Where is Bivol on the greatest LHWs if he beats Benavidez?

He won the ABA belt which was the lineal title before Carpentier(IBU champion) defeated Levinsky(ABA champion). Before belts it was up to individuals and those promoting them to claim the title but this was a sanctioning body founded around the same time as the NYSAC and IBU. Levinsky is recognized as lineal champ holding only the ABA and the only reason Tunneys belt is not considered the lineal belt is because Levinsky lost to Carpentier. Tunney beat both men after this.

P4P is make believe though people can't even agree what it means. Up to 1950 or so fighters being at two divisions at the same time was normal. And fighters valued HW and MW more than LHW up to the 1930s because those were the original belts not because titles meant nothing to them. LHW was viewed like CW and now BW. The LHW title was temporarily discontinued between 1905-1912 because all who would have fought for it fought at MW or HW. The only title fight I can find from this period was Sam Langford v O Brien. This title fight was Sam Langfords only fight at LHW.

Tommy Burns fought for MW belts and didn't win then went straight to fighting for the HW title. And 2 of the guys who beat him at MW became HW claimants in 1907 with this presumably being the genesis of why Tommy Burns was underrated. Imagine how we'd treat a modern small MW non champion jumping up to HW off a loss and winning the belt off a guy who'd narrowly won the vacant title the fight before? Then fighting guys who were 0-1 and 3-6? Then has a draw with O Brien, eventually fights the same guy from Australia 3 times and basically retires before 30 when hes ranked like 2nd or 3rd? Burns is underrated but the reasons people would underrate him and not appreciate his dominance are many. Another thing I was mentioning in another post somewhere is the traits that would make you value someone like Burns were in unusually abundant supply during Burns era. The small guy with the big punch was never more common than in your 1905-1910 period.

I rank Tunney over Charles. But that would be a case of quality over quantity at least at HW. Tunney has no unavenged losses and/or stoppages. Dempseyx2, Gibbons, Loughran, Grebx3, Carpentier, Levinsky are the most valuable set of wins pre 1930. Some of Tunneys other wins were also over opponents that were more respected back then like Wiggins and Weinart. While Tunney defeated Weinart twice at HW it must be noted that Weinart left LHW with the record 25-1-6 which is why he was included in my list in the post above. Because of peoples frustrations with padded records resumes like Tunneys with no losses are "out". Heres the kicker within the context of his era about half of Tunneys opponents are noteworthy and outmatch Bivols resume quantity wise. But because we live in Bivols time we'll recognize Bivols wins at that level and not Tunneys.

 

Everyone is trying to pull out these names like Bivins while omitting that they rank Spinks near the top even though Spinks had a fairly brief career at 175.

If Bivol beats Benavidez, he'd be well above Roy and Foster and probably just below Spinks.

 

The biggest problem with that was that the other LHW claimant at the end of 1905 was Jack Twin Sullivan who'd defeated Tommy Burns for the MW title. He and Schreck(who also had a win over Tommy Burns) picked up HW claims around this time they'd eventually lose to Al Kaufman. Moir in the UK had a claim with the NSC. Tommy Burns was in a very precarious position. Hence why Squires was favored over him in their first fight. How would we view a MW losing a title fight jumping up to HW beating someone who'd narrowly won a vacant belt their previous fight?

O Brien supposedly fought Langford for the LHW title in 1911 over 5 years after he'd won the belt and after Langford won he never fought at LHW again. Between 1905 and 1912 no one wanted to fight for the LHW belt opting for either MW or HW. And neither Twin Sullivan, O Brien, Langford or the Australian claimant Arthur Cripps had any desire to advance their claims. Regardless what they weighed. It was situation much like Bridgerweight today. Two HWs can fight for the HW title while weighing 200-225 pounds. While this is Bridgerweight that doesn't preclude a HW match from being at that weight.

The earliest claimed LHW title bout I've seen mentioned is Jim Hall v Slavin in 1897. Choynski beat Hall in 1899 shortly after establishing his earliest claim against Jim Ryan. A big reason LHW existed from 1897-1905 but not 1906-1911 was the existence of Jeffries. Jeffries retirement left the floodgates open for the LHW/MW crowd to chase the HW belt. With the exception of Jack Johnson and retreads like Gus Ruhlin just about everyone considered to fight for Jeffries vacant belt was a LHW/MW.