They both originate in similar fashion, the guys fighting at the top #3 positions in the division and possibly unifying the titles can be awarded with such a title. So at the beggining the titles are pretty the same. The differences comes later. Lineal champion cannot be stripped from the title and untill he is active and undefeated he keeps it all the time. Not sure what Ring states but I think if fighter is inactive/faded and someone else comes around and unify division then Ring belt may be awarded for him and the first guy may be stripped from this title. Two different cases may happen. 1) The lineal champion once created may fade or avoid the toughest competition and if finally beaten he pass his lineal title to lesser oponent. A case of LHW path: Hill -> Michalczewski -> Gonzales -> Erdei The good thing is that the title stay in the division and keeps undefeated track so even if it goes to lesser opponent it will always rise up to "undefeated" fighter and one day possibly to true champion. The other positive aspect is that it cannot be awarded outside ring but only the correct fighter must be defeated. The bad is that fighter may avoid any though competition once he get the title and be lineal until retires. 2) The ring champion once awarded may fade also and untill he is active and keep fighting recognized names he keeps the title. However the "recognized" names may be long past the best and don't need to be related to the particular division. Example again form the LHW division: Jones -> Tarver -> Johnson -> Tarver -> Hopkins -> Wright ???? So the bad thing is that guys who are completely not related to the division and its current state of art may capture the title and block the division activity. I doubt that Hopkins or Wright are going to fight any live LHW contender and they are blocking all the top activity over there. The good thing is that the title is always around the popular names so it mekes attention. Reasumming I think that lineal belt is somewhat a hardcore boxing title while the Ring belt is more related to boxing popularity. What do you think?
Burn all the belts but one per division. Look at Hopkins in Pharaoh's avatar, that is ******ed all those belts.
You're much more likely to have a guy who sucks holding the lineal belt than the Ring belt. The Shannon Briggs and Herbie Hides of the world can't get to that level.
As for the undisputed champion case in the above examples. It can happen that Drews decision Woods and Dawson and become undisputed champion keeping WBA/WBC/IBF titles. But Erdei will still keep the lineal title beating Johnson, Briggs etc. While Hopkins may be still Ring champion beating Wright, Jones and e.g. Calzaghe in the catch weight. They all will avoid each other, so who you will see the true champion over there?
Ring belt for the moment but Lineal is what really counts. No way does a world title and a Ring belt eclipse capturing the other major belts in a division
no. at SMW there is no Lineal until Kessler and Calz get it on. Yet Calz is the ring champ. Don't forget teh ring is an american magazine first and foremost and that it will always be biased.
You right but the lineal belt always keeps comping fast to true champion, like Briggs passed it to Lewis. So even if it slips away for a while it comes back like bumerang. The ring belt may slip for a longer time since there is no way to force Ring champion to fight true contenders like the whole Tarver/Jones/Johnson trilogies and Hopkins fighting Wright at this moment.
the ring belt means absolutely nothing it is just another trinket given out by a magazine for goodness sakes!
Undisputed. Because being undisputed means that you are the man to beat. In 1997 did anyone really see George Foreman as the Champ even though he had the lineal belt? No. Evander Holyfield was considered the man. Lennox Lewis to some extent was considered the man. But George Foreman had the lineal belt.