I havent got time at the moment, but hopefully lufcrazy or someone else might have a bit of a think about this one and reply. I am interested to know/think how the lineal titles would look through recent history, if we had stuck with no sanctioning bodies and no new weight divisions. Obviously Heavy is really of little interest or change, but how would the other divisions look. Middle and Welter is of exceptional interest. Would Duran have had any success beyond welter. How long would Hopkins or Toney have reigned given Roy Jones presence. How would Manny Pacquao look. Does Kostya Tszyu get a dominant reign. Are there any huge fights that would have been forced to have been made. Where would Calzaghe fit into things. Is history as kind to Nunn, Eubank and McCallum.
If you're strictly staying with ring ranked 1v2 guys it is fairly easy to track. The problem is the meaning of linearity then becomes meaningless. The point of lineage originally was to track who had beaten "the man" in modern boxing "the man" seems to just be the most popular belt holder. Welter is easy to track though the lineage is unbroken largely until Tito moved up. Then depending on definition either Mosley took the vacant lineage against Hoya or Forrest took it against Mosley or Mayorga took it against Forrest. That stayed as was until Floyd retired. Then some reckon Mosley took it against Margo some think it's still vacant. Middle was easy to track until Leonard moved up. Then Nunn unified with Sumbu but lost to Toney who officially didn't lose at the limit. Then it was alpha soup until the MW tourney which Hopkins won and that lineage is still intact today. LWW is a bit tougher. I'm sure it was vacant for years until Chavez beat Taylor. He then lost and regained against Randall (gift). Before losing to Hoya. It stayed vacant until Tszyu beat Mitchell or Judah depending on definition. That lineage ended with Pac. Then depending on definition Garcia took it against Khan. I would be able to go in more detail but I'm away from my computer so I'm trying to recall from the top of my head. The real man for this is stoney, what he doesn't know about lineal title claims ain't worth knowing.
Regarding Calzaghr, the initial smw lineage ended with that French dude moving up in weight was it Giroud or something he beat Byron anyways. Then depending on definition it stayed vacant until Joe beat Lacey or until Joe beat Kessler.
Thanks for the reply, but i was thinking something a little less rigid and more theoretical. Just to illustrate, at this very point in time, We would probably see something like Light Heavy: Dawson Middle: Martinez Welter: Mayweather Light: Pacquaio (no need to go up unless he faced Mayweather) Bantam/Feather Donaire Fly: Viloria. I dont have time to start back at the proper time (i am doing it quick and backwards probably even getting time frames a little mixed up) , but In the Light heavy division Dawson would have had to have beaten the likes of Adamek, Hopkins, Calzaghe, Ward, Ottke, etc. In reality in many of these guys would have had to fight each other more often than they did in the real world so a dominance over these guys wouldnt necessarilly equate to a win over each. In other words, what i was thinking was if there was just those 8 championships, who would the champions of been (and perhaps some of their big defences) OBviously who they actually chose to fight and how those fights went (Eg Leonard vs Duran) are relevant but not the be all and end all. Eg Leonard fought Lalonde. But would this fight have happened if it was not a title match and the only light heavy champion from the time was say Virgil Hill (i may have got the time frame wrong there).
