Let’s talk lineal Champion
A boxer and promotor are a circus act it’s a performance in the entertainment industry and so the idea is to generate income by providing some form of entertainment. It must be riveting it must be pulsating it must be impossible so it must be circus.
In order to sell tickets we need to promote the fight and or the fighter using any form of marketing that may grasp the attention of the public and create a hype and hysteria with the event.
Promotors need to be like a good dj or circus master and captivate and grip the audience while understanding their entertainment needs to get the best possible bottom line.
Over the years it’s become increasingly common for most boxers to build a reputation in the early part of their journey by registering a number of wins or going undefeated and looking good in the process.
This is to pad out their record and ordinarily will encompass a list of nobody boxers until we get to around 20-0(arbitrary)record and a public profile.
Now this boxer may be ripe for picking and ready for the bigger payday and may well be sought to fight for a title and become a lineal Champion.
The fight is a massive event and aggressively sold and brings in swathes of buying public to an unmissable gathering and marked occasion not to be missed.
The challenger fights he wins and he is crowned and now becomes the new lineal champion the guy who beat the guy and as a result is the only show in town.
He is now the only guy people want to watch and pay for and is the king for a period of time the promoter can keep the audience captivated once the kings stock begins to fall and a new crown prince is on the rise history comes and repeats itself.
This is the lifecycle of historic boxing and was indeed the model for many years the journey was dictated by the promotors Honest John and Gideon.
This singular champion however left little room to satisfy the insatiable appetite of the buying public and as promotors sought to capitalise on the growing demands on pugilist spectacles multiple titles became a necessary evil.
The introduction of the ABCs into the business led to blockbuster ticket sales and at the same time obfuscated the arena we now have multiple champions multiple blockbuster events and in a sense a bunch of paper titles.
The ABCs sought to sanction events with promotors that fed into the public imagination in order for these organisations to gain credibility thus becoming synonymously associated with the idea of a true champion.
How does this history help to interpret the current landscape of elite heavyweight boxing?
I have to say that when we look at the records of these boxers fury/wilder/Joshua we shouldn’t be surprised that they have been padded out with arguably weak opposition. That is the nature of the beast and the name of the game.
Joshua’s profile people argued as the least padded and his fan base will no doubt passionately vocalise to that tune. I myself believe his promotors have done a great job in making his opposition look better than they actually are. For me he only fought 1 great boxer and that was Klitschko the rest are a waste to even mention.
Wilder has a hugely padded out record and is a reflection of very poor management and promotion I would understand his numbers if he were a middleweight Mexican but not a heavyweight American. Indeed he should have fought Breazeale and Parker before AJ.
Fury is the lineal or ex lineal whatever you choose he beat the guy the cash king and number 1 in the division Klitschko and although he has a padded out record he also beat in my eyes wilder.
In this division the real champion for me is Tyson Fury the other two should very much seek to beat this guy as soon as possible if at all possible to consolidate their own position as far as I’m concerned if we reverted back to only one title the Champion right now would be Tyson Fury or indeed the mandatory opposition for the likes of AJ and Wilder. The public demand is high but as matchroom allow the prospect of a matchup marinade in the imagination they will be keeping a close eye on the numbers for their forthcoming bout as the public await the direction of the elite heavyweights in the division.