History of lineal heavyweight champs (Video)

Oh snap! Haha. Boy, how I hope that now happens...

 

Well dude there's a decent chance that Joshua/Wilder/Parker end up establishing a clear lineage. And then say Fury comes back in another 2 years. Then you would recognize Fury as lineal champ and no longer recognize the newly established one? That sounds an awful lot like having it "conferred retrospectively by officials..." What do you say about that? I totally respect your explanation so far and nobody's wrong but that just sounds messed up.

The lineal title isn't tangible. We each have our own, really. It makes debating it so fun and frustrating at the same time.

 

Joshua/Wilder/Parker can't establish a clear lineage unless they beat Tyson Fury (unless of course Fury never returns in which case they can).

The ultimate winner of Joshua/Wilder/Parker will be in the same situation as Mike Tyson was in 1987.

Tyson had unified the WBC, WBA & IBF titles (against Trevor Berbick, Bonecrusher Smith & Tony Tucker respectively) but hadn't won the lineal championship b/c he hadn't beaten Spinks.

Spinks won the IBF title (and lineal championship) against Larry Holmes but wouldn't defend against the mandatory Tony Tucker so the IBF stripped him.

So Spinks was stripped of the IBF title but retained the lineal championship.

Mike Tyson himself recognised the importance of the lineal championship by fighting Spinks instead of ignoring him. A good thing he did too. I personally recognise Tyson as the best heavyweight there ever was (when he was at his best). I don't think that claim could be made had he not closed the loop by annihilating Spinks & legitimizing his claim to the crown.

Very similar to Ali-Frazier. While boxing officialdom may have stripped Ali, once he returned, his earlier claim to the lineal championship was enlivened.

What it means is boxing championships are determined in the ring, not by sanctioning bodies or officialdom.

What we're also left with if Joshua/Wilder/Parker unify and Tyson Fury stays unbeaten, is what we had when Ali returned to fight Frazier & Spinks fought Tyson: a massive fight between two unbeaten guys with legitimate claims to the heavyweight championship.

Makes sense to me!

 

Nice work as always but you are mistaken about when Wlad claimed the Lineal title. That didn't happen until he beat Povetkin..

 

I might rate Johnson Jeffries and Louis Schmeling over Ali Frazier I for FOTC...

 

^This

The Ring and the Alphabet organizations with their trinkets don't get to decide who is or who isn't a champion. That gets decided in the ring.

 

Vitali fought Charr in Sept. 2012.
Wladimir fought Povetkin in Oct. 2013.

If a fighter drops out of the rankings after 1 year of not fighting then Wladimir vs. Povetkin deservedly created lineage.

 

That comes down to each persons own opinion, if the two fighters are 1 vs. 2, if the retired guy is still the champ, etc. No opinion can be definitively wrong, even with the criteria that it is decided in the ring. I think everyone is saying it is decided in the ring... Random; what is funny is that we don't retroactively question the ol' single title days, haha.

 

I see a lot of parallels between how the heavyweight division is placed now & how it was positioned 30 years ago at the beginning of 1987.

You have an undefeated guy tearing it up wanting to unify (Joshua/Tyson), you have an undefeated lineal champ who is inactive but wants to reassert his credentials (Fury/Spinks), an undefeated rising cruiserweight who will be a factor in the division before too much longer (Usyk/Holyfield) and a couple of decent (mostly undefeated) alphabet title holders who want a piece of the action (Parker/Wilder/Bonecrusher/Tucker).

Looking forward to seeing everyone get their chance & how it plays out over the next couple of years.

 

As far as lightweights, Roberto Duran was the best light heavyweight champion in boxing history! He also had Ray Arcel and Freddie Brown in his corner!

 

IMO, your best work. No pauses or breaks. No second guesses. Facts, facts, facts. Very very well done good Sir. Keep up the great work.