Is Louis's 25 title defenses the greatest accomplishment in boxing?

I agree.

Ali was lineal because no new lineal had been established. So Holmes and Ali fought for the lineal champion. And that is almost universally recognised.

What's clear is, whatever happened in the past, the more possibilities you admit NOW for allowing lineage, the more fractured, difficult and meaningless the concept becomes.

 

Well he will have defended "a belt" loads of times, but having failed, utterly, to meet a top contender for the first, I think three years, of his reign, it would have to be regarded as shitty at the very least.

Having failed to meet THE top contender for what, seven years?, it becomes a joke reign.

So, insisting that the #8 heavy v the #1 heavy invoked a new lineal reign is insisting that a totally shitty reign occured in which nothing of note happened. Even if it was based upon absolute concrete foundations (which it isn't) then I would try to bodyswerve it just because of the general misery and confusion it would inflict upon anyone who cares!

 

A little deep! But nothing "exists in the real world" if you choose to dispute it. It is no more or less valid to say that 1 v 2 "doesn't exist in the real world" than that it does.

OR a bad idea, like the IBF title, which isn't recognised in Japan.

Does this now change your mind? Do you now feel that because Wlad's streak isn't "recognised around the world" that the IBF "doesn't exist in the real world" and that Wladimir is not longer the champion since Byrd? This would seem to contradict your position, but you're not going to alter how you feel about reality, are you? Of course not.

What you see as "real" is about choice. Choosing to recognise lineal establishment based upon 1 v 8 makes less sense than 1 v 2.

He was ranked #8. If we recognised everyone who lived up to your standards of true champion, there would be dozens of claims and counter-claims. It just isn't anything like a reasonable standard.

Well ESB, Boxing Scene, Boxing.com, ESPN, Asian Boxing, Boxing Jounral, Counterpunch, Esquina, Ring New 24, Saturday Night Boxing, Queensbury, Shuttlpen, Stiff Jab and loads more use TBRB now and don't recognise Wlad-Byrd as a championship fight. I would say we're "winning" the specialist media war.

There's a small chance that a massive coup will occur next year, I think it's inevitable, and there's a chance that it'll never happen but it doesn't really matter, I don't think, if, for example, The Sun start using this system, or The Times. I can't imagine it. What i'm saying is, it's clearly best; it clearly keeps things uncomplicated; it's clearly fair; it clearly holds up fighters to the strictest standards.

All that is desirable, and I don't understand why a reasoned fan would choose to acknowledge the IBF over it - at all if i'm honest.

It's not about disputed and undisputed;I agree that that is unfair, silly. Expecting a fighter to negotiate FIVE (if you include ring) nests of vipers in order to named "the real champion" is preposterous. Let him beat the second best fighter in his weight class instead. EASY. SIMPLE. CLEAR. FAIR.

I've already covered this off. Holmes had almost (i only say almost because there's ALWAYS one, even if it's one i don't know about) universal recognition.

It is bizirre to me that you would recognise Wlad for picking up a belt that isn't recognised worldwide, that wasn't 1-2 or even Ring championship policy of 1-3 or even some stretch of the rule to accommodate the clearly best fighter in the division (which Wlad wasn't). It's just a guy, getting a belt, recognised in most of the world, from another guy. Ali on the other hand was representing an unbroken lineage stretching all the way back to 1956, and top two contenders Moore-Patterson.

And there's always been at least one who was full of ****.

 

But it IS being used. I already spoke, in incomplete detail, about who is using it, and it is not a short list. If you mean it's unfair of us to hold fighters to a standard that isn't immdeiatly used by everyone in the planet, I would say that THAT is what is unfair - that no system that it is ever met with anything other than universal recognition immediately shouldn't be recognised at all because it is unfair.

I would say that being recognised as the #1 heavy in the world (like Liston was while Patterson was champion) isn't the same as beating the champion, or PROVING that people's opinion of you is valid in the ring by beating the next best guy.

I think it does. You've said that 1v2 isn't valid because everyone doesn't recognise it - well everyone didn't recognise that Wlad was fighting for a title, either.

I understand the point you are making, I do. Speaking frankly in order that we understand each other, i'm saying that saying 1 v 8 establishes a new "real" champion is stupid, and saying 1 v 2 establishes a new champion is unimpeachable.

Who cares? Why would I let the majority rule my thinking? It matters to me not at all. If you do what the majority tell you changing anything for the better becomes literally impossible.

I do think, though, that it is of ENORMOUS significance that was the first time Wlad got to a #1 contender.

This is maybe a mis-representation of what the TBRB is. It doesn't crown champions so much as recognise the best claims. Everyone knows Wladimir is the champion now, it's just that by your standard it was really, really easy for him to become one, by Ring's standard it was considerably more difficult, by our standard it was as difficult as it can be on paper.

I would suggest that the relative merits of the given champion is defined by how easy or difficult it was to become that champion.

To put it another way, if you say someone is a champion there is room to debate that for three pages. If I say someone is a champion, then it's going to be very close to indisputably true (As far as that goes, and allowing that we both recognise the same champion here ).

I'll take that; that's enough for me. That, alone, speaks of job done.

You've said that if Wlad does the 25 that will "trumpted around the world" (or something like that), but I think that most - a majority - will instinctively understand the difference between what Wladimir has done and what Joe Louis has done. They might put it different ways - weak era, never fought his brother, never fought Lennox Lewis, but they will all be different ways of saying that he wasn't a REAL champion like Louis was.

And they'll be quite right, of course.

 

That's the best example, but it works both ways - if you recognise lineal based on someone being best, not even beating a champion or by another more reasoned route, and someone comes along and is just clearly better but never fights the guy...

...at least Cotto beat the man who beat the man.

To quote you, "there's always been at least two fighters claiming to be champion."

Yeah, most definitely, and being #1 in the division - which i think you've identified - is nothing to be sniffed at either.