Why there is only One Heavyweight Champion

[Willow The Wisp]

"Again my friend, not my list. Reach out to any of the Universities listed if you need to. Your uphill debate is with them, not me."

Context is everything. I don't know where you got that list from or by whom and for what purpose it was compiled. But I do know that it has no place in any rational discussion about the historical lineage of world HW boxing champions.

"You will find that the segue to humans alone and nothing but, is completed by the time of Onomastos of Smytha"

No mythological heroes, deities or supernatural beings of any kind have ever competed in a historical boxing match, so any list of historical world HW champions should contain the names of humans only. John L Sullivan was the first universally recognised world HW champ, Lennox Lewis was the last. There has been no universally recognised champ since Lennox retired.

"It might be that non ranked prospect Vyacheslav Glazkov falling and hurting his right knee, handing the esteemed IBF "Heavyweight championship of the world" to one Charles Martin in 2016 holds equal meaning for you, and that's OK."

Glazkov and Martin again? I don't understand why you keep ****ing on about that fight. How Charles Martin came to hold the IBF title has no bearing whatsoever on Tyson Fury's claim to be the imaginary lineal champion.

Now THAT'S a troll.
You know nothing (important) about Boxing, and regarding facts which are well documented....say hi the Flat Earth Society.

Maybe, find something else to do, the Adults are talking here and your sop****ric disruptions may be cheating someone out of their chance to learn something meaningful.

[kafkod]

Headline from the Athenian Sporting Gazette, circa 850 BC (since lost to posterity)

ARIES TESTS POSITIVE FOR IMMORTALITY!
LINEAL HEAVYWEIGHT TILE FIGHT WITH THESEUS IS OFF!

24 hours later:

LUIS "KING KONG" ORTIZ STEPS IN AS REPLACEMENT
FOR ARIES IN LINEAL TITLE FIGHT WITH THESEUS!

[kafkod]

Now THAT'S a troll.
You know nothing (important) about Boxing, and regarding facts which are well documented....say hi the Flat Earth Society.

Maybe, find something else to do, the Adults are talking here and your sop****ric disruptions may be cheating someone out of their chance to learn something meaningful.

Facts which are well documented ... like immortal deities competing in Olympic boxing matches.

Ok fella, whatever you say.

[Willow The Wisp]

24 hours later:

LUIS "KING KONG" ORTIZ STEPS IN AS REPLACEMENT
FOR ARIES IN LINEAL TITLE FIGHT WITH THESEUS!

That was pretty god, pretty good.
You may troll here.

[Toffee]

To make sense of this dispute you need to separate "the lineage", which is a matter of objective, historical fact, and "the lineal champion", which is a subjective mental concept based on a judgement call.

The lineage of HW champions is black and white. Like I said, it is a matter of objective historical fact, like a family tree. And, like a family tree, it can have more than one branch. Nobody looks at a family tree and asks questions like ... which of the 3 sons of John Smith is the REAL son of John Smith? Which of their 3 families is the REAL Smith family? There can be only one!

At times when the HW lineage is divided, as it is now, with different versions of the title held by more than one individual, the question: "Which of those individuals is the lineal champion?" has no objective answer. We have to either accept that the question has more than one answer, or stop asking it and wait for the lineage to be united by an undisputed title fight.

The lineage is objective up to the point when it breaks. That's when subjectivity comes into it. And there's subjectivity right through history in defining the lineal champion at any particular point in time as there have been complete breaks where the 'man who beat the man' retired.

But the lineage can never be "divided". How does that happen? You've either got a claim or you don't. Alphabet titles have no relevance. Which means that even an undisputed champion doesn't necessarily change things. If Fury drops his belt, someone picks it up and then fights Usyk... would that fight define a new lineage? Absolutely not in my view.

As I said, it's not objective. Everyone has their own set of rules. Yours includes titlists having a claim, mine definitely doesn't. That's ok - neither of us get to dictate which is the right answer.

In the past, fighters felt a responsibility to settle matters. The best fighter would take on their challengers. Regardless of subjective claims to being the champion at points in time, they'd put it right. Everyone's interpretations would become irrelevant if they all fought each other... we'd arrive at a new lineage.

Fighters don't have that responsibility any more. So it's dead.

[kafkod]

The lineage is objective up to the point when it breaks. That's when subjectivity comes into it. And there's subjectivity right through history in defining the lineal champion at any particular point in time as there have been complete breaks where the 'man who beat the man' retired.

But the lineage can never be "divided". How does that happen? You've either got a claim or you don't. Alphabet titles have no relevance. Which means that even an undisputed champion doesn't necessarily change things. If Fury drops his belt, someone picks it up and then fights Usyk... would that fight define a new lineage? Absolutely not in my view.

As I said, it's not objective. Everyone has their own set of rules. Yours includes titlists having a claim, mine definitely doesn't. That's ok - neither of us get to dictate which is the right answer.

In the past, fighters felt a responsibility to settle matters. The best fighter would take on their challengers. Regardless of subjective claims to being the champion at points in time, they'd put it right. Everyone's interpretations would become irrelevant if they all fought each other... we'd arrive at a new lineage.

Fighters don't have that responsibility any more. So it's dead.

In its most basic expression, the HW lineage is simply a list of names, one champion after the other, in chronological order. A division occurs when, for whatever reason, there is more than one claimant to the title of "World Heavyweight Champion", defending their version of the title against different challengers, which obviously generates more than one list of title holders.

You can try and negate that assertion by saying that, no matter how many claimants to the title there may be, only one of them is the true or real champion. But that simply begs the question ... which one?

The Ring Magazine tried to resolve that problem by using lineages and the "man who beat the man" method to crown a true or "lineal champion" in each division and awarding them a lineal championship belt, but they had give that up as a lost cause years ago.

[kafkod]

That was pretty god, pretty good.
You may troll here.

I see what you did there!

But, trust me, I'm not trolling here.

[Toffee]

In its most basic expression, the HW lineage is simply a list of names, one champion after the other, in chronological order. A division occurs when, for whatever reason, there is more than one claimant to the title of "World Heavyweight Champion", defending their version of the title against different challengers, which obviously generates more than one list of title holders.

You can try and negate that assertion by saying that, no matter how many claimants to the title there may be, only one of them is the true or real champion. But that simply begs the question ... which one?

The Ring Magazine tried to resolve that problem by using lineages and the "man who beat the man" method to crown a true or "lineal champion" in each division and awarding them a lineal championship belt, but they had give that up as a lost cause years ago.

So by your reckoning Lewis was the last... and it's been 'divided' ever since until we get an undisputed champion?

Mate, that's not what most people would believe. That's far too much credibility given to organisations/belts.

It's not even what the word 'lineage' means.

[real raw]

Now THAT'S a troll.
You know nothing (important) about Boxing, and regarding facts which are well documented....say hi the Flat Earth Society.

Maybe, find something else to do, the Adults are talking here and your sop****ric disruptions may be cheating someone out of their chance to learn something meaningful.

That's just it, it's NOT meaningful. The only meaningful thing is who can beat whom on any given day. That is the ONLY thing that matters in combat sports. Your are conflating history with boxing knowledge. Being able to read "who begat who" doesn't make anyone knowledgeable about boxing, it makes them knowledgeable about history. It's pretentious.

[kafkod]

So by your reckoning Lewis was the last... and it's been 'divided' ever since until we get an undisputed champion?

Mate, that's not what most people would believe. That's far too much credibility given to organisations/belts.

It's not even what the word 'lineage' means.

We're kind of talking across each other here. When I said the lineage of HW champions became divided I was simply referring to the historical record of all the fighters who have held officially recognised versions of world HW titles since the days of John L.

What I'm saying is that that historical record is the only HW lineage which has any real, objective meaning. The record of so called lineal champions is not objective because it is based partly on historical fact and partly on subjective judgement calls.

Lennox Lewis was the last undisputed champion. He was the undisputed champion because he held all the championship belts. So obviously the organisations/belts must matter!

Tyson Fury, allegedly, has been the lineal champion since beating Wlad. But nobody outside of Fury and his most delusional fan boys were calling his comeback fights against Seferi and Pianeta lineal HW title fights. It was only after he drew with/defeated Wilder for the WBC title that anybody outside of the Fury fan boy clique starting taking his lineal title claim seriously.

And if nobody takes organisations/belts seriously, then why is everybody involved with Fury/Ngannou so keen for Fury to go into that fight as WBC champion?