Why Do We Continue to Recognize the Lineal Championship When....

[therealpugilist]

Honestly..and i mean honestly..no one said lineal didnt matter until GGG was not lineal.....before then ya'll are bragged on the Lineal title....and thats a fact

^^^^^^hundreds of years having lineal champions and all of a sudden they dont matter because GGG doesnt have one.

thank you for pointing this out and its mostly his fan boys who say stuff like this


the man who beat the man is the champion...its a pretty simple concept.

Roy Jones was my favorite fighter all time but I was never so biased that I didnt get Dariusz Michalcewski his credit for being the lineal champion.



i never heard it be minimized until these GGG fan boys started spewing that crap.

[therealpugilist]

1. There are no official rankings.
2. There is no rule that says you have to defend your "title" against the #1 contender.
3. There is no rule that says you have to defend your "title" against ANYONE in your division.
4. There is no rule that says you even have to fight anyone, period
5. No fighter, trainer, promoter or network cares about this "title"


Look at the situation at 160. The "lineal" champion has never fought a MW contender. A fight between the #1 vs. #2 fighter in the MW division has not taken place since Sergio Martinez defeated Kelly Pavlik in 2010.

Look at the situation at 175. The "lineal" champion hasn't even fought a guy in the top 5 since he became champion.

Roy Jones was the undisputed champion but never the "lineal" champion.

I know it has meaning from a historical perspective. But the system does not work anymore. Too much politics, not enough fights between 1's, 2's, 3's, 4's and 5's. It's time to let this go

Im a huge Jones fan but you cant take it away from Dariusz Michalcewski that he was the man who beat the man. He and Virgil hill unified and were 1 and 2 at 175. Jones didnt get there til after.


Jones got his belts because DM got stripped and he beat Reggie Johnson for the IBF i think and never won the WBO thats the only one DM kept.

you cant just take it away from fighters who actually won their titles in the ring just because GGG hasnt beat the man yet....he can but he just hasnt


why is it only GGG fans that minimize the importance of lineal titles? im just saying....Lineal titles have been around hundreds of years even in the bare nuckle days you had to beat the man to be the man. Lineal title was before all these alphabet titles.

[BennyST]

Agreed. It's become completely meaningless due to the current era of one new title for each day of the week. It made sense when there were the two titles, WBA and WBC, and maybe even a little into when the IBF came around.

More or less though, by that stage the whole championship debacle had become absurd. It's worse than it's ever been and no amount of pushing supposedly legit, old school labels will change it. Even the boxing purist terms, like lineal title and pound for pound etc, have become used as a means to push an agenda/fighter through whatever means they can.

Unless you beat all the champions and become Undisputed, the suggestion of a lineal champion went out long ago in my opinion. Just another term people use very loosely to make their fighter seem more than he probably is.

I can't stand the term lineal champion for current day fighters.

[New England]

it's not a perfect system, but if you rank fighters and they fight, eventually a "lineage" is established. ideally the lineal title will be defended against the best challengers.


it's the guy who beat the guy. if you've got a better system to figure out who the best boxer is, than having them fight each other, i am all ears.


we can't stop placing importance on the rank of fighters just because they don't fight. we still rank them.

if canelo doesn't fight golovkin it's entirely reasonable to strip him of his "lineage." it's basically like he's vacated it. golovkin's the best MW on the planet according to any unbiased observer. the guy who beats golovkin, if he's still the best MW on the planet at the time of the deafet, will be the best MW on the planet. that's lineage. it is not a belt. it's going through history to see who beat who. hopkins. taylor. pavlik. martinez. then it gets fuzzy, and the imperfections of the system become apparent and impact the lineage.


but what would you prefer? four belts per division with completely subjective rankings for those belts based on how much money is presented to a sanctioning body in a paper bag? lineage is much better [less subjective, more likely to properly crown the best fighter in the division,] than that. you're just going ot have to trust me if you've got enough faith in the alphabets to think they're a better system of ranking fighters than going through history to trace a lineal champion.

[BennyST]

Im a huge Jones fan but you cant take it away from Dariusz Michalcewski that he was the man who beat the man. He and Virgil hill unified and were 1 and 2 at 175. Jones didnt get there til after.


Jones got his belts because DM got stripped and he beat Reggie Johnson for the IBF i think and never won the WBO thats the only one DM kept.

you cant just take it away from fighters who actually won their titles in the ring just because GGG hasnt beat the man yet....he can but he just hasnt


why is it only GGG fans that minimize the importance of lineal titles? im just saying....Lineal titles have been around hundreds of years even in the bare nuckle days you had to beat the man to be the man. Lineal title was before all these alphabet titles.

Yes, and up until recently it did have meaning to it but it just doesn't anymore. Don't know what it has to do with GGG. It was an important distinction, but when more and more champions with more and more titles came onto the scene it became an obsolete term that had very little real meaning.

[therealpugilist]

Yes, and up until recently it did have meaning to it but it just doesn't anymore. Don't know what it has to do with GGG. It was an important distinction, but when more and more champions with more and more titles came onto the scene it became an obsolete term that had very little real meaning.

this topic was never discussed or brought up until he became a decent name and had a decent following from 13-14

I literally heard no one talk about it until he came around


beating the man who beat the man is the best part about boxing.


Just because 1 and 2 or 1 and 3 dont fight often doesnt mean its any less significant


I dont care how many alphabet belts their are....most are pieces of ****...the wbo doesnt rank other titleholders, the wba has 2 major belts, the wbc strips fighters for whatever reason the like, and the ibf has some legitamately crap ratings.

Go look up the top ten for some of these sanctioning bodies. Its pitiful and a lot of the fighters even hard core fans dont recognize.


alphabet belts are the worst part of the sport. The man who beat the man is a mainstay in this sport. it eliminates all the confusion with the belts. They strip fighers when they want to any way

how boxing always worked is, to be the man, you have to beat the man. Not wait on an organization to strip the titleholder for not fighing a mandatory. thats lame.

[HeroBando]

this topic was never discussed or brought up until he became a decent name and had a decent following from 13-14

I literally heard no one talk about it until he came around


beating the man who beat the man is the best part about boxing.


Just because 1 and 2 or 1 and 3 dont fight often doesnt mean its any less significant


I dont care how many alphabet belts their are....most are pieces of ****...the wbo doesnt rank other titleholders, the wba has 2 major belts, the wbc strips fighters for whatever reason the like, and the ibf has some legitamately crap ratings.

Go look up the top ten for some of these sanctioning bodies. Its pitiful and a lot of the fighters even hard core fans dont recognize.


alphabet belts are the worst part of the sport. The man who beat the man is a mainstay in this sport. it eliminates all the confusion with the belts. They strip fighers when they want to any way

how boxing always worked is, to be the man, you have to beat the man. Not wait on an organization to strip the titleholder for not fighing a mandatory. thats lame.

The man who beat the man forfeited, dummy. Lol at Canelo being the man and not lol at.you

[Robbie Barrett]

The man who beat the man forfeited, dummy. Lol at Canelo being the man and not lol at.you

Even if Canelo wasn't lineal (which he is) Golovkin still wouldn't be because he hasn't beaten a top 3 fighter.

[therealpugilist]

The man who beat the man forfeited, dummy. Lol at Canelo being the man and not lol at.you

.....like I said...no one brought this silly topic up until GGG hit the scene.

I dont like Canelo dropped the belt....its just that a belt


The man who beat the man has been a staple in boxing for hundreds of years.

its not gonna change because a fighter has a few fans that are disappointed that he isnt the lineal champion yet


Roy Jones was never lineal but had all the belts, just like GGG. Doesnt change my boy roy wasnt the man who beat the man. Regardless, what roy did do was clean out the division with or without DM and beat guys he never fought like Tarver, Reggie Johnson and actually has a better resume at 175 than DM. GGG can do the same or just keep collecting belts until Canelo officially moves down.

Most think he is the best anyway so once canelo moves down, all GGG has to do is beat the next highest contender and he is the lineal champion. He already has 3/4 major belts

championships are won in the ring, not in board rooms.

the man who beat the man will always matter in boxing and the alphabet bs is too confusing. they strip guys as they please for whatever reason they make up. the WBA has two belts for crying out loud.

[IronDanHamza]

I disagree with this. Your resume was and still the most important thing when ranking fighters and Bradley prove that. Yes he struggled to some of his fight but still he won against Vargas and Ruslan. He was competitive with Pacquiao and won at least 4 rounds to him. His competition in WW is much better than any current WW.

Bradley wins over Marquez is a much better win than Brook over Porter. Add Bradleys number of wins in WW like Vargas, Ruslan, Rios. He is much better than Brook before Pac-Brad 3.

Of course getting knock down twice by Pacquiao in their third fight will have huge effect in his WW ranking.

No it doesn't. Maybe your all time rankings but not your current divisional ranking.

Fact of the matter is WW is wide open there's no consensus #1 and #2