Tyson Fury or Wladimir Klitschko were Never Really "Lineal" Champ? Dead title?

[Willow The Wisp]

The Heavyweight Championship of the world is very real, as scholarly historical records prove.
Alphabet soup titles, conversely; are indeed fantasy.
The real Title traverses the English bare-knuckle and modern Marques of Queensbury rules eras without interruption.
As a published historian, Ring and Boxing Illustrated staffer, present or former IBRO, BWAA AND IBHOF member who has served as histotical consultant for ESPN, HBO, Showtime sports, Sports Illustrated, Sport, The National Sports Daily and having served at the Association of Boxing commissions during it's founding; I would be happy to write a bit more on the subject here, but not to anyone halfway educated on the topic who is uninterested to extend their knowledge further. That's a time waster. Just let me know.
Disaffirmation of your supposition is low lying fruit for anyone who is interested in light research.

[QueensburyRules]

The lineal champ is a sort of fantasy claim-to-fame that Tyson Fury has flaunted since he beat Wladimir Klitschko. It was supposed to be the man who beat the man going all the way back through boxing history. But that chain has been broken several times in the past.

Lennox Lewis was regarded as a genuine lineal champ after beating Shannon Briggs in 1998. After Briggs, Lewis also beat two other previous lineal champs Mike Tyson and Evander Holyfield over the next 4 years. So the man who beat the man chain from Lewis goes back over 40 years to Rocky Marciano, who retired undefeated in 1955. Lewis retired as world champ in 2004. He was never beaten by Wladimir Klitschko, or Vitali for that matter.

3 years later in 2007, Wladimir was handed the lineal title after he beat Ruslan Chagaev. That's the same Chagaev who would get beaten and retired by Lucas Browne 7 years later. And Lucas Browne would later get beat by Dave Allen.

So after Fury beat Wladimir he proudly called himself "lineal" champ but it barely has any substance to it. Wladimir never beat the previous lineal champ Lennox Lewis. Granted, Wladimir was a good champ but did he deserve lineal for beating Chagaev or for his heavyweight reign? That's where things become subjective and open to personal opinion, instead of based on the actual boxing history of the man who beat the man.

So does the lineal title even exist anymore or did the retirement of Lennox Lewis also mean the end of the lineal title?

- - Lineal Champ died with JJJeffries retirement as undefeated champ having beat the man who beat the man and so forth dating to John L.

What has happened since is that Ring is now the substitute lineal since there is no agreement nor Lineal Org to officiate, but rather a clusterfest of lumpy, dumpy, bumpkins arguing who's lineal in various schoolboy level disputes. It took Ring ages to recognize Wlad after he emasculated all the Brits and Americans, but after they finally did, Blubber used PEDs to beat Wlad, got suspended, titles stripped, but not the illicit Ring until their embarrassment filled up their shorts enough that the EPA got involved such that Blubber finally ended up stripped of Ring that is now owned by Usyk.

You now, the guy who's made Blubber duck their fight several x for easier to pick lower hanging spoiling fruit that the soft Blubber specializes in during his misbegotten comeback...

[kafkod]

There is no such thing as a "real" lineal title. So it is obviously impossible for anybody to be a "real" lineal champion.

[dan-b]

The Heavyweight Championship of the world is very real, as scholarly historical records prove.
Alphabet soup titles, conversely; are indeed fantasy.
The real Title traverses the English bare-knuckle and modern Marques of Queensbury rules eras without interruption.
As a published historian, Ring and Boxing Illustrated staffer, present or former IBRO, BWAA AND IBHOF member who has served as histotical consultant for ESPN, HBO, Showtime sports, Sports Illustrated, Sport, The National Sports Daily and having served at the Association of Boxing commissions during it's founding; I would be happy to write a bit more on the subject here, but not to anyone halfway educated on the topic who is uninterested to extend their knowledge further. That's a time waster. Just let me know.
Disaffirmation of your supposition is low lying fruit for anyone who is interested in light research.

That's a clever sounding post which will no doubt intimidate many of the mediocre IQ residents on this forum. But it presupposes an authority within boxing which can't be justified. You could make a more tentative claim of a strong consensus around a World Heavyweight Championship, but that's it. No amount of historical research, interesting as it may be, or appeals to your own authority (less interesting) can overcome that fundamental issue.

It's akin to claiming there is an absolute morality or that a certain state has an abstract "right to exist" - ridiculous notions.

[Marchegiano]

There is no such thing as a "real" lineal title. So it is obviously impossible for anybody to be a "real" lineal champion.

When it takes a homie a sentence to capture the same idea it takes you more than a paragraph to express.


100 points.

[club fighter]

As far as I'm concerned there is no such thing.
To me it was just a catch phrase that Joe Tessitore would drive me to nausea overly using to put Tyson Fury up on a pedestal in this era of lesser skilled heavyweights.
I've been watching boxing since the 80's and can't recall ever hearing about it until now.

[dan-b]

As far as I'm concerned there is no such thing.
To me it was just a catch phrase that Joe Tessitore would drive me to nausea overly using to put Tyson Fury up on a pedestal in this era of lesser skilled heavyweights.
I've been watching boxing since the 80's and can't recall ever hearing about it until now.

It will always be a fluid thing, we should just get comfortable with that. It doesn't matter how many belts someone collects or how much consensus there is there will always be dispute. In other individual sports like tennis, they play limited competitions each year. Someone will hold a specific title for a while and this will occasionally align with them being number one but it's constantly subject to change.

Given the complete lack of structure in boxing the idea we can abstractly bestow a "lineal" title onto someone and for it to exist in perpetuity is nonsense. No one even agrees what the criteria is for establishing new lineage.

Boxers can stand out as the best in a division for a few years and if they're active enough most will be content with that. Having less inactivity and fewer obstacles to the best fighting the best is a far greater concern than some academic discussion about a "lineal" title/distinction.

[Toffee]

Wlad hadn't had a win in over 2 years. It doesn't matter, it wasn't him. He wasn't ranked, by anyone

TBRB had Povetkin 1, Joshua 2, Ortiz 3 and Wilder 4, Parker 5

They actually had
1. Anthony Joshua
2. Luis Ortiz
3. Deontay Wilder
4. Joseph Parker
5. Kubrat Pulev

They had ranked Klitschko up to the prior November but made the decision to unrank him as he didn't have a fight scheduled after the Fury fight had finally fallen apart. That was actually incorrect - the WBA had sanctioned his fight against Joshua a week earlier - it was only formally announced after Joshua beat Molina a month later.

After the Joshua v Klitschko fight TBRB's rankings were:

1. Anthony Joshua
2. Wladimir Klitschko
3. Luis Ortiz
4. Deontay Wilder
5. Joseph Parker

They clearly considered them to be top 2.

The point is that there is debate. There are different claims. And there is no single body that gets to arbitrate between them. TBRB nor Ring have that status.

If someone wants to argue that they weren't 1-2 then fair enough.

I still think i's a bit rich calling Fury v Wilder 2 a consensus top 2. TBRB rated them that way but it was very generous to Fury, whose best win in his comeback career at that point was Wallin.

[kafkod]

That's a clever sounding post which will no doubt intimidate many of the mediocre IQ residents on this forum.

He says disaffirmation of suppositions is low hanging fruit to him. That's pretty intimidating, tbh.

[M312]

Vitali would've left Wladimir in a bodying, so saying Wladimir was lineal was laughable at best.