Shannon Briggs - The Champion

Who cares how big they were? Savarese was a journeyman who never cracked the top 10 and Grimsley wasn't even journeyman level. Briggs was unranked and coming off a kayo loss to Darroll Wilson (who?) Multiple guys were beating better opposition than Foreman not just one guy which makes his competition even more indefensible.

If you think the likes of Briggs and Savarese were in preparation for Lewis I have a hard time seeing it given the vast gulf in ability.

 

I mean it does help when comparing George to the new era of superheavyweights that at 45 he was never knocked down by guys who were 6 ft 4, 6 ft 5 and 6 ft 6 who had power. Briggs and Savarese weren't top 10 fighters at the time but they WERE among the heaviest hitters in the division.

Briggs won 4 in a row after that and Wilson was also undefeated. That was a 0-0 fight. One of the better HWs in that era to not fight for the title in an era where seemingly everyone did. He wasn't coming off a loss.

But yeah Briggs was the least defendable of those title shot cause he already had the loss. The thing is though he ended up being best one of the bunch and was successful after the fact so why does it matter? Grimsley was pretty terrible thats fair and his SOS is dreadful(possibly worse than Jake Pauls) he won one of his minor "Fecarbox" belts against a guy who was 0-7 and retired 0-20. Grimsley might be the worst title contender ever. But he was a 20-0 guy who was 6 ft 6 and knocked out most his opponents in a round or two. With undefeated prospects you don't know how they're going to turn out its a mixed bag and with Briggs, Savarese and Grimsley you got the world champ, continent champ and flameout.

Grimsleys a terrible defense I'm defending the idea of more than the actual opponent. Hes an outlier Foreman was fighting after not fighting for a year and a half. Schulz, Savarese and Briggs are more typical title opponents.

 

The way the lineal system addresses this problem is if Foreman doesn't fight Lennox he would be retired soon regardless and it takes care of itself. Those are the 2 safeguards. You're more getting into the timing of when that transfer occurs if George keeps fighting and doesn't fight Lennox who is clearly the best. Like if he were to beat David Tua could he have hung on to the recognition longer? We can call this a "faultline" and normally this is fixed by the claimants fighting but what if it isn't? These situations are a lot less common then they used to be but when they've come up the belt transfers when it transfers and those fighters with better claims are collatoral damage whose success is noted by the alphabet bodies. Fury just held the belt up years with questionable opponents. People just accepted it.


Like I said before I believe there can be 2 lineal champs when the older one is on the cusp of retiring. Thats really the best way to handle this issue on "fault lines" and transfering the status of champion. Like Usyk fights Joshua for lineal belt then Fury comes back they were both the champ until they fought. Lewis v Holyfield would probably be the basis of new lineage because you are looking for a landmark matchup to start a new lineage. I'm not sure if you watch MMA but the UFC which has 1 belt has the "interim belt". Because of the tons of belts boxing doesn't use the interim title officially theres no need anyone who'd have that status has a belt already but with the lineal title that sort of concept works because theres only 1.

The way this would be handled today is just letting the RING be the lineal belts sanctioning body. Thats how RJJ got to be lineal champ over Michalzcewski. If push truly comes to shove the rules will be broken and people will come up with a justification to give the belt to the real champion. Of course the RING only took up this responsibility in the 2000s they weren't doing belts in the 90s. Also I think a poster emailed them asking them what they would have done and they responded saying they would not have stripped Foreman at least not during his later reign. Its in one of these lineal discussions we've had.



In monarchys theres lines of successions if something happens to the king this person gets it. So a line of succession where the best champ has an elevated status that isn't lineal but is "heir apparent". With 4 or 5 bodies you could always have the best non lineal champ be the interim and if the champ is undisputed you shouldn't need one in the first place.

 

Many champions have a few guys like that as defenses but they generally also have tough defense against highly ranked contenders. It's not considered acceptable for champions to fight guys like Savarese 3 years straight with no top contenders at all. Lewis didn't do that, neither did Lewis or Bowe or Wlad.

Bowe had poor defenses vs Ferguson and Dokes but followed that up with an acceptable defense vs Holyfield within a year of winning the title

 

The people elect the new head of a monarchy? Not the monarchies I’m used to reading about

 

I should’ve let you in on the joke. I’m used to monarchies of the Napoléonic Age. Nobody was getting any kind of vote back then, except in France. Hell, that’s half of what the wars were all about. The other half being that Napoléon gave Jews equal rights.

 

These electors tended to vote for who would have inherited it anyway. I think in the HREs last few hundred years there was only 1 serious election and that was only because the Hapsburg heir was a woman.

The Papacys kind of an elected monarchy. But that only works because none of them have heirs.

 

An outsider can be picked too in the event of a childless King. One of Napoléon’s Marshals was sounded out to take the Swedish throne. His descendants wear the Swedish crown to this day.