I KNOW I've made topics about this before, but it STILL confuses me. I know you become the lineal champion by beating the previous lineal champion, who beat the champion before him, but there are so many belts in boxing now, how do you know who's THE champion? Is it the fighter who unifies the titles?
There's no definitive way. At one time there was only one belt per division and the lineage was a way of tracing back to the person who beat that one champion. However when vacancy or retirement happens there's no set criteria. Some follow ring policy, some believe it should be full unification, some believe it should be 1 v 2, there's a variety of "accepted" definitions out there. There's also an issue that some people think a linear belt can't be retired so the champ keeps it if he comes back from retirement. It's a noble idea and one that is very idealistic but not one that is easily implemented in today's climate. The tbrb have strict criteria and are endorsed by a few websites so maybe that'll build some momentum because the ring is losing more and more credibility amongst boxing fans. There's no hard or fast rule that everyone follows with linearity, aside from once a champ has been established, he can only lose that belt in the ring.
I don't really think there is such a thing as a lineal champion any more. From the early days of split titles there have been so many "lineal" champions that didn't have to fight their counterpart titlist due to boxing politics. Sanchez-Pedroza to name just one case.
The first step nowadays is to win a belt. Ideally you win one of the main four, but one of the others will sometimes work (particualrly if it is IBO or of it has World in the title), provided you pad your record with some easy fights and have plenty of KO wins (as opposed to taking on difficult fights against world class opposition, where you can easily win). You dont really need to win the close fights, because if you have a decent promoter he can make sure that you get the decisions anyway. The second step is to tell the whole world you are the champion of the world and convince enough media men to say the same thing. Luckily, because most of the public are barely even casual supporters nowadays, you will have little trouble convincing the public. If you are having trouble, then you can convince a former world champion who has been retired for three or four years to fight you and win this fight in any manner. If you are smart, you should make sure that the former world champion is fighting 2 or 3 divisions above his best weight division or else you risk him getting in shape and winning the fight. NOw, after this, if you want to become an all time great, all you need to do is defeat one or two other good World Champions to "unify" the title and then retire undefeated.
