Traditional version.. Zab Judah becomes linear/undisputed - 'L' to Baldomir - Mayweather beats Baldomir - MAYWEATHER IS THE CHAMP. or the post modern version... Zab Judah becomes linear/undisputed - 'L' to Baldomir - Mayweather beats Baldomir - Mayweather retires - lineage ends. Top 2 ranked WW's fight - Margo v Cotto - Margo wins and establishes lineage- Mosley smashes Margo - MOSLEY IS THE CHAMP. Which version do you subscribe to?
after mayweather retired cotto was the man, until margo beat him, and then mosley destroyed margo to be the man.
Mosley is "the man" to beat at 147 but I wouldnt call him linear. PBF was linear but I would consider it to be vacated by now. I think the Mosley v PBF fight would at the least establish who is "the man" at 147. I cant consider Pac to be the champ and ring calling him the champ is a joke after Cotto was no longer the best at 147 and had a very close fight with Clottey which Clottey outlanded him. The belt Pac has right now was a vacant belt given for the Cotto vs Jennings fight which doesnt hold much importance. The winner of Mosley/PBF vs Pac would have to be linear in my opinion as pretty much every good 147 guy out there has fought recently and would be included in this (clottey, margo and cotto)
I still consider Margo to be the man at 147. It's obvious he was depleted of his plaster wraps against Mosley.
It's sort of vacated at the moment. Mosley has the best claim to it I believe, because Mayweather retired. Its sort of like HW division before the Fight of the Century
I still consider Mayweather to be the linear champ. He never lost it in the ring, and Mosley's peroid of inactivity has been nearly as long as Floyd's "retirement". See a lot of folks sitting on the fence.
I dont give a **** about that linear bull****, Mosley is the top welter in the world and everyone with a brain knows it.
The 2nd one, after Mayweather Jr retired the Lineage was vacant. Then Cotto reestablished it, then lost it to Margarito who lost it to the current Linear Champ Mosley.
Margarito and Cotto weren't the top two WWs when they fought, IMO. Paul Williams had just avenged his loss to Quintana and had beaten Margarito only a year before. No reason at all to rank Margarito above Williams at that stage. There are two legitimate arguments, either Mayweather is the lineal champion, or it is vacant. Personally I think it makes more sense to consider Mayweather the lineal champion. It is said that the title becomes vacant on retirement of the champion, but that implies that the champion never fights again. If someone retires and then unretires then actually they were never really retired in the actual meaning of the word. If a linear champion 'announced their retirement' in a post fight press conference, the retracted the next day, would we consider them to have vacated? If not, what length of time do they have to be 'retired' for to vacate the title? One week? One month? One year? What makes sense to me is this: if a linear champion says they have retired, the title should be considered vacant. If they then 'unretire' before the vacancy has been resolved, they should be considered still the champion.
How did Cotto 'reestablish' the lineage between Mayweather retiring and his own fight with Margarito? He didn't even fight in that period?! :nut
IMHO, I don't think there's a true "Lineal" WW champ. The closest to the title would be Shane and Pac (w/c is why this is one fight that def should be made).