Tyson Fury's era to forget

Let's see how easy we can prove how nonsense a lineal title is:

Boxer A is the lineal HW champ. He studiously avoids all tough fights after beating the man like Fury did after winning that stink-fest against Klitschko.

Boxer B comes along a little bit after this and cleans out the best of the HW division, except for Boxer A who is deft and crafty at dodging having to fight Boxer B like Neo was with bullets. Very reminiscent of Usyk.

Boxer A then retires for a bit and goes on a bender. He comes back for more paydays but is clearly not in shape, too old, whatever. He fights some dude not anywhere near the top of the division and gets his head knocked off. Now Random Journeyman Boxer C is the lineal champ, not Boxer B who has beaten the best guys, is considered P4P#1, and maybe the greatest HW boxer since Ali. Somewhat reminiscent of what happened with that Ngannou debacle, yeah?

Random Journeyman Boxer C now pulls a Wilder and fights a string of cans while claiming he's the lineal champ. He gets beaten by Middling Boxer D and now that guy is the lineal champ.

Yet this entire time Boxer B is Undisputed and roundly considered the best boxer in the sport, an all-time great, etc. He tries to fight these guys, but the promoters don't care to make the fights because they won't sell. The sanctioning bodies clearly don't care because the lineal is an affront to their system and anyway they've got interim champs in mandatory positions waiting for a shot at the belts. So how is Boxer B ever going to snag this mythical and sacred lineal title?

I won't claim to have seen every last bit of boxing content on the internet, but I've seen a lot of it. The only guy I've ever heard bang on about the lineal is Rummy. That's it. No one else cares. They rarely ever even mention the champ being the lineal in the fighter introductions from what I've seen. It's just not something people care about.

 

If the lineal champ is gone an extended period of time they can still be replaced and then there are two lineal champs if they return. Either 1)they'll both fight and 2)Champ A ducks Champ B and he retires. 3)If Champ C beats Champ B he fights Champ A and the lineages unify. If Champ C ducks Champ A, he'll eventually lose to Champ D who should be willing to unify etc.

After everything if it becomes obvious the lineal champ isn't the best champ the lineal title can be retconned like it was with Michalczewski and Vitali. This is only for unique circumstances. And how often does it truly come to this?


The worst case scenario is what happened with Erdei and Grachev at LHW where a fighter takes the lineage into substandard competition and then they do the same. First off this scenario is painfully obvious. And even then eventually the discredited lineage will be reabsorbed. In this case Michalczewski lost his lineal recognition to RJJ many years before this scenario came to pass.

How many times does this nightmare scenario happen? And the answer is very rarely. The lineal champ is usually but not always the best champ but the lineal champ doesn't need to be the best champ all the time. Whats most important is that "champ B" has a clear place to go to get the recognition as the best. If theres no lineal and you have a bunch of claimants who is the impetus on to prove they are the "real champ"? A lineage provides structure to the sport that the alphabet bodies are incapable of providing because one title isn't clearly "the title".

When people learn about boxing they learn about the lineal champs. No ones reading or cares about their favorite alphabet organizations official list of champs. Fans might not use the word lineal to describe this concept but its the title that matters more.

 

Some of these so called lineal champs didn't clearly establish lineage. Holmes didn't beat a reigning champ and never unified and neither did Wlad so their claim to lineage isn't based on any clear criteria. Michalczewski was still beating top contenders so I can't see any argument for stripping him in favor of Jones unlike say Foreman

 

Fully unifying has nothing to do with the lineage as the concept dates back before sanctioning body titles.

Holmes was clearly the top dog in the division by 1982. After Mike Weaver beat John Tate for the WBA belt, Holmes gained almost universal recognition as THE champ, as he already beat him not even a year back. Got The Ring belt then as well. After that, he beat the returning lineal champion Ali who never lost the title in the ring, similar to the case of Ezzard Charles beating Joe Louis and gaining universal recognition. He was viewed by some as undisputed, as he held the WBC belt and the WBA lineage twice over. In 1982 he beat Gerry Cooney who was the highest rated contender behind Holmes and Weaver, so was the best available opponent he hadn't beaten yet. Spinks was widely recognized as the champion even without holding an alphabet belt just because he beat Larry Holmes.

Wlad has so many claims to be the lineal champion it's not even funny. You can consider him as the man as early as his Byrd fight in April 2006 as you can make the case they were two best heavyweights out there at the time. If not, he became the first unified champion since Lewis in February 2008 when he beat Ibragimov. The next unified champion will emerge almost 7 years after that and it will be the man who beats him. Nobody unified when Wlad was around. In 2009 he gained almost universal recognition when he beat Chagaev who was at least number 3 in the division, but looking at the resume he was probably number 2. At that time, he had the lineage of 3 major belts as Chagaev never lost the WBA belt in the ring, and the man who held it at the time, Valuev, already lost to him. He also had a lineage of WBC for a while, when Peter became the title holder. He unified 3 belts beating another number 3 guy in Haye. Then, when Vitali was on his way out in October 2013, he beat Povetkin, who was the best active fighter available. Received the TBRB title at that time. He gained recognition in some circles as the undisputed champion (was even introduced like that twice) when Vitali retired and WBC belt became vacant in December. Even a year after that, he beat the best guy available in November 2014 when he destroyed Pulev. Undefeated for 12 years, with 18 title defences and top rated contenders beaten 5 times. Hard to imagine a better claim to the championship.

There are literally no arguments, except for "they weren't undisputed" (which is invalid), to rewrite history acting like they weren't top dogs of the division. They were clearly consensus champions, which traditionally starts the new lineage.

 

Them not being undisputed is a perfectly valid counterargument. Obviously you have a better claim to being the best without co champions.

Wlad beating Vital would have clearly established him as the best but he didn't want to do it. This undercuts his claim for lineage obviously.

Ali was totally shot against Holmes and would have lost to anyone in the top 10. He was also suffering from Parkinson's. I don't see how that helps Holmes in the least

 

While some may see the OP as overly negative, it's very close to the truth. Some tried to claim this was a golden era. How can that possibly be when one of the major players never fought the other two?

 

He beat Ali. This is like the 4th or 5th time a new lineal champ beat the old one when he was a shell of himself.

The Ring(who are the de facto namers of the lineal champ) went back to naming champs in 2001. In 2001 RJJ and Michalczewski had both been champs for 4 years already and RJJs level of competition was much higher. Most of the quality opponents Michalczewski fought during his WBO reign he fought after this decision had been made.


From the olden days of boxing there is a case to be made for someone who stopped the previous champ over winning a decision. It was not universally accepted that the belt could change hands via decision for quite awhile. So thats a weak case for RJJ because he knocked out Jeffries.

With Foreman there was no other "real champ". The division was anarchy and he was sort of treading water waiting for such a figure to emerge. Holyfield and Lennox emerged as the top 2 at the very end of Foremans reign. The closest thing to a real champ for much of this period was Moorer who Foreman had beaten.

 

All of this is irrelevant as undisputed has nothing to do with lineal. Wlad had no co-champions between December 2013 and May 2014. Vitali was only active between 2008 and 2012, so the minority of Wlad's reign. He didn't beat him but beat every other top contender. Ali was the lineal champion, no matter how shot he was. Holmes was therefore the man who beat the man. Being shot doesn't strip of you of the title claim, lol.

 

Ali was a former lineal champ not a reigning lineal.champion so nope.

Lennox Lewis never lost his title in the ring if he makes a comeback and loses to a journeyman does that make them lineal and erase Usyk? By your logic it would

 

Short term retirements historically never broke a lineage. Especially if the clear champion wasn't crowned in the time of absence. Ali retired 2 times before that, but nobody sees that as a break in the lineage. And Ali was out of action only for a year. Some champions didn't defend for over 3 years and didn't lose the claim.

Nope. There is no precedent like that. I can imagine him having a weak claim, but since it's been 21 years since his retirement and we had 3 lineal champions, including one undisputed, nobody would take it seriously. Ali never lost the title in the ring during his exile, but he retired along the way, and when Frazier best Ellis, he was the universally recognized champion and Ali was a contender.

 

Ring magazine clearly saw it as a break in the lineage since they list the championship vacant in 1979 so did the sanctioning bodies who let people fight for his belts. He was out for more than 2 years. A clear champion would have been crowned had Holmes faced his co champs. But he didn't want to hence the skepticism as to his claim to lineage.

A champion wouldn't be allowed to take 3 years off or draw the color line these days so claiming it's okay because of precedent seems silly. You think Usyk could draw the color line like Dempsey did?

 

If you're going by what The Ring Magazine considered the lineal championship then we have no problem here. Larry Holmes became the new lineal champion 31/03/1980 after Weaver beat Tate. Or you just want to cite The Ring when it suits your narrative and ignore it when it doesn't? At the end of the day The Ring Magazine title is a seperate entity to the lineal title, but 99% of the time they are intertwined.

Sanctioning bodies have nothing to to with the lineal title, I think we already addressed that. Ali retired June 1979 and announced his return in March 1980. That's 9 months. And there was no debate at the time that Holmes was the clear champion even before taking on Ali. Nobody cared there was a second title holder, since Holmes already beat him. Nobody cared about the undisputed gimmick.

 

Nah doe dog, lineal is a made up concept postdated back before the bodies. Nat Fleischer waited for John L to be dead and unable to refute nonsense before he started his lineal champions charade.

You never found it curious how this man who cares so little for tradition he literally ends them became the poster child for traditionalism in boxing? Propaganda homie.

Find me any scrap of anything with the term lineal champion on it that was printed before 1910 and of course I will admit I was mistaken, but the fact is you're not going to find that term Nat made up after John's death being used before it. At best you'll find Fox's version of the concept and bend it semantically and factually to be one in the same despite things like Fox awarding on defense not defeating the former.

Point being, if you like lineal that's fine, to dislike it is fine too, I don't care, but the fact is lineal is not an old boxing tradition. It is a modern boxing concept plastered on to older boxing traditions. Hence the radical agent of change being rebranded as the start of the tradition he had never heard of his entire lifetime. John L fought against promotional control. He didn't like newspapers and magazines thinking they have the authority to crown champions. Most of his star power was used against The Gazette to the point where he, almost single-handedly, dismantled the entire publication.

It's not older than the bodies. It was a response to the bodies. An economic response from the former platform for authority in boxing to keep some level of market share.




Bro it's not hard to sell man who beat the man, but, there's absolutely no factual evidence Paddy, John, Corbett, either of Fitz's, etc., fights were marketed as lineal, described as lineal. the term lineal champion didn't exist, and Fox ran belts quit differently enough to guarantee what did exist before Nat's lineal is not man who beat the man.

 

Credit for him to kickstarting a new era in 2015 but not sure we can say it's era considering Uysk beat him twice and he hasn't fought a few names.

 

I don't think anybody ever claimed the term "lineal" was used during that time. It's just that, just a term, describing how the title is won and lost. It's just a traditional world championship.