Video - Fury's rightful claim to the lineage

No, but he retired and others established a new lineage by a process of eliminations.

 

Fury retired too.For two and a half years.
Let me ask you this.Who was the heavyweight champion between 22nd March1967 and 8th March1971?

 

Not exactly the whole 2 1/2 years.
But, yes, he said he was retired ... but, NO, no one established a new lineage in that time.
And now he's back, still undefeated, so his lineage continues because no one stepped up and replaced him.

Muhammad Ali, but probably only until February 1970 when Frazier beat Ellis to establish a new lineage (Ali having announced his retirement shortly before).
Frazier from February 1970 until January 1973.

 

You're cherry picking.

 

No. It's really easy to understand.
When a champion retires, the remaining contenders, or top two contenders, and title holding claimants have to eliminate each other to find a new champion.
If that doesn't happen and the retired champion un-retires, there's no reason to say he's no longer champion.. No one filled his position, he's still unbeaten, so he comes back to it.
Makes perfect sense to me.

If you have a different method or standard, fine.
Have a good day.

 

Oh, I think I grasped it.lol I just find it very"selective". Once you retire you are no longer champion end of.

 

Okay.
But it that's the case then Muhammad Ali's second reign must have ended some time before he lost to Leon Spinks, since, as mentioned earlier, he announced his retirement at least twice (and maybe a few times) between beating Foreman in 1974 and losing in 1978.

Also, Corbett retired as champion a year or two before he lost to Fitzsimmons.

I think Dempsey retired before he lost to Tunney too.

etc.

 

This is why I don't really take the lineal thing seriously. For one thing it gets pretty convoluted and arbitrary, like the notion of "establishing lineage". Wlad never unified all the titles, so was he ever really lineal? How long does a retired champ have to stay retired before he loses his lineal claim? Even though I thought the whole point was that it should be his indefinitely until someone beats him.

Then there's the Jones-Dariusz situation or the times when a ex-champ has come back after several years out (like Ali against Holmes or Bob Foster against Wassaja) and his conqueror was acknowledged as the lineal champ, even though if they hadn't come back no one could have won that title from him anyway!

 

Its basically BS and being promoted at the moment to get the Gypsy a larger slice of the pie.

 

Lineal's always been considered important.

 

Foreman and Spinks used it as a marketing gimmick too after they'd been stripped of all their ABC belts.

 

I think Rumsfeld's video does a pretty good job of explaining that Wlad became "the man". You can debate when and how he became the man, but he was pretty much regarded by EVERYONE as the true and only legit world champion at heavyweight by 2015 certainly.

The "lineal principle" is the least arbitrary way of deciding a champion. All titles are, in principle and ideally, lineal.
When a challenger beats the champion he becomes champion. Every boxing title works like that.

My opinion is that a retired champion vacates his title as long as he's retired but his claim to the title is valid if he comes back or "un-retires" as long as no one comes along to become a universally recognized replacement in the meantime.
History bears this out.

The truth is, in the old days, champions who did stay retired for a year or two, were usually replaced due to the best fighters in their division establishing a new lineage by process of elimination.
It's only because modern fighters FAIL to do so that confuses people over how come Fury, for example, can come back and be champion still.

 

What about all the guys who were considered "world heavyweight champion" by everyone before the age of "ABC belts" ?

Was the world championship just a meaningless gimmick before some crooked alphabet organizations came along to legitimize it all ??

 

You consider Fury the Champion?

 

Yes, he's the champion.
Wlad was champion.
Fury beat him and remains undefeated.