There is nothing better than being the lineal champion. Nothing. You can't be considered the undisputed champ in my book unless you have the 3 major titles. Myself, I only truly respect the lineal champion. There are cases where I do discredit champions like Bowe and a few others, but most of the time the undisputed champ fights the lineal champion. The fans always speak on this matter.
The lineal champion isn't always "the man" in a division, for instance the heavyweight division had a long run of lineal champions like George Foreman (old Foreman) and Shannon Briggs while Lennox Lewis clearly was "the man"... In the end Lewis beat Shannon Briggs and became lineal champion and beside losing and then winning it against Hasim Rahman, Lewis retired lineal champion leaving it open to someone to establish himself as new lineal champion by becoming "the man". You could argue Wladimir Klitschko now is undisbuted champion and has started a new line as lineal champion, others would argue he still needs to beat Wilder to do that.
Cotto the lineal MW Champ is the biggest joke in boxing today. Beating Martinez (who walked big circels around GGG) and winning the WBC belt at a catch weigt makes him lineal champ :huh Then ducking GGG as well all time Long makes him the lineal Champ :huh Fighting only at catchweights and never allow a single Opponent to come in at the full 160 MW Limit makes him the lineal champ:huh Fighting Canelo now at 155 :thumbsup and making it clear to never defend the title against his mandatory of the full 160 Limit makes him the lineal champ:huh Cotto is clearly not the lineal 160 Champ, its already GGG, only Cotto and the GGG haters agree to him being the lineal champ. :deal
Nope, Wlad was number one when he beat Byrd. Ok i can understand that he had to unify against Ibragimov, unofically against Chagaev, even haye (altought it was paper belt), povetkin was meaningfull not because of WBA Reg. title, but no way does he need to beat wilder to prove something. I mean he won title against siverne who won vacant title by defeating Arreola. Then fights molina? dhupaus? it is as worth as intercontinental championship. Next people will say that chagaev has some claim to title (Regular)
Problem with the lineal thing, is that it's never fully lineal when one of the champions retires. certainly if he decides to make a comeback later. Some say the lineal can only be lost in the ring, wich seems legit, but isn't entirely true of course. Then every lineal champ that retired and didn't come back ended the lineal championship in that weightclass forever. We got multiple cases in wich nobody took the lineal championship seriously. Like Tyson being the "undisputed" champion for 4 fights when he finally became lineal. This might very well happen with Golovkin now. If the Cotto/Canelo winner vacates (very big chance) and Golovkin fights Lee shortly after, he will become undisputed... but not lineal! Wich brings up another point. Many will actually see the undisputed champion as the actual champion and look at it as a new linealship. Wich it isn't, but the current linealship seems to have started out that way... :think
Impossible, you think Tyson unified Spinks was lineal Before their fight This was right... Stupid, don't you think
Just ask Foreman, Blizzy As the world turned to Tyson vs Holy How great was Lesnevich When he was lineal Denying all the great light heavies While he fought rated hand picked cherries
not at all. undisputed means you have all four. unified simply means more than one. by your definition you could have two undisputed champs in one division.