Guide me to the lineal heavyweight champion please.

If by "true lineage" @mr. magoo means the only circumstances under which a fighter can become lineal champion is by beating the lineal champion, then Johnson assumed lineage when he beat Jeffries.

 

This is not a real retirement. You're trolling hard.

 

I don't even like Tyson Fury. But considering the aforementioned episode as a retirement, looking retrospectively, is idiocy to say the least.
Modern fighters spend more time inactive than this supposed "retirement".

 

I said that i don't like Fury in response to your claim that i seem "personally invested". I'm not.

 

There is no logic in Holmes becoming champ by beating a retired former champion who was no longer recognized as the reigning champion and who to make matters worse would have lost to anyone in the top 10 due to being totally shot to bits. Given Alis state in 1980 arguing Holmes beating him signifies anything is insanity.

Holmes was probably the best heavyweight in terms of overall ability in 1980 but beating Ali doesn't do anything to prove that whatsoever. Tex Cobb would have beaten that Ali. Would that make Cobb lineal champ?

 

Marvin Hart and Jack Root were LHWs not MWs. Marvin Hart was not a mediocre fighter. His title claim started with a close win over Jack Johnson. He was probably going to be one of the two no matter what. Jack Root was the random one and he had a win over Hart. Root had started his career 40-0 and had just avenged the only losses of his career against Gardner. Root beat every fighter he ever fought.

At that particular time most of the other options weren't "real HWs" either. Whenever you read about Hart v Root the other names being considered were Fitzsimmons,O Brien and Gardner who were all either LHWs or MWs. Of those names is Root not the best pick?

The 2 alternative champs to Burns that emerged in the US Schreck and Twin Sullivan also were MWs. Al Kaufmans career had just started.

We've seen LHWs get a HW title shot with no experience at HW as recently as Michael Spinks. And at that time that could be done from MW as well.

 

I think everyone should be able to agree whatever title claim various fighters had during Braddocks reign was not lineal.

Some people back then believed you could only win the belt by KO especially if the decision was close. At this point that had been contradicted a few times but by that logic Louis would have been lineal champ from the Baer win and then he would have been replaced by Schmeling from 1936 until 1938.

 

I will name some fighters who were perhaps better options to fight for the lineal title in 1905, in addition to those already mentioned:

Jack Johnson
Gus Ruhlin
Fred Russell
Denver Ed Martin
Sandy Ferguson
Jim Jeffords
Sam McVey

 

Even if we take the race thing out of it Johnson had lost to Hart in a pseudo title fight. You could easily justify a rematch but we know he wasn't getting one. 3 of the other 4 contenders on this list(McVea,Martin and Ferguson) had lost to Johnson multiple times. Sandy Fergusons loss to Hart was considered a clear robbery but still hed lost to Johnson and Martin.

Ruhlin had lost to Hart, Jeffries and Fitzsimmons. When replacing a lineal champ I think the last thing you want is someone said lineal champ clearly beat. I guess he'd be the best option on this list other than Johnson since his losses weren't as recent.

Jeffords and Russell are not title material especially not in 1905. Russell might have gotten a title shot if Jeffries had defended his belt more but it would have been purely by process of elimination.

 

People seem willing to give Holmes a pass for never unifying and beating his co champions on the grounds that he was better and would have beaten them had boxing politics not prevented the fights from happening.

In Joe Louis case I would make him an overwhelming favorite over Baer or Braddock in 1935 but he had to actually beat Braddock to be considered lineal champ. People didn't simply anoint him the best without proving it like some want to do with Holmes. In all probability though Holmes could have beaten his co champions like Dokes, Tate coetzee

 

I think these situations were different. Ali had retired and was thought to be at the very end of his career. Unlike Louis Holmes was undefeated. Even without fighting Ali the Holmes lineage came from Jimmy Young beating Foreman, Norton beating Jimmy Young and Holmes barely beating Norton. It was the most obvious arbitrary succession in HW history. On the other hand WBA lineage was based on Coetzee beating Leon Spinks who Holmes later beat anyway. Belts are only as respected as the cases of the fighters they represent and the various WBA champs didn't really have one.

 

But the thing is, you don't look at these things retrospectively. Fury confirmed his retirement many times:
1. Going into the Whyte fight, he said it's going to be his last fight.
2. After the fight he said he was retiring.
3. He was claiming he was retired all through the summer.
4. He made an official announcement of the retirement in August 2022.
5. He willingly vacated his The Ring Magazine belt and his WBC belt. Just because Mauricio decided not to take Fury on his word knowing he's bi-polar, doesn't mean Fury didn't have intentions of vacating it. Sanctioning body decision not to respect it, doesn't matter.
6. Seeing all of this happening, it was safe to conclude he was retired, so the championship became vacant. Especially looking at the fact that there was a fight on a horizon which would fill the vacancy. The division can't hold still just because Fury may change his mind. Just like Joe Louis was the contender against Ezzard Charles and Jeffries was the contender against Johnson, Fury is now the contender, not the champion.

We can also see from his shitshow of a Netflix series that he really was considered himself retired. He also was claiming to be on the comeback trail when he fought Chisora, which makes the thing much more obvious.