6 more defences and Wladimir beats Louis' record.

yeah me too, when you think about it he is 35 now probably has 4/5 years left.
After that he will be around 40 with 21/22 defences, if he then is still very good like his brother is today and his heart is still in it he should make an effort to break that record before hanging em up.
But ''i honestly would be impressed if he is able to continue his reign for 4/5 more years.

 

Undisputed you say? so when Hill and Maske fought to begin this "LHW lineage" was the undisputed title on the line? I think not, it was merely IBF and WBA. The night before Jones had secured the WBC belt. Surely an undisputed claim should involve the winner facing Jones by your definition?

Conversely Wlad unified his title first with ibragimov, chagaev had no title come fight night when the two locked horns.

You say the title can not be evolved from opinion, how did the whole HW lineage begin? John L Sullivan, which titles did he unify?

your concept of lineal is flawed. lineal is not a title, it's an idea that you can trace back to him who begat the lineage. Whether you like it or not, Wlad has been a true champion since beating Byrd. He's had a valid belt round his waist and has been consensus viewed as the top man. this isn't a michalczewski v jones situation with one man being clearly better and another clinging to some mythical title. Noone has ranked above Wlad for 6 years.

You might say his championship reign began against chagaev but the reality is, that's just when the ring recognised him. He was already universally seen as the number 1 hw in the world, already universally seen as the champion.

This lineal crusade seems interesting at first, and it's a concept i fell for a couple of years back, but when you do research into the history, you begin to realise that "linearity" is a pile of bull****.

 

I believe you'll find that Louis actually handed the duration title to Bivins during the war. Whilst the actual titles themselves were frozen, boxing did still continue.

 

The heavyweight lineage didn't begin with John L. Sullivan. He became champion by beating Kilrain but there was a lineage before him that should be respected.

Sullivan obviously didn't unify any titles, he became a champion by beating the best. I know you're going to say "That's what Wlad did by beating Byrd", however, the thing you don't seem to understand is when boxing is so fragmented, there is no clear 'best' opponent. We might think there is but that's just our opinion. We think Byrd had a claim to be the best heavyweight in the world before Wlad beat him, but then so did a handful of other fighters. They all have claims and which is right? None of them. That's the key difference between now and when Sullivan became a champion

The only way to prove you're the best is to beat everyone. Who is the best light heavyweight in the world? I think Hopkins or Dawson. Assuming Cleverly beat one of them, would he be considered the best in the world? Maybe. Would he be considered lineal? Absolutely not, because he isn't picking the title up off anyone. If he beat both Hopkins and Dawson, then went on to beat Cloud, he would be the justified lineal champion.

How about Vitali? He was considered the best heavyweight in the world before he retired, he hasn't lost since coming back and Wlad hasn't fought him. I wouldn't agree with this opinion but could you argue that Vitali is the true champion as he hasn't been beaten? Of course.

Lineal doesn't equate to best. They are two entirely separate things.

The Ring title is separate to lineal, obviously, but the principle is the same. When Wlad became The Ring champion, that's when he became the genuine champion of the world and anything before that is not a claim.

 

joe louis had 25 straight defences of his title and had 28 world title fights and has won 26 world title fights all together sooo.. right now wlad has made 10 defences not 20! he has had 20 TITLE fights but not 20 defences so the only record he can beat is winning the most world title fights so he has won 18 world title fights so far out of 20 titles fights so he needs to win 9 more to beat louis and btw louis was lineal champ for 25 defences wlad has only been lineal for about 10 defences lol!

 

okay lets just say wlad has been lineal champ since 06 he still has only 10 defences lol

 

Yes, he's the most objective arbiter on the issue.

 

Excellent:good

 

Only one I know who will raise Wlad to a demigod with the first sentence in a paragraph and denounce him as garbage in the last sentence of the same paragraph. Neither side can say he isn't fair:yep

 

My bad, but still doesn't change the fact the record is 25 in a ROW. Wlad is at 11...any way you break it down. Louis also didn't lose his title by defeat, where Wlad did.

Also, most of Louis' defenses happened BEFORE his layoff from WW2. I just counted, the number was 22. So his last 3 happened when he took time off.

I will let the Klit lovers think what they want. They don't change the record books.

25 in a row. If Wlad fights long enough to beat 25, I will gladly slurp him off.

 

Correct.

Wlad has 11 defenses.

 

Yep

 

The only heavyweight champions with more defenses are:

1) Louis (25)
2) Ali (19 in two reigns)
3) Holmes (20 or 16, depends*)

*Holmes did 20 defenses if you count his reign since beating Norton in 1978. However, Ali was the reigning champion at that time. Since Ali retired, in September 1979, Holmes did 16 successful defenses. (I disagree with the idea that Holmes' reign should be counted since he beat Ali's corpse in 1980. Holmes was the man since September 1979.)


I don't think Wlad will break Louis', Ali's or Holmes' numbers.

 

Obviously you cant compare an era where there was 1 title and now there are many. Wlad has been the man since he beat Byrd. These multiple titles **** everything up.

 

:good

In my book, Wlad's been champ since he beat Byrd in 2006. Not since Chagaev or Ibragimov.

Holmes was champ since Ali retired in 1979, not since he beat sick-shot Ali in 1980.

Ezzard Charles was champ since he beat Walcott, not since he beat Louis a bit later.