Which heavyweight title lineage do you consider the most prestigious?

[El_Mero]

Ring Belt 1st, then Undisputed. End/

[billeau2]

The Lineal

I will make my case for the Lineal. the lineal is covered with *****... Did this guy retire? who sanctions it? what are the rules for abiding by the lineal in an institutionalized format of one sort or another? It is not perfect by any stretch.

Its also easy to abuse the lineal, and make claim to it, a real weakness IMO. I mean If I declare myself the lineal champ right now, who has the authority as an agent for boxing, to say I am not?

Yet the lineal is a work of human achievement. One not to be shanked away by some middle man, some agency of the government that does not have "the best" as their stated goal. It is ingenious and is designed so that the title can always be worked out eventually. It is elegant in what it seeks to memoralize...the man who beat the man is the man. So simple, so matter of fact, and such an appeal to the people who follow the sport... Simple, elegant and effective.

Isn't that what we want as our champ? The best? with no caveats? The toughest MF? When Marciano walked into a bar and declared he could not dance and could not out drink anyone, but could lick any man in the bar...This is the lineal mindset. And this mindset goes across any culture. the same immortal pronouncement could be uttered in a Russian, a Mexican, an Irish, and any bar in the world.

When the ancient Greek fighters beat their rivals...when the English fighters won it all... when John L, Irish to the bone, and American to the bone as well... emerged victorious they all had a thought folks: It was not "I am the wbs ghs ftu ghe rty sanctioned champ"... It was not "I am the toughest Irishman, Afro American in the world" NO no no...It was, I am the toughest MF in the world, no man on this ball o' Earth can lick me.

Now I am not saying that there were not issues with this process of the lineal. There have always been fights about how the championship transfers, what line carries the championship, and other such issues of legitimacy. BUT at the end of the day the simple truth is, was and always will be that to resolve these issues is as simple as it was to resolve who the toughest kid in the neighborhood school yard was: Lace em up and see who wins.

The lineal has a mechanism so that it can always come home to roost. It connects the fan to the world at large. I like a system that is simple, egalitarian and true to the process at hand, hence I am a sucker for the lineal.

[Dynamite76]

The WBA stripped Ali for giving Sonny Liston a rematch. The WBC didn't. The WBA stripped Ali *again* for not going to Vietnam and they stripped him very quickly. The WBC waited much longer to strip him and only stripped him because it was becoming clear he'd be unable to get a boxing license. They were far more fair to Ali in both instances than the WBA was.

In the first instance, WBC champion Ali dominated WBA champion Terrell to re-unify the title. Adding to the WBC's credibility. In the second instance, WBC champion Frazier dominated WBA champion Ellis to unify the title. Adding to the WBC's credibility. WBC heavyweight champions are undefeated in unification fights. Over and over, when given the chance, the WBC champion has proven superior to the others.




Thus far, the boxing world has refused to recognize the Franchise title as a world championship. The "Franchise champion" can't lose the title in the ring. So how can it be a world title? If you beat the Franchise champion, you become the diamond champion, not the world champion, and the Franchise champion remains Franchise champion despite the loss.

Interesting that the WBA would have a problem with Ali giving Liston a rematch.