Real Current Linear World Champions

This WBC/WBA/IBF distinction you're making is ******ed Superheavyweight. It's the man who beat the man. Running around and beating a bunch of shitty fighters for meaningless belts doesn't make someone lineal champ. The ABC strip guys for stupid reasons all the time and set up eliminators between chumps who don't even deserve to be in the top 10. Hell, there was a lineal champ long before the ABCs existed - there's no reason the rationale for determining the champ should change just because the ABCs exist.

 

Yes. H2H, I think 99% of people would have picked Jones. But Hill and Maske were #1 and #2 when they fought - Jones wasn't even in the division yet. Hill won that, then DM beat Hill, so he held the belt. Gonzalez beat DM, Erdei beat Gonzalez. Hence:

1) If you believe that the top 2 guys fighting each other creates a lineage, then Erdei is the champ, and DM was the champ, and Roy was never lineal because he never fought DM, even though he was clearly the better fighter.

2) If you believe that cleaning out the division, then nobody is champ, because the top two guys (DM and Jones) never fought each other, so neither one could have claimed to have cleaned out the division.

It's not so hard to envision a scenario where the best fighter isn't the champ, and that's what happened here. For example, let's just say Mayweather decides to move back down to 140. Hatton is indisputedly lineal champ at 140. Mayweather already knocked the tar out of Hatton, but it was at 147. Even if Mayweather knocks out every other fighter at 140, Hatton is STILL the champ because you can only lose the true belt in the ring. It's a ***** thing to do, ducking a fighter so you don't lose your belt, but it happens.

You can say that Jones was undisputed champ if you want to, because if you only believe that WBA/WBC/IBF are the only 'real belts', then he held all three at the same time. But that's undisputed, not lineal. Totally different ballgame.

 

:good Exactly. Remeber when there was only 1 belt? If that 1 belt was vacant the number 1 and 2 fighters fought for the title and would establish a new lineage. Just Because we have ABC's now doesnt mean it changes becuase its harder to unify now with all these belts nowadays.

Lineage is established by the #1 and #2 fighters in a division. If unifying a division is what it takes now then that means someone is changing the rules of how lineage is established.

 

But what about the people who were stripped beforehand? It doesn't work. If you do it this way, then DM and RJJ could have been undisputed champs in the same weight class simultaneously for the reason Lazyitis described above. That would make very little sense now, wouldn't it?

 

You're not undisputed if you've been stripped. Here:

Linear: The man who beat the man...
Undisputed: WBC, WBC and IBF champion.
Ring Champion: Starts with the two top guys in a magazine's ratings fighting.

 

Lineal and Ring are the same thing 99% of the cases: The man who beat the man...

 

I think Erdei is the linear lhw world champ.

But you can call Calzaghe the linear lhw champ if you think Roy Jones beating Lou Del Valle and Reggie Johnson is more impressive than the unification between Virgil Hill und Dariusz Michalczewski

Hill was a top guy at LHW at the late 80's and the eraly 90's. I think he was the man, when he fought Maske and Michalczweski ... more than Jones Jr. who won a vacant title.

And Del Valle and Reggie Johnson were far away from beeing something like "the man" at lhw. They just collected those vacant title, which the WBA and IBF took Michalczewski away, because they didn't recognise the WBO as a major sanctioning body.

 

Ever since there is no option available to fight a long retired previous lineal champ.

 

You arent the lineal champ if you get the 3 alpha-**** titles.

You think Tyson was lineal champ before he beat Mike Spinks??!

And yes, Erdi is still LHW champ

 

:good :good

 

tarver wasn't "the man" @ LHW but he was the ring champ when hops beat him. so, hopkins was the ring champ but not the lineal champ when calzaghe beat him.

 

Thats why he said IN 99% OF CASES, 175 bein' the 1% one-off as Erdi is the lineal champ