Does anyone here respect LINEAL championships?

[2501]

Okay Cinderella Man fan. If he's a great fighter then so is Arturo Gatti and Carlos Baldomir. LOL.

i dont remember Gatti or Baldomir having Renee Zelwelger as their wife.

[DuttyAlacrity]

But getting to the root of that, Foreman was a total joke of a champion. He defended against unranked Axel Schulz, won a gift decision, then refused to give Schulz a rematch that he was ordered to. Foreman's second title reign was an embarrassment to boxing.

that's true after he won it... he didn't do crap with it, but he did win it legitimately. Luckily we had Lewis clean up the mess, now we need someone to clean up the current hw mess

[DuttyAlacrity]

i dont remember Gatti or Baldomir having Renee Zelwelger as their wife.

good point

[bsrizpac]

i dont remember Gatti or Baldomir having Renee Zelwelger as their wife.

Okay whatever. I meant as fighters they are comparable. Ms. Z is overrated.

[DuttyAlacrity]

the lineal championship should carry more weight in a division whose championship is divided among several fighters, but if someone were to unify the division then that would mean whoever the lineal champ is should fight the unified champ to determine who is the undisputed champ (meaning no one else has a legitmate claim to the championship). if the lineal and unified champ don't fight, to determine who is undisputed you'll have to go to who has the better quality of work at that division.

for instance. lineal champ casamayor should fight unfied champ campbell to determine who is the undisputed champ. I consider Floyd the lineal and undisputed champ (because all those belts out there actually belong to floyd, baldomir just didn't pay all the sanctioning fees) but if cotto beat margarito (who holds the ibf belt that is not on the line in their fight) and fights pwilliams if he beats quintana for the wbo belt or quintana defeats pwilliams again, imho floyd will lose his undisputed status and floyd and cotto need to fight. if they don't fight and cotto ends up with a better body of work at welterweight, then I'd say Cotto is the undisputed unified champ and floyd is only the lineal champ.

IMHO this is where the division needs to go and must go in order for Floyd and Cotto to fight, because then Cotto will be able to generated the type of hype needed to make Floyd/Cotto into a major mega event. Floyd needs to be careful though because if such a scenario does happen, IMHO Cotto would demand more money and deservedly so, but whoever is the bigger draw and the more marketable fighter will probably get the lion's share.

Those were some good points. The only thing is i feel Mayweather should fight the winner of margo/cotto period, or don't fight at all. It would be an injustice to the WW division if he doesn't do that. Zab had all those belts already, so cotto doesn't need to collect all of them again...

http://re3.yt-thm-a01.yimg.com/image/25/m2/2453313613

[KnockoutTheFat]

Let's take a look at the linear champions right now:
(I consider the linear champ the man who beat the guy who first unified 3/4 of the belts)

HW: Vacant (but Wlad just needs to fight the WBC or the WBA champ)
CW: David Haye (legitimate)
LHW: Zsolt Erdei (not-legitimate; title-defenses are a joke, Calzaghe is #1 in the division so I consider him the man to beat)
SMW: Joe Calzaghe (legitimate; lineage starts again if somebody managed to unify)
MW: Kelly Pavlik (beat Taylor who had ALL 4 BELTS before being stripped of two; so it's legitimate)
154: Vacant
WW: Floyd Mayweather Jr. (Needs to fight the winner of Cotto-Margarito unless the result turns out to be a miraculous draw; even then he'd still need to fight one of them; awaits to see if the DLH fight is at WW or 150, then we can make a case if his WW reign is legitimate or not)
140: Ricky Hatton (legitimate; despite not having an alphabet belt, the division isn't that great and the belts are broken up)
LW: Joel Casamayor (not legitimate); all of his belts were vacated and 3/4 of them are held by Nate Campbell so they need to fight
130: Vacant (Nobody unifies)
FW: See 130 (last linear champ was Pacquiao after he beat Barrera who beat Hamed who beat the other titleholders (champs vacated to fight him)

And that's as far as I go. I don't really know much about the weight-classes lower than FW.

[DiegoFuego]

Let's take a look at the linear champions right now:
(I consider the linear champ the man who beat the guy who first unified 3/4 of the belts)

HW: Vacant (but Wlad just needs to fight the WBC or the WBA champ)
CW: David Haye (legitimate)
LHW: Zsolt Erdei (not-legitimate; title-defenses are a joke, Calzaghe is #1 in the division so I consider him the man to beat)
SMW: Joe Calzaghe (legitimate; lineage starts again if somebody managed to unify)
MW: Kelly Pavlik (beat Taylor who had ALL 4 BELTS before being stripped of two; so it's legitimate)
154: Vacant
WW: Floyd Mayweather Jr. (Needs to fight the winner of Cotto-Margarito unless the result turns out to be a miraculous draw; even then he'd still need to fight one of them; awaits to see if the DLH fight is at WW or 150, then we can make a case if his WW reign is legitimate or not)
140: Ricky Hatton (legitimate; despite not having an alphabet belt, the division isn't that great and the belts are broken up)
LW: Joel Casamayor (not legitimate); all of his belts were vacated and 3/4 of them are held by Nate Campbell so they need to fight130: Vacant (Nobody unifies)
FW: See 130 (last linear champ was Pacquiao after he beat Barrera who beat Hamed who beat the other titleholders (champs vacated to fight him)

And that's as far as I go. I don't really know much about the weight-classes lower than FW.

dude, I don't think you know what Linear means. this whole topic is about how the linear champion doesn't lose his title for being stripped of belts. the linear champion is the man. Corrales beat Casamayor, Freitas, and then Castillo to be the man, then Casamayor beat him in 2006. Casamayor is the linear champion, Campbell just holds the belts.

[Pullcounter]

Those were some good points. The only thing is i feel Mayweather should fight the winner of margo/cotto period, or don't fight at all. It would be an injustice to the WW division if he doesn't do that. Zab had all those belts already, so cotto doesn't need to collect all of them again...
http://re3.yt-thm-a01.yimg.com/image/25/m2/2453313613

I too would prefer to see cotto/floyd sooner than later, but cotto needs to unify to generate the kind of interest that will get floyd into the ring with him.

[KnockoutTheFat]

dude, I don't think you know what Linear means. this whole topic is about how the linear champion doesn't lose his title for being stripped of belts. the linear champion is the man. Corrales beat Casamayor, Freitas, and then Castillo to be the man, then Casamayor beat him in 2006. Casamayor is the linear champion, Campbell just holds the belts.

Yeah I know that. The part where I put legitimacy at is how the title reign went, not how they earned the belts (Pavlik is an exception since he doesn't have a title defense). Casamayor's reign as champion is questionable as he got a gift decision over Jose Armando Santa Cruz. I do think though I may have hastily used the term not legitimate though as I'm still a little bitter of that decision. Let's just see how he does in his next couple fights to see if his reign is legitimate or not.

[The_Italian]

My opinion is this...

Sometimes being the lineal champion makes you the man...

and sometimes being just a "alphabet title holder" makes you the man...

and sometimes having NO titles in the division makes you the man.


For example...

(not to turn it into a mayweather thread but to me it's a good example)...

should miguel cotto keep beating the top welterweights (he already has wins over judah, mosley, quintana...at 140...etc.) like margarito and even williams then he's beaten i think ALL the top welterweights in the division even though mayweather wont fight him...

so even though MAYWEATHER is the LINEAL champion cotto (in my book should he beat all the top weltweights) would be the real champion in my opinion and probably the opinion of many other's...

So in a situation like that you dont have to be the lineal champion to be the top dog in the division.

Now if cotto beat all the top welterweights but THEN lost to floyd then i wouldnt be able to say he's the man at 147...floyd would be...with cotto a REAL close second and everyone else would be a VERY distant 3rd.

so it matters on the situation and the circumstances to be honest.