Who is the lineal heavyweight champion of the world in boxing?

Unfied heavyweight championship - yes but the RING wouldn't have recognised it as Valuev wasn't in the top 3.

 

Belts are meaningless.

 

Please...can we at least keep it to 3 belts? I feel dirty offering the WBO as legitimate.

 

I think it's best for all if Wladimir Klitschko is just accpeted as the real/lineal champ. Boxing politics have gotten so ridiculous, with all these interim, gold, silver, super etc champions about now, that unifying the big 3 (or is it 4? fans can't even make up their minds on that these days) is going to be more or less impossible. They last time I can remember it happening was about 2 years ago when Vic Darchinyan unified the Jr Bantamweight titles, other than that there's hardly been a unified champ in the last 5 years. W Klitschko has unified several belts, been established at the top for a long time, and beat as credible series of challengers as you're likely to see in this day and age. It has to be him. His brother and David Haye have paper thin claims in comparison.

 

You're kidding right?

The HW title is vacant until the #1 and #2 ranked HWs fight to establish a new champion. The Ring and their "rules" can be damned...

 

It is Vacant. Wlad is the best at the moment, but he won't fight #2 Vitali. BTW Wlad's WBO and IBWhatever belts are useless. Wlad has the IBF belt. Mike Tyson and Holyfield were undisputed with just 3 WBA,WBC and IBF.

 

Despite it's history the WBA is worse.

 

:good

 

But here is the thing, if noone is lineal champ until they have 3 belts, then floyd was never lineal champ, neither was oscar de la hoya, or trinidad, or mosley, or almsot everyone for that matter. because of belt politics its very hold to all 3 belts and not get stripped.

 

The WBA belt was pretty much the only recognized World championship trophy until the arrival of the WBC.

As such it is the oldest, but not necessarily Linear.

Linear (or lineal) champ usually means the man who beat the man...


And since Rocky retired undefeated, the line ended there.

But if we consider Floyd Patterson as the champ after that (and few would dispute that), then the linear championship flowed through Liston, Clay/Ali, Frazier, Foreman, Ali, Spinks, Ali, It had another break at that point.

A small case could be made for Holmes as he beat (A greatly diminished ) Ali. Weak case, but for the sake of linearity, Holmes beat the last linear champ in 1980.

It then flows through Holmes, Spinks, Tyson, Douglas, Holyfield, Bowe, Holyfield, Moorer, Foreman, Briggs, Lewis, Rahman, Lewis.

When Lewis retired, there was another break.

And since Lewis stayed retired, there is no current linear champion at HW.

Vitali, as WBC sanctioned successor to Lewis (by defeating Sanders) has a case as being the "restart' linear champion.

And as he has remained undefeated since, he has as good a claim as any to title of linear champion.

He was not in the same boat as Patterson after Marciano, given the profliferation of belts since that time, but he has as more claim under 'the man-who-beat-the-man' logic, than anyone else.


To truly restart the linear titles, someone would need to hold at least the WBA and WBC titles.

And to be undisputed champion, one would need all four belts.

 

Klitschkos are trying to get all the belts, but WBA took title away from Chagaev and gave it to Valouev for not fighting. They Haye got into ring, ran, refused to fight, but WBA criminal judges gave decision to the coward Haye. Haye still refused to fight Klitschkos and is within the process of trying to get out of fighting Chagaev the mandatory. Word is that Haye plans to fight Holyfield next.

 

I don't think Vitali quite deserves to be lineal for beating Sanders in 2004 as Chris Byrd was ranked # 2 in the world at the time.

WBA, WBC etc. are irrelevant to restarting lineal titles, just need a #1 v #2 fight which we'll probably have to wait for until after Vitali retires.

 

well no champion traces back to sullivan, that lineage ended with jeffries' retirement.

the lineage tracing back to hart ended with tunney's retirement.

the lineage tracing back to schmelling ending with louis' retirement.

the lineage tracing back to charles ended with rocky's retirement.

the lineage tracing back to patterson ended with ali's first retirement.

the lineage tracing back to frazier ended with ali's next retirement.

the lineage tracing back to holmes ended with lewis' retirement.

vitali was champ for a short while but never really got to establish his dominance.

I think history will show that the next lineage will be traced back to wladimir klitschko.

 

So Rahman who lost to Holyfield who lost to Byrd who lost to Wladimir Klitschko.

or Rahman who lost to Ruiz who lost to Valuev who lost to Chagaev who lost to Wladimir Klitschko.

LOL