I was suprised to check that from 1988 (Tyson) to 2001 (Lewis) there was no true champion according to The Ring magazine. Anybody knows why? Bowe, Holyfield, Tyson, Lewis - everyone from this 4 could be considered the true champion at particular time. So why did The Ring vacat their title for so long?
The Ring Magazine champion rules say during times of vacant tiltes, the winner of their #1 vs. a #2 or #3 can produce a new champion. I think these are solid rules I would guess that from 1988 to 2001, we did not see the Ring Magazine's top guy facing off vs the 2nd or 3rd guy. Upsets I guess in the name of Douglas, Morrer, McCall and Rhaman, combined with Lewis never Holyfield at his peak are probably the reasons why.
The Ring has never recognized so called lineage. In the late 80s they (rightly) stopped recognizing a champion in each division. Then they went bust, then in the late 90s they hit on gimmick (Ring) Champions once more, to please the fancy...
Yeah. They simply did not rank anyone as C at the time. For example, Lewis beat Holyfield (#1), Grant (#3) and Tua (#4) over the space of a year yet still didn't get the C rating. You can't say he didn't meet the criteria. He had it after beating Rahman, though I don't know if The Ring gave Rahman the C rank too. Either which way, sometime in 2001 there they decided to bring back that top C spot. Before then it was just 1-10.
They certainly did recognize Tyson as champion when he beat Spinks. They made a big thing out of recognizing Spinks as champion before that. They followed the lineage principle. It's just they went bust in 1989, and came back with a different ranking list. It's not like they stated the title as "Vacant" - that's just not true, they just had the champion listed among the top 10. The RING editors never disputed that Holyfield, Bowe or Lewis, for example, were true champions. They never called the championship "Vacant" during this time when those guys were undisputed.
I doubt that anyone who knows the sport did not recognize Lewis as THE Heavyweight Champion after the Holyfield fights, but the question was to do with Ring champions, not THE Heavyweight Champion, there is sometimes a difference. Same as the Lineage Champion is not always The Ring Champion. The Ring does not recognize lineage, it recognized Spinks as their champion, not as lineage champion. Spinks indeed held both titles, but The Ring only recognized one, its own! The Ring title is but a belt to add to the collection. It's value is not always constant, in this posters opinion.
Are you sure? Not sure about the ring magazine, but as far as the press in general goes (at least in Australia), the lines became blurred around about the time that Bowe dropped his belt in the trash. From memory, Tyson lost to Douglas in a monumental upset. But when King pulled his long count stunt and with the controversy about no preparation, some actually still considered Tyson the champion, or at least the champ in waiting. When Douglas "ducked" Tyson and fought the percieved easier fight in Evander, Tyson's aura was so strong, that i am sure that some still considered Tyson the champion because of the ducking. When Holyfield beat Douglas, he gained universal championship recognition as champion when he accepted Tyson as a challenger, but fate intervened there. Holy from memory went on to lose to Bowe, neigher fighter was really considered in the same class as Tyson, strangely enough, even though Tyson was still behind bars. Tyson KOing McNeely in 1 later confirmed this, in the casual medias mind. Bowe dropping the belt in the trash can really blurred the lines, as some did recognise Lennox as champ, since the champs were ducking all the challengers and Lennox had KOd Bowe before (it mattered to some casual press members). This meant that before long, Holyfield, Bowe, Lewis and Tyson all had decent supporters for claims to the Title in the press and the title was fractured. By the time Foreman KOd Moorer, the press pretty much had fully split and fractured in its consideration of the champion. In fact, it was probably as bad as it ever got, since foreman was eventually stripped, and openly advocated only fighting fighters who would not run from him, but would stand and trade, and only up and coming fighters, rather than the best challengers. Universal recognition probably gathered force again when Holyfield beat Tyson (in the press' eyes). Then it had a tenuous but cautious link after the holyfield Lewis fights, although a big deal was made about Lewis deserving to win the first and Holyfield the second. Lewis Briggs didnt really have any effect in most press' eyes, but i think that Lewis Tyson pretty much sealed the universal recognition and for some, this is the point that Lewis became the true best fighter, even though it was still an upset for most of the press. From there, he was seen in the press as the champion, up until his retirement, which for the first time, so the WBO enter the fray as an alternative heavyweight championship (it had steadily gathered momentum in lower weights). That is how i remember the media and therefore the casual fan viewing the situation. Ring was probabably (hopefully) a little more sensible but i presume theyd have been influenced by the media view, quite a bit.
I think the lineage from Tyson to Douglas to Holyfield to Bowe and back to Holyfield again (1990 - '94) was readily accepted by most of the press. (Lennox Lewis was WBC, but almost everyone pointed out he didn't win his title in the ring, so considered his championship somewhat illegitimate, even while conceding that it wasn't his fault Bowe ducked him.) The linear and "universally accepted" championship became devalued when Holyfield lost to Moorer in a very unimpressive close fight. Holyfield looked shot, yet Moorer was far from convincing. At this point, Lennox Lewis (WBC Champion) and even Riddick Bowe (ex-champion) were perceived as superior enough and legit enough to really undermine Moorer's legitimacy. However, Lewis lost to McCall, Bowe fought a couple of second-raters, and then a 45 year old Foreman defeated Moorer. This is where the linear or the "real" championship line really died its death as far as legitimacy goes ..... Foreman defends against unknown Axel Schulz, gets a gift decision, refuses to rematch him, and within a year dumps both his WBA and IBF belts. At the end of 1995, Frank Bruno was WBC champion, Bruce Seldon was WBA champion, and Francois Botha was IBF champion (though quickly stripped due to steroids) .... and Foreman held the "linear" claim.
As was stated above, The Ring did not list ANY champions in ANY division between 1990 and 2001. A little history: The Ring recognized WBC champ Larry Holmes as world heavyweight champ on March 31, 1980 after Holmes defended against Leroy Jones and, much more importantly, WBA champ John Tate was KO'd by Mike Weaver. Citing that Holmes had a victory the previous year over the "other" champion Weaver, they recognized Holmes as World Heavyweight Champion. The Ring continued to recognize Holmes as champ until he lost to Michael Spinks; Spinks was recognized until he lost to Tyson, then Tyson was recognized by The Ring as World Champion. Then, in early 1989, The Ring went out of business. Stanley Weston bought and revived The Ring in early 1990. The Ring then joined Weston's stable of boxing mags, which included KO, World Boxing, International Boxing, Boxing 90 (or whatever year), etc. In 1977 Weston's magazines stopped recognizing champions, citing Muhammad Ali's decline and their opinion that he was no longer best in the world, and instituted a straight #1 through #10 (or sometimes #12) ranking system with WBA, WBC and later IBF champs mixed in where ever the editors thought they belonged. This continued in all of Weston's mags through the 80's and 90's and thus was adopted by The Ring after it was purchased by Weston. As we know, The Ring instituted their championship policy in 2001 and recognized Lennox Lewis (or was that Hasim Rahman?) as World Heavyweight Champion. So, no, the Ring title wasn't vacant all those years. It simply didn't exist. HOWEVER, in an editorial in the Ring before the Lewis - Shannon Briggs fight, Ring editor Nigel Collins stated that it was a good thing that the Lewis-Briggs fight was made as it would help to settle who was the legitimate champ, as at that point Collins, if not the Ring, personally recognized Briggs as World Champion by way of his victory over Foreman.
yes, ring started naming champs again in the jan 2002 issue i believe. all ring titles were vacant except for naming the following world champs: lennox lewis at heavy, roy jones at light heavy, kostya tyszu at 140 and bernard hopkins at middle.
