When did the 9-belt era begin?

[Marchegiano]

That's an unnecessarily verbose and, frankly, gaslighting response which leaves me reluctant to engage with you further. Did you imagine you and I have this massive audience for our unimportant exchange which you need to be perceived to "win"?

Win isn't the right verbiage. When a fan chooses to disengage I've lost regardless.. It's a careful thing, engagement.

However, I do need to be perceived as someone who knows what they are talking about and if that makes you so insecure as to post what you have at me, I have lost something, but it isn't my juxtaposition to you.

I talk to you guys because I enjoy it bud. Sorry you didn't have a good time.

[kafkod]

Your reading comprehension sucks... I have never set up a conflict between what the regulatory system does and the Lineal. I have said two things: Please read carefuly...

1. One important base of power and a tradition maintaining the Lineal title, belongs to the fans and it is real and has power. The lineal is not a regulatory agency and having other State sanctioned titles is fine provided (see below)

2. There are not a plethora of such belts that become delusional in assigning the word "champion" to champions. The system for these titles needs work BUT

Let me be perfectly clear now: The Lineal is a separate base of power. It does not get "better" or "worse" compared to how good or bad these regulatory bodies are: It acts independently. marg got this when he at least understood that Nat copied the lineal for Ring... The Lineal precedes Ring magazine.

Our biggest argument would probably be: To me the undisputed title of champion belongs at least as much to the lineal, as any particular organization/belt. And that is fine, we can agree to disagree on that point. BUT I have constantly made the point that the Lineal is Independent and belongs to the fans and does not intersect with the alphabet soup belts.

My own feeling about the alphabet soup belts which you are responding to is how they are too many and not run properly but Kafkod this has NOTHING to do with the Lineal. The one (Lineal) does not replace the other!

Now do you see my point of view? If I did not make this clear I apologize but please understand what I am arguing for!

"Your reading comprehension sucks"

Apparently so. Because all I get from reading your opinions on this topic is a frigging head ache!

[Coverdale]

Win isn't the right verbiage. When a fan chooses to disengage I've lost regardless.. It's a careful thing, engagement.

However, I do need to be perceived as someone who knows what they are talking about and if that makes you so insecure as to post what you have at me, I have lost something, but it isn't my juxtaposition to you.

I talk to you guys because I enjoy it bud. Sorry you didn't have a good time.

It's fine, read the second reply instead: https://www.boxingscene.com/forums/b...3#post32466463

[billeau2]

"Your reading comprehension sucks"

Apparently so. Because all I get from reading your opinions on this topic is a frigging head ache!

Well its all good. Now we both know? I do have a nuanced opinion, I admit as much. I don't see a black and white picture in the case of how power is used. There generally are rules for power. Like for example, If Prince Harry leaves the "Firm" his family, he cannot expect certain privaleges like security. This was recently upheld in a court. Institutions use power in different ways and I know that can be confusing. Heredity based traditions operate differently than state, government sanctioned institutions.

Even in Japan, where basically 3 corporations and the Empror run the country together, exersize power differently. A citizen hired by one of Japans 3 major corporations is considered privaleged... That citizen will never be allowed to accumulate much wealth, unless at the very top of the corporate ladder and must almost literally give everything, not used, back to the government (the empror). The empror is the figure head, the status symbol, the protector of traditions... Through his power things like martial traditions some unbroken since the 1500's are protected. The corporations provide work, purpose and a goal for people economically. They have two distinct operations.

The lineal is basically a proto-heredity title. It is based, in its structure and form, on the old Aristocratic titles around when the Marquis Queensbury was creating an alternative for duels. I mean I know this might be overstated, but whether the marquis was responsible for this, or others were, the idea is correct. Instead of one's status, one's fighting ability was the announcement prior to hostilities! Not to belabor a point: Originally (until the second Mongol invasion) Japanese Samurai, much like European knights, would state their heredity and deeds prior to battling. Same idea.

Kafkod... Think about it! An announcer? What is an announcer? See how this works? The announcer in a boxing match is the speaker! He parlays the deeds and the heredity connections of the fighters. Weighing in at so many pounds fighting out of ______! With a record of, please welcome_____. Then you have seconds right? Seconds are like the knights retainers. See the connection here? You and I are two knights getting ready to joust, our seconds behind us on a battle field, in a tourney and we need an introduction, we need seconds, etc.

These actions speak to the nature of boxing retained as part of the sport through traditions most people have no understanding about... Mike Tyson, actually a very smart boxing historican pointed out once that in the Five Points hood of old New York the "corners" were Red or Blue because the fighters were hired to represent the two interests: Demo crat and Rep ublican.

If you understand the above you understand that the power of these traditions along with the fans who bare witness, the fans who declare whom is the best, the fans who then assert the bragging rights of the man who beat the best, etc...are a power structure within itself. Nowhere is there a place for sanctions, regulation, consistent rules and regulations for the sake of safety in this line of power. This task falls upon an objective body with no ulterior motives. That is a different ball of wax and should not interfere with the lineal provisions.

Both structures are necessary. Even having regional set ups are necessary. The problem becomes when Any of these two structures is abused and misused. And that is my issue. Not the nature of the duties, rather how they are carried out. And we can disagree about whether the lineal has real power , or not, at least you perhaps understand my issue?

[billeau2]

Win isn't the right verbiage. When a fan chooses to disengage I've lost regardless.. It's a careful thing, engagement.

However, I do need to be perceived as someone who knows what they are talking about and if that makes you so insecure as to post what you have at me, I have lost something, but it isn't my juxtaposition to you.

I talk to you guys because I enjoy it bud. Sorry you didn't have a good time.

Hey! as our resident expert in "Rough and Tumble" what do you think of my last post on this thread? I know you don't necessarily like the label of historian, but as a researcher among those things you brought up was when dueling came down to and through the Americas to the poor. See the thing is, as horrible as it is for young, rich men, intent on maintaining social status, even at the expense of dying to protect such status, I actually would prefer such an end to losing sight as body parts were chewed off. Rough and Tumble also shows how heredity behaviors were imitated, or readapted to different social groups. Shows why it was so important to create a system where people could settle disputes and not be killed, or maimed.

[Coverdale]

“It feels great to put this around my waist. It was a long journey. We got it now,” said Muratalla

Raymond Muratalla waits for Vasiliy Lomachenko after claiming interim belt

Celebrating an 'interim' belt sure looks like a 9-belt era to me.

[billeau2]

GD you are a smart guy. **** me I am impressed as ****. I have to ride the fence, but the form; ****ing clever.

I'll have to do this in stages but I will format it so it is easy.



--
PREAMBLE - You can skip, it's an explanation of an explanation.

I have every intention, inspired by the Ali discussions, to re-examine lineal from a capital perspective.

I have done it from a traditions perspective and from historians' perspective.

What I mean to say is if the idea is taken as a given then one is free to debate the values of precedence. However if the existence of lineal itself is challenged then those traditions become nonpoints on both sides. Yes, I know everyone loves to speak in terms of who did what but when you're talking about an idea who did what is peripheral at best.

Lineal, regardless of definition or perspective is always a post dated term. Not unlike saying something like Tom Cribb was a vegan as a fighter. He will have never heard that term but a diet of salad and water is vegan. I'm post dating the term. Should you say it fits then we agree but the fact is simple Tom ate salads and drank water in 1810 when everyone was like that's weak fuel. We say things like best claim and what not but what we really mean is popular. There's times when the rich are trying to take control and the poor simply laugh at them. There's times when the poor are in control and the rich simply buy them. That's really all John L was.

Society after society starting in the 1780s right off the tail of the amphitheater days, but the original belt is lost to gangs. I shouldn't even need to write those deets for all to accept the rich struggled to gain control over boxing by direct competition for about 100 years. Ebs and flows of who had majority power but always both sides are tied to one another.

Without The Fancy there is no prize

Without The Sporting there is no fight

You need them both and always did need them both for the industry, not sport or martial art, industry, business, to exist.

The point being we often forget perspective and that one may simply be too deep into one for verbiage alone to pull them into another. While I am on that, I think it is perfectly acceptable and more than anything simply honest to have and house contradictory perspectives so long as consistency of principles are found.

Before I can speak to the economics of Ali I need to know the economics of Mendoza a little better in a little more detail and carry on through until I'm to Fury and Usyk and Warren and Turki.

Along these lines of study I have to say bill's ****ing clever you guys. If it seems like I am being a tad cagey and withholding for me it's because I am but not because he was wrong but rather because my research is not complete and I'm not ready to present and by way of presentation make open the facts for debates. One must be very careful NOT to call Tom Cribb a vegan if one means to stay very much by the card. One has to stay contemporary through time and when covering a spread, it's ****ing hard and you better be very ****ing sure of everything you say

DONE
--




So before even any belts, before Cribb, before Molyneaux, there was the tradition of the sashes. This goes back before boxing, I have seen it said more often than not it comes from the honor duel system. That's true but that's not where the colors or sashes begin.

I have found no evidence of ancient, Pyx or Pygmachia, boxing having colors or sashes. They just fought naked and were awarded wreaths and statues and such ancient world greco-roman cliche.

Moving on, there is no break from a martial arts perspective but of course the sport would become the event called Pugni.

We have ALL struggled to define the Pugni but what it certainly is, is a form of fist fighting directly connected to boxing. Venetian fist fighting after Christianization in both mob and single combat form, done over a bridge, for the right of the people on one side of the bridge to claim ownership of said bridge for an indetermined number of days. I understand it is VERY different, but it is not an island disconnected. Their trainers were boxing trainers. The punches they learned were not rediscovered but passed down. The stances, forms, defense, offense, passed down from the pagan ritual to the Christian event.

What the Pugni does add and does not borrow from the rituals Pyx and Pygmachia is prizes. Ownership of the bridge takes the place of ceremonial value of a Laurel Wreath but it is the sash that takes the place of the physical representation of victory.


The sash predates the belt by quite a long time actually and can be found in variant forms and uses all through the medieval period. In terms of prizes, if the English sport is identified by coins and belts, and the ancients by statues and wreaths, the medieval period can be called the time of sashes and land.

By the time science was a new buzzword and interest into ancient ways was piqued the sash and the duel had been corrupted by the capitalism of the British Empire and her departure from Roman wealth

Duelists would wear a sash of a chosen color and bring with them a bunch of duplicates to sell to their fans before the event so they could wave them in the air. Very much did happen in the dark ages but really is more of a renaissance era feature. Into industrialization actually but you know that because Johnson wore a sash.

Market born no class owns it.

This was the way guys like James Figg made money. Let me be clear, no one bought a ticket to watch Figg, Broughton, Whitaker, Peartree, Tailor, Pipes, Gretting Gritton, Slack, You get me? Tickets were invented by Mendoza in 1788.

Figg sold you colors(sashes) of the fighters, drinks, food, whores, and facilitated ******** and training. No one brought a ticket for a seat at a Figg fight. Figg made heaps on colors, everyone did.

And colors would be one of the only things the British successfully brought to America in terms of boxing before the 1820s.

Tickets, marketing through newspapers, defense, sparring, gloves, what to do with the gloves, champions and belts, all of that gets invented after the economics of the sash and event. They are additions and adaptations

Rough and tumbles features fights at any time for any reason with any prize under any rules. I can't be more clear, the Romans would call the Americans brutal. No, the cestus isn't the worst thing ever seen in a boxing match because guns are. You can lose anything, including your eyes and or PP. Yeah, the danglers. Free and fair game.

Under this the Rough and Tumble event havers, champions if you will, would sell their sashes. Plenty of accounts of impromptu, but that doesn't mean the toughest man in a colony didn't make events or have planned fights too.

Ahhhh, now, now that shiny Cribb belt has some mother ****ing context and isn't just a rando gift from a king. The belts are the most expensive sashes money could buy. At least Cribb's was. You know, before gangs stripped it down for parts.

This is the economics of champions and it really doesn't matter if England and Europe started the rich influence. One could argue they represent the classes formerly inhabited by pagan and then christian priests. The argument between fighter, fan, and class is from the beginning to now.

One could argue lineal was born out of any one of these events when the major forces at play went head to head but the truth is I always find a time predating until I am at the origins of boxing.

If we take for granted lineal expresses the will of fan and anything else is not an expression of lineal, then, lineal has a super traceable root in every culture that came to form world lineal.

Very much like a corporation, and I do not believe you even need family involved. Any corporation. The individuals may change, they may be contradictory, corrupted, or even abusive, but, so long the entity expresses agency it exists.

The American LPR champions are the American RnT champions. The entire reason they fought what they considered the weaker version of boxing was because they were making good money and a rich Englishman saw the marketability of bringing one of his wards over because they had a good fan base too. Man with fans fight man with fans winner gets more fans, probably. Super basic **** really.

Sullivan, wearing that sash, selling them sashes, was one of the first attempts by the gentry to buy a poor kid, solid BK fighter, and pay him to endorse their version of boxing. He is the name of lineal but the ultimate corruptor and betrayer of this idea lineal is the will of the people. That's why he got such heavy criticism from the BK men and BK fans.

The LPR champion always beat the QB representative, until he didn't anymore. You can blame John Jackson, or even King George, they did have their tries. Barclay, Godfrey, Byrom, all had their influence but their gamble failed. It wasn't until Sullivan became the darling of The Fancy did they finally have the authority to tell you what is and isn't a champion.

You can say John started world lineal but you can also say he started world bodies too.

When exactly did the sashes go away? Ahh, damn, when the shiny, shiny, very much tangible, and not at all from the fans, belts showed up.

But what if lineal IS the market will of fans. Grassroots only?

Is that Ring? No, doesn't matter how much consensus there is among fans it is not, by definition of will of the fans, the fans telling Ring who is best but Ring telling fans who is best. So says some promoters and the writers they pay for.

TBRB? Can't be, they do now poll fans they poll writers and tell fans.

Sales? Sure, if they can be called genuine. The Philippines buys Pac PPVs and airs them for free. HBO still gets paid those PPV rates. It's not free for the Philippines, it is free for the Filipinos. That's not even really corruption that's just artificially inflated sales.

Social popularity like social media? But Usyk's actually an unpopular champion despite how much love us regulars give him. He's not a main****** name like Joshua, who might still be champion to the man on the street. I dunno. Point is Usyk is not the most popular HW.

Perhaps lineal became a more subtle thing as John handed control of boxing to pressmen and financiers.

Perhaps lineal is the force that says but you didn't fight Godfrey, Wills, Langord, etc.?

Why did the Hitler risk **** glory against a black American?

There is certainly an agency there and an entity behind the agency.

While all fans recognize who was crowned champion by who when Ali was stripped, does any claim any over Ali during that time?

Who protected Jack Johnson as he avoided the American executive branch of government?

Why is Burke even considered a champion if he never beat the champion and some other jamooks did?

More recently, was it the bodies, or even Turki, who pressed for undisputed? Pretty sure we started that and everyone got to after a few years of bitching about 20 years since.

That market force that again and again says "This **** ain't very sporting doe is it" in some form. I think that's your strongest lineal and i think that more along the lines of the lineal Bill preaches.


Not Nat Fleischer's lineal but what Nat was trying to express before he got high on himself and attributed rules while crowning himself some kind of historian. There are no rules to lineal. There is no measuring tool. It is the force of the people, then, it is the force that says "Fair Play or **** Off"


Strip a WORLD champion because he won't fight YOUR war? Uh, bru, the rest of the world still here doe.



It's a super clever angle.

Ascots! The real symbol of prestige predating the tie. The Ascot is a sash. In Scotland Ascots form a symbol for clan.

Just an interesting aside about sashes.

[billeau2]

So, Sashes can be worn, they can be displayed... Samurai would fly symbols off of horse back in domestic battles... And Marg, what is it called when a gang makes an appearance to show their support? "Flying colors."

[Coverdale]

Yeah basically that's what I'm calling lineal. The history of the sash and the history of fan influence kinda go hand-in-hand. The fact that lineal narrative was done by a man who didn't do the research gives me motive enough to recast light on the issue often.

Just to say I recognize sashes have nothing to do with what Nat had to talk about but sashes have a lot more to do with what you are talking about then any bull**** like man who beat the man

I'm not really ready for the full sha****. You can tell i kinda don't have much to say to the body era Which is the ****ing meat of the story. I get that. But I had a physical representation of fan support for most of boxing history to lean on. I'm looking atm for what one could call beyond any doubt fan support.

I think PPV. I know I talked **** but lacking anything better I might go PPV. Also, I think King might be something of a hero in this story,



I don't know ATM




What I do find curious is why there's so many threads made by OP that serves for nothing but confirmation bias hunting and no attempt at any resolution. 9 belt era? I believe it took until me to actually lay out the active belts and I believe I'm still waiting to be told if these are the 9 dale had in mind.

Incorrect. Were you a mature adult you would simply ask me what my motivation was. But your fragile ego built on thousands of posts across several accounts won't let you drop the facade.

I have nothing to prove to people like and don't care for your approval.

[Coverdale]

Maybe i shouldn't allude

Coverdale what is the actual point of this thread sir?

Oh wait, you did it. Congratulations.

It was intended to provoke debate. Can someone really be an "undisputed" champion when the SBs are recognising other titleholders in the same division?

As stated at least twice already, I was largely supportive of the "three belt era". I could live with the comical rankings if we could get back to three belts and no 'interim/secondary' nonsense.