Who is the linear HW champ now?

[RockyMarcianofan00]

jeffries retired undefeated even before that: in 1905.

but there was always someone fighting the best out there to claim the title in a short time... not like now!

Yea but technically Jefferies was defeated because he came out of retirement and fought the current champ Jack Johnson...As BS as the fight was, it still technically represents passing the torch....

[realheavyhands]

And to make it worse, now, the two top fighters will NEVER square off!

a corny ass dream of 2 brothers/ hahaha

they need to fight..if they beat everybody they better fight..

[wmute]

Yea but technically Jefferies was defeated because he came out of retirement and fought the current champ Jack Johnson...As BS as the fight was, it still technically represents passing the torch....

hmmm that's right

johnson was however already considered the man, since he beat everyone and their mothers already. (logically you are still right, but the reader might be interested in knowing jeffries did not fight from 1904 to 1910)

anyway all of this started bcos of my misspelling of lewis and louis.

what i wanted to underline was that louis was the last lineal and we have been almost 4 years without a HW champ in a ring

the lineage, if it can be considered restored, I would consider it this way:
schmeling (or sharkey, but they split fights so it is a matter of splitting hairs i guess) restored the lineage after tunney, patterson after marciano.

louis and ali coming out of retirement sealed the deal for marciano and holmes.

after holmes everything is clear: no one retires until lewis.

i was thinking that fighters in the lower weights are today criticised if they dont take the hardest fights one after the other... i guess today's HWs are just considered a lost cause

[squealpiggy]

You can still have a linear champ if you do a fight for a vacated title between two top contenders then the winner can be considered champ, and the winner of the first title defence would be linear champion. The trouble is that with four BS sanctioning bodies you never get this situation.

The WBC belt may be of most historical significance but they do enough of the messing around with rankings etc (see the affront being paid to Samuel Peter as an example) to pretty much negate their claim to being the One True Championship.

[guru]

if you go by the "beat the man who beat the man" theory, which i think is ******, here it is...

tyson unifies belts, so we start w/him: tyson>douglas>holy>bowe>holy>moorer>foreman>briggs(lol, thats crap)>lewis>rahman>lewis

lewis retires, so it goes back to the last man to beat him, rahman who then loses to holy, who loses to byrd, who loses to wlad... so that makes wlad the champ going by the "beat the man rule" that makes briggs a linear champ...

[kayjay]

maskeav is the wbc champ thats why hopkins wanted to fight him

Sure, and if Klitschko were WBC champ Hopkins would call him out.

[chidave]

I would say that noone is the linear champ at the moment, the title is vacant. Although I believe Wlad is the best of the bunch, he needs at least two of the belts before he can make that claim.

[realheavyhands]

Sure, and if Klitschko were WBC champ Hopkins would call him out.

more likely then if he was the IBF

[Southpaw Stinger]

Klitschko Is The Ibf.... The Wbc Which Is The Real Champ Which Dates Back As The First Belt Is Maskeav

Isn't the WBA older?

And technically Lewis is still the Linear champ and he will remain so until someone beats him or until someone unifies the belts. Wlad is the closest thing we've got at the moment, we'll have to see what he and his brother do next...

[JohnL]

Briggs is the Man

This is not my opinion but an argument can be made for Briggs as being the lineal champion(again) Because Brewster beat Klitschko in a sort of before the fact unification match. Lyakovich then beat Brewster and lost to Briggs. Simple right? Please feel free to discuss and disagree