Fury's retirements and the lineal championship

[billeau2]

I think you absolutely have to differentiate between a world title and a divisional championship.

The WBA, WBC, WBO, IBF, and IBO don't even pretend they're ranking the best fighters in the division. They are only ranking fighters moving along a specific path to their own belts. They do not rank each other's champions and often fighters will pick and choose specific bodies to be ranked by and others to ignore entirely.

The lineal championship as well as the TBRB and (even though it's highly compromised being owned by promoters for a long time and now being owned by a promoter/despotic government) The Ring at least claim to be ranking the best in the division regardless of outside circumstances. They don't care what belts somebody has, who promotes them, what bureaucratic hoops they have or haven't jumped through, etc.

I'm not saying it's not an accomplishment to win sanctioning body world titles, because it is. But I consider it an entirely different category of achievement than winning the TBRB world championship. The Ring has torpedoed its own credibility too many times over the years, but at least IN THEORY they stand for something more than the alphabet soups.

My problem with that statement is while it is true it is also misleading... Not talking about you making the statement, talking about what most fans see when they look at the alphabet soup titles. Here is what happens psychologically, the fans gravitate towards the perceived strongest champion, and generally over beers, sports parties watching the fights etc, this is the guy who carries the fans approval. That is precisely why I like the lineal. It is like a vampire in that ultimately as long as fans have a voice it cannot die.

The other issue would be oranization. Triple AAA clubs are fantastic. I bet the championship team in a strong farm system could challenge a major league team, maybe even do well against a championship team. BUT they are never considered the same way as the best. Alphabet organizations, in creating a belt do not get their merit because of the strength of their fighters... They do not claim to be subservient to a champion... hence the misleading rhetoric.

BTW I see in your post you have similar feelings this is not a critscism of your post which I agree with.

[billeau2]

I think it is interesting people take issue with body ratings, who are at least supposed to rate based on achievement rather than popularity, and relieve that complaint buy turning to something that makes no pretense toward fairness.


Sanctioning bodies sell ratings to promoters even though they shouldn't so I only recognize promotional ratings from third party promotional outfits. ... seems really silly to me. Ring doesn't care who promotes who? Why on earth would you believe that?

Ilike both the post you are responding to and yours... I believe somewhere in the middle lies at least a partial truth... These organizations probably do make a prestense of fairness, but it is an adulterated version that is tainted by politics. And yes Ring certainly is in the mix (as you say).

[The D3vil]

Is that ever a thing for a fighter?

I don't know.

I just know that boxers are constantly retiring & unretiring on social media & nobody takes it seriously.

[max baer]

Fury deserves a belt forever, so the Lineal is always his, even if he comes back and loses 10 more fights. He made the Lineal his own in the back-and-forth war with Prime, in his 30s, Wlad. Fury declined early due to extreme weight gain, excess drink, and excess uncastrated wild boar, but he is forever the Lineal Champion.

He is the only man to beat Wlad in Wlad's 30s, the only man to beat Chisora 3 times, the only man to beat prime Wilder, he also has an energy drink in multiple flavours. Nash out - His Most Majestic Majesty

love it Nash!

[max baer]

- - Ring was owned by Oscar who clearly penalized Manny after he lost the lawsuit to Arum for the rights to promote Manny.

Prob being Manny was so fantastical that they had no choice but to rank him highly or be laughed out of business.

Queeny always adds his business side of things to the debate. He always speaks about the money involved and the promoters who swindled whom and I love that as he is the only one who talks about the skullduggery of the boxing game. he reads a lot of boxing stuff about contracts and managers etc I think. Why do you guys always take him so badly he is only ribbing you with a bit of wit! Lighten up. Also queeny loves joe calazaghe so he must know his boxing!!!
I don't know if Fury will make a comeback. I don't know enough about boxing technique but it seems to me that as reflexes get less quick the boxer needs to employ other skills like big george foreman did in his comeback in the 90's. Ali too had to improve other aspects of his game to win in the later 70's.
Fury is a very happily married man and he has earned so much money. But he may decide that he craves another fight and starts thinking about newer styles and how to adjust his technique to win if he comes back. The one thing I always liked most about fury is his enthusiasm for life in general.
He gets up really early and gets about the country in his car visiting friends and he really likes to keep busy. He may decide at some point "f**k it lets get another fight" and start training newer techniques to capitalise on his size and maybe make up for his slightly slower reflexes. There is a bit of me that wonders if he was spreading himself a bit thin in the last 5 or so years.
All the stuff he was up to. On the other hand he has had a great time and he lost on points. No one has ever kept him down.
There is a photo of him as a new born baby and he is throwing a punch and laughing! very uplifting guy he is he really entertains the public.
I really admire his enthusiasm for life and his optimism.
If he comes back the boxing world would love it!

[Anomalocaris]

Queeny always adds his business side of things to the debate. He always speaks about the money involved and the promoters who swindled whom and I love that as he is the only one who talks about the skullduggery of the boxing game. he reads a lot of boxing stuff about contracts and managers etc I think. Why do you guys always take him so badly he is only ribbing you with a bit of wit! Lighten up. Also queeny loves joe calazaghe so he must know his boxing!!!
I don't know if Fury will make a comeback. I don't know enough about boxing technique but it seems to me that as reflexes get less quick the boxer needs to employ other skills like big george foreman did in his comeback in the 90's. Ali too had to improve other aspects of his game to win in the later 70's.
Fury is a very happily married man and he has earned so much money. But he may decide that he craves another fight and starts thinking about newer styles and how to adjust his technique to win if he comes back. The one thing I always liked most about fury is his enthusiasm for life in general.
He gets up really early and gets about the country in his car visiting friends and he really likes to keep busy. He may decide at some point "f**k it lets get another fight" and start training newer techniques to capitalise on his size and maybe make up for his slightly slower reflexes. There is a bit of me that wonders if he was spreading himself a bit thin in the last 5 or so years.
All the stuff he was up to. On the other hand he has had a great time and he lost on points. No one has ever kept him down.
There is a photo of him as a new born baby and he is throwing a punch and laughing! very uplifting guy he is he really entertains the public.
I really admire his enthusiasm for life and his optimism.
If he comes back the boxing world would love it!

What a superb post.

I have always liked Fury, what you see is what you get, no carefully crafted public image for him (Joshua).

There was a superb documentary series on him and his family on ITV just before the second Wilder fight.

He and Paris came across really well, I always remember that troubled teen lad he reached out to.

Plus he gave us so many great moments, Batman, the Resurrection, the ring entrance to White etc.

People trash him now but at his best he was a nightmare for any fighter who ever lived.

Oh and how many heavies were never stopped in their career?

Very few.

[Dr Z]

When Joe Louis retired, his return fight against Ezzard Charles was considered to be for the vacant lineal championship. This is despite him retiring as champion and no clear new lineage being established in his absence.

Tyson Fury became the lineal heavyweight champion of the world when he beat Wladimir Klitschko and then he retired. He stayed retired for longer than Louis, then returned.

If you look at the TBRB and The Ring, both of them honored Fury's retirement and they considered their championships vacant until Tyson Fury defeated Deontay Wilder in their second bout. At that point they were the top two heavyweights according to The Ring, TBRB, ESPN, and the vast majority of other independent outlets.

Fury then "retired" again, and again, the TBRB and the Ring honored his retirement. Their titles were once again vacant until Oleksandr Usyk defeated Anthony Joshua the second time, as again, those two were the top rated heavyweights at that point in time.

However, Fury then unretired once again and many in the media still recognized his lineal claim from the Klitschko fight, not recognizing Usyk until he defeated Fury the first time.

So, which camp do you fall into?

Did Fury have one really long lineal championship reign, or did he have two shorter ones?

We all agree Usyk is the lineal champion now, but do you think he became lineal via his win over Fury or did he actually establish a new lineage with his second win over Anthony Joshua?

In my opinion, since they honored the retirement of Joe Louis, we need to do the same with Fury's retirements. So to me, Fury is a 2X lineal champion and he was actually challenging for Usyk's lineal championship in their first match. This is despite most of the media running with the narrative that Fury had one very long lineal reign and Usyk was the challenger.

Of course, since Usyk won their fight it ended the debate going forward. But the past is still up for discussion. Which side do you fall on?

I view Fury as a 5 time points taken away fouler ( in 5 separate fights ) who really lost an early pro fight, and beat a combination of the old, the not so good, and fat competition. He is also a PED abuser. In a nutshell that sums up his career. All of the above is true.

I for one am glad now he is mostly irrelevant.

[kafkod]

IMO the lineal works great when it is needed. I think most people misunderstand it, using it as an absolute all the time when it works best under specific conditions. As Marg said "It is based on consensus" and that matters because ultimately fans are a consensus... Fans have the rights and privalege to determine, to weigh in on any debate about who the champion of the world (the heavyweight champ specifically) is, when things get hazy.

So when every alphabet is declaring their own champ, or when there is a question about a sudden champion who got there the wrong way, the lineal comes up and asks: "who beat the best to become the best?" To declare Usyk the lineal hardly matters because it is obvious. But what about when you get multiple alphabet soup chumpions lol? Then the fans weigh in and do so by asking that the man who beat the best, be declared the best.

So simple, so elegant, so over thought...

Over thought? Definitely.

Simple and elegant. Definitely not!

Here's why: "The lineal comes up and asks: Who beat the best to become the best?"

Wlad Klitschko, According to the people who awarded him that "title", became the lineal champion by beating Ruslan Chagaev. Did anybody seriously rate Chagaev as "the best" when Wlad beat him?

And to complicate the issue even more, most fans considered Vitali, not Wlad, to be the best heavyweight in the world at that time.

The truth is that, while there is such a thing as the lineage of HW champions - which is simply the historical record of who beat who, and when - there is no such thing as the lineal title. It is a chimaera.

[billeau2]

Over thought? Definitely.

Simple and elegant. Definitely not!

Here's why: "The lineal comes up and asks: Who beat the best to become the best?"

Wlad Klitschko, According to the people who awarded him that "title", became the lineal champion by beating Ruslan Chagaev. Did anybody seriously rate Chagaev as "the best" when Wlad beat him?

And to complicate the issue even more, most fans considered Vitali, not Wlad, to be the best heavyweight in the world at that time.

The truth is that, while there is such a thing as the lineage of HW champions - which is simply the historical record of who beat who, and when - there is no such thing as the lineal title. It is a chimaera.

Look at the bolded: You just described and did so perfectly, why the lineal works. Chagaev was simply not the best... And it is, as you state, obvious...

Did most fans consider Vitalie the best? I don't think so. It was debatable. Still is. A chimera has many heads, look it up. The lineal is simple, it has one head, one concrete anchor. And sometimes it is not needed. It works especially well when the alphabets try to put lipstick on pigs. Did anyone need the lineal to confirm Lennox Lewis was the champ?

Finally, you are confusing what Fans debate with a mechanism for asserting whom the de facto champion is. We can argue that Moses Ituama is so insanely talented that he is better than Usyk... Does not mean he has a claim to the throne. Vitalie being "better" than his brother is a different issue than who can assert championship status.

[famicommander]

Some people don't acknowledge the Chagaev fight as the point where Wlad became lineal. Some say it was the Sultan Ibragimov fight, some say it was the Povetkin fight.

But the point is everyone acknowledges that Wladimir Klitschko became lineal at some point during his reign, then lost to Fury.