Real Current Linear World Champions

There's a rule? Who administers it?

 

But 'we' you mean 'you'?

 

because we now have some calzaghe fans claiming that he currently holds both the lineal titles at SMW and LHW. hopkins was never referred to as the lineal champ at LHW when he defeated tarver. ring champ, yes.

 

undisputed and lineal are 2 different things

 

Hill and Maske were the two best at that moment and the wbc title i believe was vacant....
A little bit later Jones defeated McCallum for the interim wbc title and they stripped Rochigianni,giving that doped athlete the recognition of ring and world champion without having to face the linear champ....

 

yea he was,over and over and over again and the fight was for the linear and ring lhw title.at least that's what it was billed as and as michael buffer announced it.

 

the ring belt and the lineal championship are not the same.

 

Depending on how you define things, I can a legitimate argument that Erdei, Casamayor, I. Vasquez, etc. are not lineal. By some circles, a new lineage starts when the clear top 2 guys meet and fight each other. By some circles, lineal means you've completely cleared out the division and become undisputed champ. If you abide by the second definition, I believe the only current lineal champs are David Haye (who lucked out due to the timing of Johnny Nelson's retirement; created by Bell-Mormeck), Joe Calzaghe (SMW, created by Calzaghe-Kessler), Kelly Pavlik (created by Hopkins-Trinidad) and Ricky Hatton (created by Tszyu-Judah). If you're in the #1 vs #2 crowd, then guys like Erdei, Mayweather, Casamayor, Pacquiao, Vasquez, Hasegawa and Naito could be considered lineal, depending on how strict you are with it. I guess there's also a camp that thinks that lineal is when you hold three belts, but that's pretty bunk - the sanctioning bodies shouldn't have anything to do with it.

However, under absolutely no definition of the lineal championship can you say Calzaghe is the lineal LHW champ. It's either Erdei or vacant. Jones and Tiger never fought, Tiger was clearly the #2 (if he wasn't lineal) the whole time Jones was the #1, so Jones never could have taken the lineal at LHW.