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The crap that people become emotional over...this is what happens when so many people grow up without men around to teach logical concepts and when to express oneself:
The Lineal Title conceptually was a way to create incentive to have one champ undisputed...to attach some formality to this procedure in an era when so many champions and alphabet soup create confusion.
But there is no reason to get so emotional over it: It works well when it does what it is supposed to do. In this case, Fury's situation is exactly what creates problems for this informal title. So...you call Fury the lineal champ, look wasn't Spinks the lineal for a while? it does not necessarily mean the best, technically it means "the man who beat the man."
So lets look at this logically: If someone said to you, "I have all these champions at the same weight class, one guy beat a guy who somewhere down the line unified the titles and was a strong champion, the rest of the guys beat unheard of contenders" what fighter would you consider the best? Thats where the title works well.
On the other hand, if someone said to you "I have a guy who stopped fighting after beating the best and two other guys who have beat very strong fighters in interm." Then the title does not mean much does it?
My understanding is that the lineal, somewhere down the line had to unify the titles... and that can be very important because of the competition involved.
Finally here is a great example: In my club it took 5 years to get a Black Belt, in some clubs it took a little over a year. So who would you rather walk down a dark alley with to back you up? Black Belts all look the same, they are black and cloth. But some black belts mean a lot more than others. It depends on the quality control and provisions that help someone get the belt.
People have known these things informally for ages. You go to Baltimore and ask to fight a Black Belt, now go to the mall and see who you will fight...Now ask for one of Riley Hawkins students who is a black belt... Remember as the foot goes up your butt and your nose gets beaten off that they are both black belts, but one really seems to be able to hit you a lot harder!
The Lineal Title conceptually was a way to create incentive to have one champ undisputed...to attach some formality to this procedure in an era when so many champions and alphabet soup create confusion.
But there is no reason to get so emotional over it: It works well when it does what it is supposed to do. In this case, Fury's situation is exactly what creates problems for this informal title. So...you call Fury the lineal champ, look wasn't Spinks the lineal for a while? it does not necessarily mean the best, technically it means "the man who beat the man."
So lets look at this logically: If someone said to you, "I have all these champions at the same weight class, one guy beat a guy who somewhere down the line unified the titles and was a strong champion, the rest of the guys beat unheard of contenders" what fighter would you consider the best? Thats where the title works well.
On the other hand, if someone said to you "I have a guy who stopped fighting after beating the best and two other guys who have beat very strong fighters in interm." Then the title does not mean much does it?
My understanding is that the lineal, somewhere down the line had to unify the titles... and that can be very important because of the competition involved.
Finally here is a great example: In my club it took 5 years to get a Black Belt, in some clubs it took a little over a year. So who would you rather walk down a dark alley with to back you up? Black Belts all look the same, they are black and cloth. But some black belts mean a lot more than others. It depends on the quality control and provisions that help someone get the belt.
People have known these things informally for ages. You go to Baltimore and ask to fight a Black Belt, now go to the mall and see who you will fight...Now ask for one of Riley Hawkins students who is a black belt... Remember as the foot goes up your butt and your nose gets beaten off that they are both black belts, but one really seems to be able to hit you a lot harder!
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