Lineal Champ....greater than any belt? including "The Ring"

[therealpugilist]

of course it is....they used to go hand and hand until ODLH bought ring magazine and it has hit the ****ter ever since....Shaeafer can eat a huge mandingo **** for letting Nigel Collins go


Lineal means more than the ring because they have so many stipulations and I never agree to stripping ACTIVE fighters of titles they didnt lose in the ring


The lineal title you have to lose by retiring, moving up in weight or in the ring

[Eff Pandas]

All the belts have reasons to like & hate them. I'd say the biggest problem with the lineal title is it can be manipulated the worst as Foreman showed.

The true champ is a common sense thing. For example Cotto was the MW lineal champ but the real champ was Golovkin.

Agree. I've considered GGG the 160lb champion since Martinez lost to Cotto. Sadly with how segregated boxing is between promoters, networks, alphabet groups & hell probably seen preferred drug testing organisation you kinda gotta use some logic & common sense in determining who the best guy in a division is.

175 might be the ideal division to see how things have greatly changed in the sport with who should be considered the #1 guy. I considered Stevenson to be the #1 guy until maybe the time of Kovalev beating Pascal (iirc) & than I gave that distinction to Kovalev based on his superior as of late resume.

These days things take to long to happen & sometimes just don't happen so I think guys can "lose" their #1 spot without losing in the ring. Thats kinda a new thing in this era.

[techliam]

What other cases would you use to support your reasoning?

So my argument was that there are cases where an alphabet title can mean more than the lineal championship (an extention of the fighter making the belt, not the other way around). I picked the WBO randomly, but if you're interested in that route specifically, look as Huck/Hernandez - Most saw Huck the WBO champion as the best fighter at cruiserweight, yet Hernandez was seen by some as the lineal champion. Flyweight is another example, Estrada's WBO belt means no less than Gonzales' lineal title, as of now anyway.

There are a variety of examples showing an ABC championship reflected more than the lineal one. Cotto, Jaro to Gonzales at fly, and Baldomir are a few. Any ABC titlist during these lineal reigns had just an equal, if not more claim to being the man of the division. There are also cases where a lineal title is just flat out unncessary. The man in my avi proved that, up until recently. He has been head and shoulders above the rest at 130 for quite some time, and until the vargas fight, it was a man he already beat down that was no.2 underneath him. I think you catch my drift

[techliam]

hence the importance of some type of title right?? for the life of the sport the noobs/casuals need to be there.......

Id argue most casuals have no idea what the hell 'lineal' is

If you want to limit the scope to casual view only, you should limit it also to ABC titles and the RING. To which the answer is probably the RING belt, but its a strange question if so.

[ИATAS]

Generally speaking, yes. Although much like everything else there can be other factors. Just look at Kovalev and Stevenson at 175. Kovalev is a unified champ, owns three of the four titles, Stevenson has one title but he's Lineal champ. The general consensuses is Kovalev is the best at 175. So it's not always so cut & dry.

This is why for years I've always stressed the importance of unifying a division! So there is no doubt & there is one champion. We don't have to debate who's belt is more valuable. We will have one champion with all the belts. And if not all the belts, surely having three out of the four belts is better than one, lineal or not.

Some people still argue with me about this today, that unifying isn't important, but it is. I've said this before about Bernard Hopkins and others - I'm more impressed with a fighter who cleans out their division, collects all the belts by beating all the title holders and top contenders versus a guy who wins a vacant belt or a single belt against an OK opponent in two or three or four weight classes. The term "multiple weight champion" is overvalued so much in boxing these days. Robert Guerrero is a three division champion! But what does that really say? Not much at all if you look into it. Is that more important than a guy who unifies his division and fights the best?

[Box-Office]

So my argument was that there are cases where an alphabet title can mean more than the lineal championship (an extention of the fighter making the belt, not the other way around). I picked the WBO randomly, but if you're interested in that route specifically, look as Huck/Hernandez - Most saw Huck the WBO champion as the best fighter at cruiserweight, yet Hernandez was seen by some as the lineal champion. Flyweight is another example, Estrada's WBO belt means no less than Gonzales' lineal title, as of now anyway.

There are a variety of examples showing an ABC championship reflected more than the lineal one. Cotto, Jaro to Gonzales at fly, and Baldomir are a few. Any ABC titlist during these lineal reigns had just an equal, if not more claim to being the man of the division. There are also cases where a lineal title is just flat out unncessary. The man in my avi proved that, up until recently. He has been head and shoulders above the rest at 130 for quite some time, and until the vargas fight, it was a man he already beat down that was no.2 underneath him. I think you catch my drift

First of all great post.

Second, my bad as I thought you were holding on WBO as some sort of a gold standard. Makes sense ad yes, I agree there are instances where the belt holder is better than the "Lineal/Ring" champ. Kovalev certainly is, GGG>Cotto/Alvarez.

[Box-Office]

Id argue most casuals have no idea what the hell 'lineal' is

If you want to limit the scope to casual view only, you should limit it also to ABC titles and the RING. To which the answer is probably the RING belt, but its a strange question if so.

His argument in the post to which you replied wasn't limited to Lineal specifically, but a need for a title that tell us who THE MAN is. Call it Lineal or call it Ring.

[Box-Office]

Also we can apply the same argument to Super/Regular belt. I doubt anyone would consider Sturm champ cuz he had the "Super" belt over GGG's Regular, where the former is suppose to be the proper WBA champ of the 3 at a particular weight class (I feel sad writing this).

[ИATAS]

Also we can apply the same argument to Super/Regular belt. I doubt anyone would consider Sturm champ cuz he had the "Super" belt over GGG's Regular, where the former is suppose to be the proper WBA champ of the 3 at a particular weight class (I feel sad writing this).

The WBA is the worst of them all, which is no easy accomplishment. I thought the WBA was basically an interim belt to the Super belt, but they keep changing their definitions and rules it's difficult to keep up.

[Box-Office]

The WBA is the worst of them all, which is no easy accomplishment. I thought the WBA was basically an interim belt to the Super belt, but they keep changing their definitions and rules it's difficult to keep up.

The part that bothers me is it is the oldest of the bunch. If this was WBO considering they are the latest ones, there may be a potential to "kinda" ignore them off and put them on par with IBO.