independent called Danny a challenger for "the WBC's heavyweight title - the linear crown once worn by Muhummad Ali." HBO crew, after the fight, called Vitali the legitimate heavyweight champion of the world, even tho he hadn't gained the universal recognition at that stage.

All changed in 2005, when Vitali rescheduled his Hasim Rahman fight 3 times and ultimately retired because of injuries. Again let's go with Brent Matteo Alderson: "Problems quickly ensued and it seemed like Vitali’s claim to the title was diminishing on a daily basis before the year’s ends. Wladimir was starched by Lamon Brewster, which took a lot of prestige out of Sander’s win over Wlad. Instead of viewing Sanders as a fast southpaw with a strong punch, people started to view him as a pretty good middle-aged golfer who just happened to be the first one to expose the younger Klitschko. At the time, I was thinking, “Alright, maybe Corey Sanders really wasn’t one of the top five heavyweights in the world, but still Vitali is good and look what he did to Kirk Johnson, nobody has taken the Canadian out like that plus Don King is talking about a heavyweight tournament and Vitali will probably end up winning it.”
Then what do you know, Vitali Klitchko became one of the most inactive champions in history and refused to fight anybody in the top five and jumped on the chance to fight Danny Williams after his win over Tyson despite the fact that Williams wasn’t even one of the top two heavyweights in England much less the world.
And the situation just worsened by the minute. In 2005 Klitschko postponed two different bouts with Rahman citing medical reasons and then had the gull to ask the WBC for permission to fight in another voluntary defense before facing Rahman who was and is along with Toney and Brewster one of America’s top heavyweights. The WBC denied his request and the Klitschko-Rahman fight was scheduled. Hasim Rahman knew the score and had the feeling the entire time that the fight might not come off. “I’ll believe that I’m fighting Vitali Klitchko when he’s in the ring with me, until then I’m not sure, I don’t believe it, this man has done everything he could not to fight me.” The sad part is that Vitali Klitschko is one of the best heavyweights in the world and probably would have knocked Rahman out.
To label and treat Vitali Klitschko as a legitimate linear heavyweight champion of the world is ludicrous because his reign as the so-called successor to Lennox Lewis was a disgrace to the crown and to all the men that ever held what for almost 100 years was the most prestigious title in sports. Even though his anointment as champion met the specifications of the Ring’s championship policy, I really think that the process to declare a successor to Lennox Lewis should meat criteria that is more rigid than the one set for the other weight classes."

It's worth to note that Wladimir Klitschko himself, universally recognized as the legitimate champion during his reign, wasn't crowned on a merit of number 1 vs number 2 match-up. He and Ruslan Chagaev just cleaned the division between each other in 2005-2008 in kind of an unofficial tournament and then faced each other for the championship.

TL;DR: Vitali's claim to the lineage is as strong as Marvin Hart's. You can't only have Hart on your list without elite mental gymnastics. If future historians looked into Vitali's case as the champion as today's historian are looking into Hart's case, they would conclude he was the lineal champion for a short while. One of the weakest, but still. The fact that his reign was short and shyte, doesn't change the fact, he was crowned the champion in April 2004 by beating Corrie Sanders and you can't retroactively take it back.

CHANGE MY MIND! (or agree!)

 

Counter Argument: Nuh uh

 

I shall not concede!

 

Agreed. I never understood why the Ring didn't recognize Vitali when he returned.

When Vitali last fought, he was the WBC champion and World (Ring) Champion. When he returned to the ring against Sam Peter, Peter was the WBC champion and rated #2 by Ring. Wlad was rated #1.

Ring knew Vitali and Wlad were never going to fight. The highest-rated guy Vitali could fight was Sam Peter. Who he dominated upon his return.

Then, seven or eight months later, while Wlad and Vitali were rated #1 and #2 by Ring and both were champs, Ring said they'd recognize the winner of Wlad-Chagaev (who was rated #3) as the new Ring Champ. Because, they said, they knew Wlad and Vitali would never fight and they wanted to crown a new Ring Champ.

Yet, the previous year, not only was Vitali a returning Ring Champ, he beat the #2 guy in the division on his return. Wlad didn't. Wlad beat the #3.

Anyway, lots of things Ring did never made sense to me.

But that was certainly one of them.

 

The reason Vitali wasn't recognised as the Ring Champion after beating Peter, whilst Wlad was after beating Chagaev, is pretty straightforward.

Wlad vs Chagaev was #1 vs #3.

Peter vs Vitali was #2 vs unranked.

When the Ring champion is vacant, the #1 contender must be involved in a fight to crown a new champion.

 

Which leads to how does the returning Ring champion who beats the #2 Ring contender in his first fight back not get ranked #1?

Leaving the Ring belt recognition completely out of it ... if they just ranked Vitali #1 after his return win, and Wlad #2 ... that likely would've changed who both Chagaev and Haye faced.

Wlad wasn't the Ring champion when Vitali returned. He'd never been the Ring champion. He'd never even fought for it before.

Wlad had barely survived against Sam Peter when they fought (they'd only fought once at that point). Wlad's last fight, when Vitali returned, was a clunky win over Tony Thompson.

It's one of those things where a bunch of writers gather in a room, after Wlad meanders around against Tony Thompson and Vitali beats Sam Peter like a drum ... and the writers go ... "Should we put Vitali #1 and Wlad #2? Or Wlad #1 and Vitali #2? "

And that changes the course of boxing history.

 

When Vitali retired in December 2005, Wladimir and Chagaev emerged as Top 2 heavyweights. They beat most of the the top fighers among each other. Wlad beat Chris Byrd, Samuel Peter, Hasim Rahman, Sultan Ibragimov & Lamon Brewster while Chagaev beat Nikolay Valuev and John Ruiz. If you look this in terms of sort of a unofficial tournament, other top heavyweights Oleg Maskaev and James Toney were beat by Peter (whom Wlad defeated), Siarhei Liakhovich was beat by Nikolay Valuev (whom Chagaev beat) and Shannon Briggs got beat by Sultan Ibragimov (who was beat by Wlad). No matter how you slice it, all roads led to Wlad and Chagaev.

Vitali returned in October 2008, shortly before the "finals". Whatever claim Vitali had to the lineal title, was long gone. As Cliff Rold wrote before the fight:

“While Vitali was away, it was his brother and Chagaev who emerged as the best in class and, while Vitali has a say, a fight between Wladimir and Chagaev would be more than enough to declare a new start point for the lineage of the division. Wladimir has won ten straight since his last loss. Of those ten, five were legitimate top five-ten contenders (Samuel Peter, Chris Byrd, Calvin Brock, Sultan Ibragimov, Tony Thompson) at the time Wladimir fought them. Lamon Brewster represented revenge over the last man to defeat him and Hasim Rahman, in his last fight, gave him a win over one of only two active former lineal World Heavyweight Champions.

He’s already been all but officially crowned on those merits. Big brother made a splash with comeback wins over Peter and top-ten contender Juan Carlos Gomez, but he doesn’t have the sheer volume to overcome little brother’s advantage in laying claim to the summit of the sweet science.

And Chagaev is the highest rated opponent left available to seal the deal because the brother’s won’t be fighting each other. Ring has already indicated in their headlines they’d recognize a Wladimir-Chagaev winner as the division’s true king and, unlike the Vitali fiasco, this coronation would stick.”

And it did stick.

 

Vitali wasn't Ring champion when he fought Peter. Whether or not he used to be is irrelevant.

Again, Peter vs Vitali wasn't a fight to decide the Ring Champion, because it was #2 vs unranked.

There is only one way for an unranked fighter to become the #1 ranked fighter in the course of a single fight, and that is to beat the #1.

If you're in a race and you overtake the person in 2nd, what position are you in?

 

Also, Wlad already beat Peter. Vitali beating him after that didn't do anything to the state of the battle for the lineal claim.

Good example for this is Joe Louis. He wasn't considered a champion after he retired in 1949. When he came back in 1950, The Ring title was on the line only because he was facing number 1 HW in the world.

 

The only thing that is relevant, to Dubblechin's question as to why Vitali wasn't ranked #1 after beating Peter, is that he was unranked going into that fight and therefore the only way he could emerge from his comeback fight ranked #1, would be to beat the fighter ranked #1, which he didn't.

 

V. Klitschko wasn't just some bum off the street - he entered the ring against WBC titlist Scam Cheater as the reigning WBC Grand Champion Emeritus.

It's all academic however, as V. Klitschko was never Lineal champion to begin with .

 

He was called lineal champion tho.

 

Bump.

 

Listen, both brothers beat their Peter and it was a different version of a Peter each time, and not in the same ring at the same time. So, nothing gay about it. So...that should not affect this discussion on lineage.

...Anyway...

 

Nothing gay about running a Klitschko train on a strong Samuel Peter.