Will Usyk vs Joshua be for the vacant lineal belt?

It's about deciding which person has the best claim to being a champion of out of all those who claim to be so.

It doesn't say who the best is, who the greatest is, who's P4P, just who has the best championship claim.

 

No, it's about claiming who is the champion in a world of alphabet belts. And that's purely a promotional exercise because the alphabet belt ownership is probably a better indicator in the modern profession.

 

I literally just said its about who has the best claim.

One world shouldn't have more than one world champion.

 

They jumped the gun.

They never acted like an alphabet org before.

But they've now stripped Fury more times than the WBA, WBO and IBF did.

 

The lineal champion is Tyson Fury. To become the lineal champ, you have to beat him.

That has worked fine for more than a century.

 

They've never removed a heavyweight champion before he even relinquished his sanctioning body belt.

Like I posted last week, Ali held major press conferences announcing his retirement in the late 70s, especially one in Turkey in 1976 where people believed him to the point that Foreman and Norton actually began talks to fight for a vacant title. But the Ring didn't strip Ali because, like Fury, he said that all the time. And Ali came back and fought Evangelista.

Fury has been in camp training for weeks, he was trying to make a title fight with Chisora, he was posting videos how he'd beat Usyk.

It's like they stripped him because they didn't "get the joke "

They are officially just another alphabet org that strips someone because of a recent arbitrary "rule" they made up rather than following common sense.

 

Not true. Boxing fans in every era have always cared who was the lineal champion.

Boxing orgs have come and gone over the last 120 years or so, and a lot of wannabe boxing czars have made up a lot of dumb rules over the years to strip fighters of titles they didn't like or to boost others they wanted to hype.

But the understanding that you "have to beat the champ to become the champ" cuts through nearly all of the nonsense.

Ring was one of the only mainstays that adhered to that. But now they're becoming worse than the orgs when it comes to putting rules over common sense, particularly when it comes to Fury.

 

The World Heavyweight Championship was around before BELTS.

 

I'd rather leave it a few months, let the dust settle down and see if Fury actually serious about retirement.
If it looks like he ain't coming back, then I think we have to see Usyk as lineal champ.
Anything else is crazy.

 

Remember though, Marvin Hart never had to beat Jeffries to be champ. Sharkey never had to beat Tunney to be champ.

At LW, Sammy Angott retired for a week, Pacquiao did the same at WW. It isn't unprecedented.

 

There have been more than 40 lineal World heavyweight champions in the last 120 years or so.

Three of them (Tunney, Marciano and Lewis) retired and never returned.

Nobody needs to come up with a complex set of rules about how often or when people should fight. Nobody needs to strip anyone of any lineal titles. Nobody needs to name the wrong person the lineal champ. No ratings group needs to "take the lead" and "announce" a new champion when the current champ is in camp training.

At heavyweight, 95 percent of the time, it all sorts itself out inside the ring.

A bunch of dorks outside the ring don't need to make up rules and strip fighters.

Just stay the hell out of the way.

The Ring calling a guy on a phone who is in camp training, who hasn't relinquishied his WBC title, who is trying to arrange title fights, and is clearly waiting (along with all of us) for a bout to take place so he can decide who he'll fight next ... and Ring ignoring all that and naming a new champ about 10 days later ... shows no common sense whatsoever.

The Ring was never viewed as a sanctioning body. They only had respect because THEY DIDN'T act like a sanctioning body. But the staff there isn't even as bright at the WBC, currently. Even Sulaiman had the sense to wait. And the Ring has now stripped Fury more times than the IBF, WBO, and WBA has.

Tyson Fury is the World heavyweight champion.

The person who beats Tyson Fury will be the next World heavyweight champion.

Done.

 

Exactly. They shouldn't be "stripping" anyone. They aren't a sanctioning body. But they clearly want to be.

 

If Fury retired officially tomorrow Usyk still wouldn’t be the lineal champ. That title would be vacant. He’d have to fight the next number 1 contender. Lineal recognition can’t be won retroactively. Vitali Klitschko didn’t become the lineal champ immediately upon Lewis’ retirement based on his previous win against Kirk Johnson. He had to fight Corrie Sanders in another 1 vs 2 match after Lewis retired to become lineal.