Youngest Heavyweight Champion Ever: Patterson or Tyson?

Boxing for the most part has always been about control, politics, and positioning, so we just knew a bit more about the fighters the promoters and sanctioning bodies. Tyson was a contender and Berbick became the champ. Tyson won the fight in better fashion than most challengers in heavyweight history. That fight will stand out as one of the most brutal assassinations of a title holder, so yes Tyson became the youngest heavyweight champion. The unification of the titles and ulitmately answering all questions by blowing out Spinks just solidified it more.

As with any champion new challenges by media and arising competition rewrites history and opinion.

 

Your last point is verry true, but I don't think that anybody would argue that Tyson established lineage by beating Berbick.

I would also question when a reigning lineal champion such as Spinks, has ever been superceeded by a contender without being beaten or retiring.

Many people think it unfair that an inactive Spinks should be regarded as champion while Tyson had unified three belts, but unfortunately fair has nothing to do with it.

 

Good point, many a champion has gone longer than Spinks without fighting and still kept their championship (Corbett, Willard, Dempsey etc...)

 

If we are going to aply judicial review, then it realy has to go back to the dawn of gloved boxing.

 

I agree. I've made my criticisms of Patterson already.

Spinks beats Holmes. That's all the lineage there needs.

It wasn't just the RING that recognized Spinks. It was a fair size of the boxing and sporting press, and even two or three state boxing commisions within the USA.
Spinks was introduced in the Gerry Cooney fight as "Heavyweight Champion Of The World". The belt Spinks actually wore was not a Ring magazine belt.
Against Tyson, he was announced as "still recognized by MANY, including Ring magazine and Boxing Illustrated."

And when you say the ring's belt is "not recognized as a legitimate title", what do you mean ? recognized by who ?

Most of the boxing press, or the knowledgeable writers at least, didn't recognize the IBF title as any more legit. No one was saying Tucker v Douglas was a more legit heavyweight title fight than Spinks v anyone, it was really just the second-feature on the Tyson-Thomas bill ! :deal

No, you're wrong to try to pass Spinks' recognition off as simply as whim of RING magazine. His recognition was a lot deeper and broader.

Secondly, your representation of RING's motives are not correct. RING had never stripped a champion, as far as I know, and Spinks was recognized as champion when he beat Holmes in September 1985, before Tyson was even an issue.
Why would they strip Spinks ? For refusing to fight Tucker ?

 

Also, their agenda is often loaded with hindsight judgements.
I mean, IF Spinks had beaten Tyson, many people would be saying,
"Tyson was just the unified "paper" champion, a pretender. Spinks was always the real champion"

And another motive is Tyson losing his title so unexpectedly early, just three fights after removing Spinks. If Tyson had reigned for another 10 defences or something, I think the willingness to accept Spinks' claim up until June 1988 would be more widespread, even among Tyson fanatics.

I think Tyson's pre-Spinks results are equally meaningful whether they are recognized as being for the championship or not. He was beating top 10 fighters.
I don't believe Spinks lost the heavyweight championship of the world until he was KO'd by Tyson though.

 

What about Lennox Lewis for example? He beat the #1 contender Ruddock but Ruddock was a Don King fighter who had lost two in a row. Then he wins the title against an old Tucker also a king fighter, for the vacant title so there's always some sort of politics that get in the way in some form. Do we not call Lewis a champion until he unifies against Holyfield?

 

He is champ when he beat Briggs.

 

I certainly don't call Lewis champion in '93 - '94. Even much of the British press scoffed at the "paper" title. "Didn't win it in the ring" followed him everywhere he went.

I could say Lewis won the "linear" title from Briggs in '98, but Briggs seems to have not even acknowledged his own championship, he was introduced merely as "the challenger".
Besides, the argument that Foreman actually discredited and even relinquished the championship in '95 to '97 to the point of meaningless is actually valid. Far more so than Spinks' merely pulling away from a Tucker or Tyson match for a few months in '87.

BTW, Lewis didn't even win the title against Tucker, he was "bestowed" WBC recognition before the fight. Ken Norton got the same treatment in '78, (although Norton's claim was a little bit stronger).

 

This is my take.

A bad champion is still a champion, unless we are going to do some serious rewriting of history.

I think that we have to accept the established heavyweight lineage to avoid chaos. It is not that I say "Sullivan, Corbett, Fitzsimmons Jeffries etc" then cross myself, but do we really want to open that can of worms?

 

Quick point - I'm that guy, and I defend the argument that there can be multiple lineal titles. It's simple, really. The lineage of a championship goes back to the NYSAC and NBA, which later became part of the WBC and WBA, respectively. Those two titles are the titles that trace the lineage of boxing champions for almost the last century. They are the linear titles.

If a lineal champion gives up or is stripped of either of those titles, the lineage is split. If one fighter claims the WBC (NYSAC) title and the other claims the WBA (NBA) title, you have two fighters with claims to the lineal title because both titles can be traced into boxing antiquity. That was my point, and there's nothing "stupid" about it.

Your problem was that you were disregarding the titles entirely by saying it didn't matter that Tyson had already unified the WBA and WBC titles because Spinks was the lineal champion because he beat Holmes. But in making that assertion, you're opening up a huge can of worms because you're arguing that the lineage is more important than the titles, but the lineage itself has been broken before, which is what led to the rise of Patterson in the first place in the wake of Marciano's retirement.

The reason Patterson became the "lineal" champion is because the NBA/NYSAC *said* he would. They are the boxing bodies who determine the champion that continues the lineage since the previous champion vacated the titles. You seem to acknowledge Patterson as the lineal champion. If you are OK with the NBA/NYSAC making that decision to continue lineage, why would you have a problem with the same decision after they declared the WBC/WBA titles vacant in the early 80s? Do you see what I'm getting at, here?

The NBA/NYSAC are the same boxing bodies whom, as the WBA and WBC, said Tyson was their champion, having gotten them from a champion who won the belts that were vacant according to their rules. You can't accept the judgment of these organizations in one breath, and then disregard them in another by saying the lineage goes beyond who holds the titles that officially trace the lineage, because you're creating bias and causing continuity problems.

As a scenario that illustrates this, who is the current lineal HW champion today? Wlad? Vitali? Haye? Whoever unifies the WBC/WBA? Whoever unifies all four belts? Whoever Ring says? Let's say Wlad beats Haye. Does he become the lineal champion? Why? How? Let's say Wlad fights and beats Vitali? Lineal champ then? Let's say Lennox Lewis returns. He never lost his title in the ring. If he came back, would you consider him the lineal champion all of a sudden? If so, does that mean you auto-strip Wlad? If not, why not? That's the mess you're creating by trying to haphazardly establish "lineage" without taking the actual lineal titles into account. You would have to basically create your own set of rules to handle each of these scenarios. Since they're your rules, all you've done is create *your* interpretation of the lineal champion, similar to what Ring Magazine does.

But I digress. Here's bottom line - Tyson won the same belts Patterson did at a younger age than Patterson won them.

 

No.

 

lol, oh, ok then. If you say so.

 

Why does the lineal title start with the NYSAC and NBA?

I dont think that either of these bodies has much to do with its origin.

The concept of a "world title" started when there were efforts to unify the British and American titles for the first time and became generally recognised when this had happened.

After that the concept of lineage has generaly been decided by the man who beat the man.

 

That just makes the "lineal title" theoretical. All decisions on who the contenders are to the title, and in fact the title itself upon becoming vacant is the determining factor as to the lineal champion. It's the longest running and oldest championship that is capable of continuing the lineage and tracing it back to antiquity. Because there are dozens of times when the title was awarded when there was no man for the man to beat (retirement, etc.), if we're going by that to determine lineal titles, then the lineage is long broken.