Legitimate LW champ Nate Campbell: Casa is a faux liner/ring champ

There's a pretty good case that Castillo-Lazcano didn't actually create a lineage and that people jumped the gun there.

 

Thank you.

 

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:huh

Ummm, I think a better question is: does anyone NOT buy this?

 

I think Nate can render the Ring irrelevant and Casa if he takes the winner of the Diaz/Pac fight. This way he would have all 4 belts and be the undisputed champion of the division. I'm sure the public would recognize that as a higher achievement than the GBP belt.

 

Historically there have been only 2 ways to win the linear world title:
1) Beat the current linear champ
2) In the event that the champ has moved up in weight or retired, unify the Big 3 belts (WBC, WBA, IBF).

During the time Sweet Pea was champ, the WBO was not considered a real world title (e.g., while Tyson was undisputed, Francisco Damiani held the WBO heavyweight belt). Whitaker unified the Big 3 at the time, the WBC, WBA, and IBF. Therefore he was recognized as linear champ.

After that, he moved up to 140, leaving it vacant.

Since that time, however, beginning in the late 90's with the reign of Naseem Hamed (WBC, WBA, IBF, WBO) at feather and in recent times, Hopkins at middle (WBC, WBA, IBF, WBO), the WBO has gained enough credibility (suspect in my eyes, but the public and money-grubbing promoters have now accepted it) to be considered one of the Big FOUR.

This is now a problem because it leaves a gap open for debate. Besides the first way to win a linear title, which was to beat the champion, what would be the most acceptable way to recognize the linear champ in the event of a vacancy? The arguments below have all been expressed by the boxing world:
1) Keep it the same, as in unify WBC, WBA, IBF
2) Unify all 4 belts now, as in WBC, WBA, IBF, WBO
3) Unify just 3 out of the Big 4
4) Accept the Ring Magazine belt as linear, which constitutes a box-off between their #1 and #2 ranked fighters (in some cases, #1 and #3)

As you can see, the WBO belt has now, to put it lightly, f**ked things up because now no one agrees what constitutes a linear champ after a vacant title, and no true boxing authority like the IBHOF, NSAC, HBO, or even any of the alphabet sanctioning bodies have declared a definition of linear champ.

To answer the question of how Casamayor's debated lineage came about after the title was deemed vacant by Whitaker, this is how:
1) Castillo was the #1 Ring lightweight and WBC Champ. Corrales was the #2 Ring lightweight and WBO Champ. The WBA Champ was Juan Diaz, who was still green and was protected by Main Events. The IBF champ was vacant and won by the late Leavander Johnson.
2) Corrales beat Castillo, unifying 2 belts and winning the Ring title as well because it was #1 vs. #2.
3) Corrales vacated the WBO belt, keeping the Ring and WBC.
4) Casamayor beat Corrales. Even if Diego was overweight, Casamayor was not. Therefore the Ring and WBC titles were on the line for Joel, just like any title fight, and he won it fair and square.

In other words, Corrales won lineage even though he didn't unify 3 or 4 belts because he satisfied the Ring's policy. I see the linear champ as someone who must either beat the existing champ or unify at least 2 belts if there is no existing champ. To me, I think Campbell is the better fighter, but Casamayor is still the real champ because of the definition above. Even though Campbell won 3 belts (and Diaz before him), there was an existing champ. And you can't just take away lineage.

The title is lost in the ring. It can't just be given to you.

In conclusion, I won't hate on anyone else's definition of lineage. But the points above illustrate that Casamayor has just enough claim as Campbell.

 

This illustrates my opinion pretty well, and I say opinion because I'm more of a student than some of you cats who are def. mad knowledgeable.

However, here's an interesting "piece" from an article in this months Ring mag that was talking about the Corrales/Castillo I fight.

"The future of the LW division was directly affected, because we soon learned Castillo couldn't make weight limit anymore. So if he'd retained the title against Corrales, the lineage would have been broken when he left the division. In that indirect sense, Joel Casamayor benefited from Tony Week's refereeing decisions. (meaning the time given to let Corrales get re-situated with his mouth piece)."

the above is from an article by Eric Raskin, author for Ring Mag, June 2008 issue, pg. 87.