How will history view the current light heavyweight "lineal situation"?

Whoever is recognized as the lineal champ is the lineal champ, nothing can change that or take that away.

Whether or not a fighter is considered the best in a division, or is "punished" for not pursuing the lineal title, is another matter altogether.

 

Neither guy went out of their way to make the fight.

The closest the fight came to being made was around '97-98, when Roy's team said they were looking at an offer of around 10 or 12 million to fight Dariusz in Germany. Roy chose to fight Hill instead, and after knocking him out declared that he would never go to Germany to fight Dariusz unless he got something like 20 million for it. Meanwhile, Dariusz said that he would never go to the US to fight (at least not for the money he was being offered), and that was where the matter stood for about seven years straight.

 

Not trying to knock on RJJ since I don't know the facts but at that point in both men's careers wasn't he then considered the challenger, since DM had already taken the title from Hill?

 

Yeah it's plain and simple, DM's lineage is the true lineage, but of course in lesser hardcore boxing circles Erdei will not be remembered as the champion of the era. It's a situation similar to what took place round the start of the last century, in the sense of guys sitting on titles and others being considered, and probably rightfully so, better

 

Well that was kind of my point, why did Jones go after Hill and not DM since DM had already beaten Hill. If the reason was that no one wanted to go to the other guy's backyard, it's a really awful one, considering both being undefeated.

 

It seemed to me like he wanted to beat Hill to make some kind of statement. He took a former Dariusz opponent, beat him even more impressively than Dariusz did, and then basically declared that he held all the cards and that Dariusz would have to meet him on his own terms.