A fighters 'Lineal' claim.. Check this out!

There's the title and then there's the championship. Ali had the WBA title stripped from him during his first reign as heavyweight champion, and Lennox Lews vacated one of his titles after defeated Holyfield, but still retained status as lineal heavyweight champ.

In the case of Fury, though, his "retirement", while short lived, was sufficient for TBRB to consider it an abdication. So, he's no longer lineal champion in their ratings.

 

No, I've followed the argument buddy.

 

Fury is still the true lineal champion.

 

Understood. I just think it's something worth noting.

While I like the idea of lineage being established on the basis of number one fighting number two, I think sometimes there are case when some flexibility is required. In the case of K2, they made it apparent that they weren't going to fight one another at any point. Since VK had made it clear that would never be available, he was essentially abdicating his position as the highest available contender, meaning that the next available contender (Chagaev at the time) would have been considered eligible for the spot. So, I don't have a problem considering Wlad to be lineal from that point.

 

He "retired" on Twitter a few months back, though. You use those words, and you run the risk of people taking you literally.

 

Your argument with Nay_Sayer can easily be solved by adding to the statement : "The Lineal champ can only lose his title in the ring or by retirement”. Just add OR “by moving up a weight class and declaring your intentions to stay there permanently”.

There's a fundamental difference between moving up and moving down in weight as it relates to the lineal title. Generally when you move up, you're getting bigger and you're making that move because you are struggling to make the weight of the division you are in. For example, Danny Garcia at 140, he kept growing and after the Herrera fight decided he needed to move up to welter because he was becoming unhealthy struggling to make 140. So after he moved up to 147, when it became clear that he could no longer make 140, his lineal Jr Welterweight (140) title became vacant.

This is like what happened with James Toney in 1993. He was growing and could no longer make Middleweight. So once that became clear (the fact that he couldn’t make Middleweight any longer) then his lineal title was vacated. The Lineal Title can be vacated when it is clear that the Lineal Champ can no longer make the weight. At that point, whether or not it stays vacant or gets re-established is based on other factors, some of which are subjective and debatable as to exactly what determines it. But suffice to say it takes a big fight, two highly ranked fighters, generally with a lot of belts for it to be re-established. As I stated earlier, Hopkins Mercado probably just wasn’t big enough. The first fight was also a draw for a vacant title, which may not have helped. You’ve got all kinds of possibly factors when you consider what it takes to get re-established.

That’s what we can discuss, and I’m interested in studying historical situations to explain what happened, but it’s clear that some posters don’t seem to have a grasp on the basics as far as what it takes for a lineal title to be vacated. I’ve seen countless posters make the argument that because Canelo went down to 154 that somehow is grounds for the lineal title to be vacated. And many of these posters will argue themselves into the ground on some personal principled stance that has absolutely zero to do with how lineal titles work. Once we get past the point that posters are still arguing stuff like GG is Lineal Champ or something because Canelo went down to 154, it’s like we’re not even on first base as far as talking about Lineal Titles.

I’m not trying to act like I’m some expert at Lineal Championships, but I do know the basics and a lot of posters still are making the argument that Canelo should not be the current Lineal MW Champion and those that say that clearly are demonstrating a 100% unequivocal lack of understanding on what determines a Lineal Champion.

For Canelo, he moved down to 154 to fight Liam Smith. So what? That doesn’t prevent him from making 160 in the future, so there’s no reason for the lineal title to be vacated. Even fighting Chavez at 164.5, after that fight Canelo will still be more than capable of making 160 so there’s no grounds to vacate the lineal title at MW. The next time he fights below the MW limit he’s defending the Lineal Title.

If hypothetically Canelo chose to continue fighting at SMW, and lets say won a world title at 168, and declared his intentions to fight at 168 never to return to MW, then at that point there might be grounds for it to be vacated. But that’s what it would take for the title to be vacated.

I just want to add that like I still have some questions about the more finer details of re-establishing lineages, but can we please get the basics out of the way lol. GG fans who have been constantly arguing that Golovkin should be the lineal champ or that Golovkin vs Jacobs should start a new lineage or anything like that is seriously the most idiotic stuff. Like they literally have no idea how Lineal Titles work and act like you don’t know what you’re talking about. Canelo is 100% the Lineal MW Champ, making him the Man at MW until someone beats him at MW.

 

How can u be called lineal MW champ, when you and your team state that you wont be fighting at MW because your body isnt ready for 160. Doesnt make any sense to back Canelo up after he publicly declared he WONT FIGHT AT MW.

Thus if anyone cares about lineage, a new MW champ should fight for the right to be called lineal champ.

 

With all due respect, can you please re-read my post. I specifically addressed what causes a Lineal Title to be vacated and what doesn't.

I will agree that the situation at Middleweight is unusual in the fact that Cotto was defending it at catchweights, Canelo vacated it and moved down. I agree it's unusual, but that or having your team state that you won't be fighting at MW because you're body isn't ready for 160, doesn’t cause it to be vacated and re-established. The Lineal Champion inherently is given every possible opportunity to defend his title, as long as he is capable of defending it. As you know, the statement you mention was allegedly said last year before the Liam Smith fight. Now we're in 2017, after the Smith fight Canelo made it clear that he was becoming a full Middleweight. And by the way, at that time that statement did actually make sense in the sense that Canelo had never fought above 155. So I'll agree that winning the title at Cotto's 155 catchweight was unusual, having Canelo vacate that title was unusual under the circumstances, but it still doesn't make it so that the lineal title would get vacated.

 

By unifying the two/ three that existed at the time.

It is, but realistically that is virtually impossible these days due to the sheer amount of politics involved in boxing. Hence why there are virtually no lineal champions out there. Therefore, you need to look at who has the best claim to be top dog in a division, to which there is only one answer at 160.

That was a typo and was meant to read Hopkins beat DeLaHoya.

 

Doubt you will get an answer on this one