http://www.eastsideboxing.com/forum/showthread.php?t=61197 I'm sure there are some other threads debating this. I'll search some more. http://maxboxing.com/Kim/kim092602.asp
Ok so it looks like Zsolt is the linear champ. Another stupid question, for all the years that Roy Jones held up to 7 belts at 175 was he ever the linear champ? And if not whom would he have had to have beaten to win it.
I guess it's one of those things thats up for debate like alot in boxing. I read somewhere else a post that said Jones never had the linear belt. If that's true then Calzaghe could not have had it (because obvioiusly it would have went back through Hopkins and Tarver to Jones). Not sure if that's true or not.
If you go by Erdei's lineage then yes,Jones never had the linear title.But most people don't care about Erdei's joke reign and disconsider it.
After Spinks' retirement, Virgil Hill was given the linear championship on the back of a long title reign and then unifying against Henry Maske. Michalczewski then beat Hill, in turn lost to Julio Cesar Gonzalez, who was then beat by Zsolt Erdei. Thus the Germany based Hungarian is officially the linear champion, even if undeserved. Roy would of been the linear champion, but unfortunately he was too late to get to Virgil Hill. Although he KO'd him in 4, Michalczewski got to him 10 months earlier.
Hill v Maske unified the IBF and WBA titles. The WBC title was held by Jones who had won it the previous day from McCallum. The lineage, which had been vacant since Spinks moved to heavyweight, could therefore not be re-established by that fight without the involvement of the WBC title. None of Hill, Michalczewski, Gonzalez or Erdei were ever linear. The lineage was re-established when Jones beat Reggie Johnson to unify the three main titles, then passed through Tarver to Hopkins and Calzaghe. After Calzaghe's retirement it is now vacant once more.
With the question being answered in previous statements, Roy Jones's reign shows the inconsistency of the idea of "champion". Roy definitely was a champion but is being a "lineal" champion worth more than holding EVERY other belt in the division? Roy Jones beat Hill and Gonzalez but was shy of the "lineal" belt. Today is the first time I have ever heard of Zsolt Erdei. My lack of knowledge about his existence does not discredit his achievement, just begs the question of are "lineal" champions needed? If so, why did Roy earn so much press as the "champion" of the division if he never truly was the "lineal" champion?
The interesting thing about the LHW division is that while Erdei should not be considered linear champion if you apply anykind of objective test to re-establishing a vacant lineage, he actually should by rights be Ring champion.
Michalczewski is the reason Jones never bacame the legitimate/lineal/undisputed LHW champion. Dariusz was the lineal champ, but of course Roy is the reason he never became undisputed (held IBF, WBA, WBO at one time). How The Ring gave the belt to Roy but not the Hill-Maske winner is beyond belief. Huge loss of credit there.
I'm not saying it's needed, in fact if DM was the linear champ I don't think anyone prime for prime would have picked him over Jones, it was more of a stuck at work at 3am lets learn some history type question.
The Ring didn't have their belts in the mid 90s. They had stopped awarding belts in the late 80s, and re-did their policy in 2001. One of the ways a vacancy could be filled was winning the "big 3" (WBA/WBC/IBF) belts. They took out that criteria a little after that. But this is what Nigel Collins said about it. If their policy was in place in 1997, Michalczewski "probably would have been The Ring Champion" says Collins. But he notes that he would have to check on the rankings of the fighters he defeated at that point to make a definitive statement. But if he was their champion, unlike the WBA and IBF, he would have never been stripped of his title.
