Lineal Heavyweight title is "bull****"?

[N/A]

the WBC is the entity that has earn respect. The bodies that would become the WBC are the bodies that cleaned up boxing. Then when they formalized as the single WBC they continued to be the body writing the rules and making the changes that put boxers' lives first.

I do not fault the WBC-Don King connection, Don King is the best era in boxing because he alone made the great fights.

The WBC is also the only organization of the four without a massive bribery scandal. The WBA and IBF are both confirmed to have taken massive bribes from Bob Arum. Admitted by Arum himself.

And the WBO was founded by the leader of the WBA's bribery ring, outed by name by Arum as the leader of the WBA's bribery operation. So after the WBA got rid of him for being outed by name by Bob Arum, he created the WBO.

[billeau2]

Thanks bud.

I feel like it's similar to Marxism in that old cliche about how it's a lovely idea but in practice it is horrible.

I used to believe in lineal, I used to share the vehement hate for bodies most do, and I used to believe there was a lost honor the bare knuckle and early, non-body, champions held. I used to think Sullivan was undisputed. I used to believe a ton of things but when I look that's not my honest assessment.

You need a few things to care about lineal. Number one of them I think is you have to look at Sullivan's era as one to be admired. Simply put, I do not admire that era or the antics that lead boxing at that time.

Going backward in time just makes it worse.

So I don't really have any want in me to adhere to traditions or exalt traditions that used to guide the championship title.

The other big grab lineal has is the fan control. The thing about that is that's exactly what made bare knuckle and early queensberry such a dirty sport.

Yankee Sullivan beat the **** outta John Morrissey, and as a bloodied Morrissey was picking himself up Yankee, realizing John would not make the count, walked out of the ring and our of the building to DQ himself because the Dead Rabbits, Morrissey's gang, were ringside and armed with pistols.

That is your fan control for you.

Or how about when Jem Ward refused James Burke for not being english enough? Then again for not being rich enough? Jem Ward retired multiple times to avoid Burke, and when Burke won his vacant title rather than giving it to Burke Ward would take back his retirement and announce he is still champion. He took Burke's money, he got a man murdered, he fixed fights and was party to fixed fights, and, the public knew but since they liked him he was champion and remained champion even after Burke became champion in America. It's only posthumously Burke becomes champion when Ward ducks him and only posthumously Ward get stripped for ducking Burke. In their lives they were both called champions.

I said with the sanctioning bodies on this. Yes, they are corrupt and they have done some harm, but, they did a ****load of good too and I'm not so sure that can be said about lineal.

Lineal was so bad it made people think bodies were a good idea.

The history of this fan control makes me happy the lineal title has little real impact on boxing, like Ring.

The history of sanctioning bodies, regulations, trying to figure out how to keep people alive, and making clear avenues for success, that's a history I can respect.


The early body guys are like wild west gunslingers just rolled into town and going to clear these vermits out.


I love the idea, it's pure form, as an idea. In its practice I think no good can come of it because no good did come of it.


Champion's Prerogative...the idea a champion can just pick who the best challengers are That's ****.


Which is why fans argue so much, because lineal is actually **** and no one wants to adhere to those olden ways. They say number one and number two makes a new lineal, a new the man. There;s no ****ing ranking's in Sully's era....that's sanctioning body culture creeping back into the lineal idea because fans don't actually want the real article and they don't want it because it's even more corrupt than the body BS.

Retirement's another sticking point itself. They just made up retiring ends a lineal run, no precedent for that in the pre-body era. Plenty in the body era, when a body champ retired his belt is vacant, but, when the one lineal who retired unbeaten before bodies existed came back to boxing, he came back as champion. Soon as the IBU is created in 1910 now ever retired champion, including lineal, gives up their belt...so says some anyway. They say that not because it is lineal but because they like body culture and want to inject it into lineal even if they are not aware of this.


To me, and I promise this has nothing to do with Wilder or Floyd, the WBC is the entity that has earn respect. The bodies that would become the WBC are the bodies that cleaned up boxing. Then when they formalized as the single WBC they continued to be the body writing the rules and making the changes that put boxers' lives first.

I do not fault the WBC-Don King connection, Don King is the best era in boxing because he alone made the great fights.

Their new belt ****, I hate the ****ing **** of it, but, they saved lives....makes it a bit nominal.

The WBA follows the WBC's lead more often than not. The IBF and WBO are just WBA off shoots who couldn't agree on things like ranking. All three have 3kd rules or ten point musts options. WBC options. All three fight 12 rounds, those are WBC rounds.

**** man, the only reason why the WBA, IBF or WBO are world wide is because the NYSAC started that **** too. Otherwise they'd be regional bodies.

What's lineal given us? Frumpy white folk talking about "lick any sonuva***** in the building" then whispering except darkie? No offense to anyone.

What's the WBA given us but an argument that's so frustrating the lineal argument seems like a good idea?

No man, WBC, they cleaned up the old west feel of boxing and made it a rightly honorable sport, they put human lives ahead of coins plenty of times, they gathered bodies rather than created more.

I've been a clear Wilder fan and so that's easily confirmed. It'd take more effort, but, if one were to look at my history here from 2010 to now I was a Vitali fan too. WBC means something to me. WBA means more to me than IBF but it's still not even close to WBC. IBF is what it is, I recognize it because the WBC and WBA do. The WBO is lucky I give any ****s....I'm really getting pushed now.

After that honestly I care more about who wins polls here than any other titles. The boxing scene champions polls I tried, I did that because the opinions of my locals mean more to me than traditions or publications.

Lineal comes next, while I have my gripes I do love the idea of it. I do love me some history and tradition.

Ring, yes, RING, not TBRB, Ring comes next. Because Ring has history where was TBRB are a bunch of whiners with just as inconsistent rankings as anyone else.

then TBRB, who is just as bad as Ring but without the saving grace of being the history keepers for boxing from 1920 to the 2000s.

Boxrec next because while a computer is ****** it is fair in its ******ity.

ESPN because friday night fights, honestly if FNF came back and FNF had champions I might just say **** it and go with that. I loved FNF.

Boxing News and Boxing Monthly come next, they're about equal. They're okay, not any worse than any other publication or outlet, but, smaller I think. They've a small pool of writers.

The Police Gazette could return to boxing, they have bare knuckle. If they did I'd put them above Ring and below lineal. More historical than even Ring.




well that's two long ass posts back to back....I'm gonna take a break. Sorry I rambled a bit.

Long post indeed, worth every word though. the difference between you and I is you have done the work, you have given precedent for your opinions, and know the historical affects of these titles. everything you posted made sense.

I tend to believe anything can be abused... I mean sugar for chrissakes! It can kill you and its pure...sweetness. I see how the lineal was abused from your take, the hypocracy, the thuggery. I do think the retirement issue, at least by comparison is fairly benign. I mean having to hash out a debate based on a present champ and a retired champ coming back can be decided. I like the immanence of these decisions as well..."settle it in the ring boys."

I definitely have a more sober opinion of the lineal after hearing what you had to say about it... Though I still think Wilder is a pufter!

Oh one more serious point: There is a bit of Marxism in the notion of the Lineal as well...The idea of no middle man, no state authority to decide a titular pronouncement. But it is alas, just one more romantic notion when we see how this "good idea" has primea facea become so divorced from any "goodness."

[Marchegiano]

The WBC is also the only organization of the four without a massive bribery scandal. The WBA and IBF are both confirmed to have taken massive bribes from Bob Arum. Admitted by Arum himself.

And the WBO was founded by the leader of the WBA's bribery ring, outed by name by Arum as the leader of the WBA's bribery operation. So after the WBA got rid of him for being outed by name by Bob Arum, he created the WBO.

Good point.

[Marchegiano]

Long post indeed, worth every word though. the difference between you and I is you have done the work, you have given precedent for your opinions, and know the historical affects of these titles. everything you posted made sense.

I tend to believe anything can be abused... I mean sugar for chrissakes! It can kill you and its pure...sweetness. I see how the lineal was abused from your take, the hypocracy, the thuggery. I do think the retirement issue, at least by comparison is fairly benign. I mean having to hash out a debate based on a present champ and a retired champ coming back can be decided. I like the immanence of these decisions as well..."settle it in the ring boys."

I definitely have a more sober opinion of the lineal after hearing what you had to say about it... Though I still think Wilder is a pufter!

Oh one more serious point: There is a bit of Marxism in the notion of the Lineal as well...The idea of no middle man, no state authority to decide a titular pronouncement. But it is alas, just one more romantic notion when we see how this "good idea" has primea facea become so divorced from any "goodness."

The WBC Pufter though

It is an admirable thing I think, it's just not very resistant to corruption.

[aboutfkntime]

We can all do that bud:

Semantics; the historical and psychological study and the classification of changes in the signification of words or forms viewed as factors in linguistic development.

I understand your point and don't mean to argue against you, I mean simply to say that's a never ending endeavour.



I would challenge any lineage older than Greece.

Greek boxing is where our sport evolved from. Dambe is the present form of Ancient Nigerian fist fighting, not boxing.

There are connections to this day to Greece in boxing culture, there are none from african or middle eastern boxing.


The story in brief:

Sparta invents boxing as a military training exercise. Other forms of fist fighting, events, sports, etc, existed prior but our boxing comes from Sparta's war machine and nowhere else.

Sparta was no influenced by other cultures to create boxing, the advent of the military martial art came as a necessity for training the sword and shield style without killing one another. As an added bonus Sparta discovered their warrior's skulls had thickened and stopped issuing helmets. That's why when you see Spartans with a helmet on in art and such it's usually a Corinthian helmet.

Anyway, the Greeks recognized Sparta's war prowess and sought to limit in fighting amongst the city-states by taking their martial art and turning it into a sport.

There is no such thing as a Spartan champion because Spartans do no quit and the rest of Greece thought of that as unsportsmanlike so Sparta banned it's people from entering the Olympics for Pymachia is was called.

This is not the gladiators, nor would it become gladiators. Gladiators, like say Nubian fist fighting, might exist and fight with fists but their culture, training, theories, etc are totally separate.

This is Olympia. Boxing became the sport of Apollo and all those who box or watch boxing worship Apollo.

A few millenia pass, Rome takes over, renames the sport Pyx, allows more brutal gloves and changes the rules a bit.

Rome is Christianized and bans all pagan rituals. Remember, Apollo is the God of boxing? Yeah, boxing pagan and banned in Christandom

Except, Russia gives no ****s about any Pope do they? Yessir, our friends in Russia pick up the sport and make massive changes. Russians would key very much into alleviating tensions between territories by having representative fight rather than allowing wars to just break out. So the Russians turned the individual sport into a team sport, they had formations and generals, it was neat and very russian.

The Russian orthodox church would eventually come down on boxing by the 1500s but pretty much from 400-1500 boxing was held down by the Russians.

Alright but how did boxing move from Russia to England during the dark ages when boxing was satanic? Duels actually. As boxers from the east of Europe met with duelists from the west they brought with them boxing of course. So a man challenges you to a duel, you see he's got a sword but he challenged you, you're champion boxer back home, you get to pick the weapon and state you grounds. Of course you're going the say well, then, let's box. That's what they did anyway. Fisticuffs, the word came from this interaction. Fencing with fists was born of this.

The first account of boxing isn't from James Figg it's from a butcher and a gardiner. What had happened was the renaissance. You know, that period when the English thought it was super cool to go to places like Egypt, Greece, and Italy to dig things up and us them to inspire social changes? This is when boxing gets its name.

This fella Richard Dover starts to push the idea of olympic in England, it takes hold, men trained in the art of fencing with fists or fisticuff take notice to the similarities in their fighting styles and the greeks and more importantly the Romans as this is also when the Britons were starting to claim Roman heiriage. It was about 1630 at the height of Dover's influence.

The sword starts to fall out of fashion with duelists, great swordsman kind less and less pupils looking for sword training and find more and more hungry for pugilism.

By the 1720s James Figg wasn't trained in Russian boxing or ancient Greek boxing, he was trained in what came of it. I've forgotten the name of the man who trained and patroned Figg to the top
, I think it was Captain John Godfrey but I could be mistaken. Basically Figg's position was I will duel anyone at anytime for money and to entertain the onlookers. Weapon fighting being on it's last leg, even though Figg had way more sword fights than fist fight he's mostly and remember for his boxing.

From here I assume you know the story well, but, if you're curious I can actually run through the bare knuckle era, in brief, as well. You're probably aware of Figg enough to see how much I'm cutting from all this, I tried to not get too into details without becoming disconnected, I apologize if I missed that mark

Anyway, British boxing is different from its inspirations or influences but it is still inspired directly and indirectly by Greece, not anyone else. It all leads back to Greece and then ends there.






Do you know why boxers and hell at this point basically all athetely believe sex can take away their energy or drive to fight? Because Klietomachos, who unified the Pan-hellenic , Isthmus, Pythian, Namean, and Olympic, boxing, wrestling, and MMA championships without suffering so much as a single point loss and he said he was able to do such a feat because he abstained from sex.

There is nothing like that coming from pre-greco societies in boxing today. There is no lineage to them, no more than Gladiators have anything to do with boxing. Gladiators' trainers would have no influence on how Pygmachia champions fought, Pygmachos are who inspired the Rus not Gladiators. Pygmachos are who inspired the Brits, not gladiators.


To this day, boxing, is Apollo's sport.

ok, we can agree to disagree

but I cannot see anything semantic about this at all...

lineage
/ˈlɪnɪɪdʒ/
noun
1.
direct descent from an ancestor; ancestry or pedigree.

and regarding Greece being the definitive origin of boxing... I think you could be researching older information?

for some time now, it was considered that the origins of boxing were Egypt, not Greece... but recent discoveries suggest that boxing even pre-dates Egypt

from olympic.org

IN THE BEGINNING
The earliest evidence of boxing dates back to Egypt around 3000 BC. The sport was introduced to the ancient Olympic Games by the Greeks in the late 7th century BC, when soft leather thongs were used to bind boxers’ hands and forearms for protection.

ROMAN DEVELOPMENTS
Later, in Rome, leather thongs were exchanged for the cestus – a glove studded with metal. Unfortunately this did not help the gladiators involved, as boxing matches of the era usually ended with the death of one or other contestant.

AMATEUR BOXING
With the fall of the Roman Empire, boxing came to an abrupt end. It resurfaced in 17th century England, and organised amateur boxing officially began in 1880. Originally only five weight classes were contested: Bantam, not exceeding 54 kilos; Feather, not exceeding 57 kilos; Light, not exceeding 63.5 kilos; Middle, not exceeding 73 kilos; and Heavy, any weight.

this is from wiki...

A painting of Minoan youths boxing

This is the earliest documented use of boxing gloves.

like I say, newer evidence suggests that boxing waa practiced even earlier...




these guys are wearing handwraps, and do not appear to be baking a cake

I dunno man, I think we will have to agree to disagree on that one as well... it seems logical that punching another man with your fist, whilst evading his blows... likely dates back to the dawn of time

this could be a little tongue-in-cheek... but Cain likely bashed Abel with the jawbone of an ass, because Abel was a better boxer

it seems likely, and even obvious... that different cultures, from different era's... practiced hitting each other with their fists... but I take your point about the Spartans doing their own thing, very very interesting... they had a fascinating culture

regarding the lineal "championship", which is not to be confused with lineage... this is from wiki...

The concept of a lineal champion was developed by boxing fans dissatisfied by the tendency of each of the various sanctioning bodies (WBC, WBA, IBF, etc.) to recognize different champions, and in particular to strip a champion of his title for refusing to fight its top-ranked contender. Prior to the 1970s, this rarely happened.

A criticism of the lineal championship is that a fighter may defend it against inferior opponents... The lineal champion is not necessarily the boxer viewed as the best.

wiki suggests that lineage is actually more relevant to MMA, than to boxing... because of the various different platforms

interesting... but yep, we can agree to disagree

and thanks for your take on Figg, I find him to be an extraordinarily intriguing character for some reason

great post

[aboutfkntime]

Its funny M: Even though we disagree about the lineal's importance, to me you are the authority on titles, and the history of how they have been sanctioned. I would, under the circumstances defer to your judgement, including about the lineal.

With that said here is my case for the lineal:

I believe that when fans are informed they see things like when a judges' decision is hogwash, or if there are extenuating circumstances to a victory, or loss. We need some governing bodies to oversee safety issues, but it should be obvious who the best fighters are, and what fights should determine the best fighter in the bunch.

Boxing is one of the few sports that allows for fighters to declare a title with no mechanism for having an agreed upon standing. We have so many titles running around. And these title organizations determine things that are not related to the best fighting the best at all times.

The lineal puts the power in the hands of the fans. It is flexible enough, deterministic enough, and has held sway long enough, that it becomes the only means of asserting the "King of the Hill" with no conditions.

I definitely agree with the bold

where we (possibly?) differ is... fans blindly using lineage to draw conclusions are not "informed"

look what happened when The Ring tried that rubbish.....

Canelo was ranked the #1 middleweight on the planet because of lineage...

1) despite the fact that he had never faced a middleweight opponent
2) despite the fact that he had never weighed more than 155
3) despite the fact that Golovkin was obviously the best middleweight on the planet

other than Canelo, other glaring examples that are relevant to fans of todays era are Adonis Stevenson, and Shannon Briggs

[aboutfkntime]

uh, not quoting anyone here, but...

The WBC, and Don King
Many in the boxing community have accused the WBC of bending its rules to suit the powerful boxing promoter Don King. The journalist Jack Newfield wrote, "...[WBC President José Sulaimán] became more King's junior partner than his independent regulator".[5] Another journalist, Peter Heller, echoes that comment: "Sulaimán...became little more than an errand boy for Don King".[6] Heller quotes British promoter Mickey Duff as saying, "My complaint is that José Sulaimán is not happy his friend Don King is the biggest promoter in boxing. Sulaimán will only be happy when Don King is the only promoter in boxing."[6]

Newfield and Heller take issue with the following actions of the WBC:

When Leon Spinks won the WBA and WBC Heavyweight Championships from Muhammad Ali in 1978, the WBC stripped Leon Spinks of his title. José Sulaimán said the WBC did so because Spinks was signed for a rematch with Ali instead of fighting a Don King fighter, Ken Norton. Norton defended the WBC title against another Don King fighter, Larry Holmes, who won the belt.[5]
In 1983, WBC Super Featherweight Champion Bobby Chacon was signed to fight Cornelius Boza-Edwards, the WBC's mandatory challenger for his title. But, the promoter Don King wanted his fighter, Héctor Camacho, to fight for the title. Although WBC rules said the mandatory challenger should receive a shot at the title, the WBC withdrew its sanction from the fight. It stripped Chacon of his title for refusing to fight Camacho.[6]
Under WBC rules, a fighter is supposed to defend his title against a mandatory challenger at least once a year. For fighters controlled by Don King, this rule is often ignored. For instance, Alexis Argüello and Carlos Zárate were allowed to ignore their obligations as WBC champions to their mandatory contenders.[5]
When WBC Super Featherweight Champion Julio César Chávez wanted to fight top contender Roger Mayweather for a promoter other than Don King, the WBC withheld its sanction of the fight until Don King became promoter.[5]
When Mike Tyson lost to James "Buster" Douglas during an IBF, WBC and WBA Heavyweight Championship defense, King convinced the WBC (along with the WBA) to withhold recognition of Douglas as heavyweight champion. King claimed that Tyson had won the fight by knocking Douglas down, after which the referee gave Douglas a "long count".[5] The referee, Octavio Meyran, claims in an affidavit that King threatened to have the WBC withhold payment of his hotel bill if he did not support King's protest.[7] Because of intense public pressure, both the WBA and WBC backed down and recognized Douglas as champion.
In 1992, the WBC threatened to strip Evander Holyfield of his title for defending it against Rid**** Bowe instead of Razor Ruddock. Holyfield obtained a court order to stop the organization. In a taped deposition for the United States Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, Holyfield said that the WBC wanted him to defend his championship against Ruddock because Ruddock was managed by King.[8]
During the 1990s, the WBC did not allow its champions to engage in unification bouts with WBO champions. However, in 1993, the super middleweight showdown between WBC champion Nigel Benn and WBO champion Chris Eubank, promoted by Don King, was recognized as a title unification fight by the WBC. The bout ended in a draw and each retained their respective titles.[9][circular reference]
When Mike Tyson was released from prison in 1995, the WBC installed him as their #1 contender for their heavyweight championship. Tyson had not fought in four years, but was promoted by Don King.[10]
In 1993, Julio César Chávez, managed and promoted by Don King, received a majority draw against Pernell Whitaker in their WBC welterweight title fight in San Antonio, Texas. Virtually every ringside observer and boxing analyst had Whitaker winning at least 8 or 9 rounds of the 12-round fight and CompuBox statistics showed Whitaker outlanding Chávez by a wide margin. But two of the three judges had the fight scored even. The fight was promoted by King and two of the judges were not appointed by the state's boxing commission (in this case, Texas) like any other time; instead, they were appointed by the WBC. It had been reported that Don King had a hand in helping to secure the WBC judges for the fight.[11] To this day, the resulting draw is considered one of the most controversial decisions ever.
In 2000, Chávez, still promoted by King, was made the mandatory challenger for Kostya Tszyu's WBC super lightweight title. Chávez did not appear to satisfy requirements for a mandatory challenger: he had not fought at super lightweight for two years, had recently lost to journeyman boxer Willy Wise and had not beaten a top contender since losing to Oscar De La Hoya for the first time in 1996.[citation needed]
In 2005, the WBC stripped Javier Castillejo of his super welterweight title for fighting Fernando Vargas instead of Ricardo Mayorga, a fighter promoted by Don King. The WBC qualified Mayorga for a shot at the super welterweight title although he had never fought at that weight limit and had lost two of his last three fights.[citation needed]

how many milli-seconds should we spend talking about how pure and unadulterated the WBC are?

wtf ?

come on, most of us have been following this sport long enough to knows up

right ?

[Marchegiano]

ok, we can agree to disagree

but I cannot see anything semantic about this at all...



and regarding Greece being the definitive origin of boxing... I think you could be researching older information?

for some time now, it was considered that the origins of boxing were Egypt, not Greece... but recent discoveries suggest that boxing even pre-dates Egypt

from olympic.org



this is from wiki...



like I say, newer evidence suggests that boxing waa practiced even earlier...




these guys are wearing handwraps, and do not appear to be baking a cake

I dunno man, I think we will have to agree to disagree on that one as well... it seems logical that punching another man with your fist, whilst evading his blows... likely dates back to the dawn of time

this could be a little tongue-in-cheek... but Cain likely bashed Abel with the jawbone of an ass, because Abel was a better boxer

it seems likely, and even obvious... that different cultures, from different era's... practiced hitting each other with their fists... but I take your point about the Spartans doing their own thing, very very interesting... they had a fascinating culture

regarding the lineal "championship", which is not to be confused with lineage... this is from wiki...



wiki suggests that lineage is actually more relevant to MMA, than to boxing... because of the various different platforms

interesting... but yep, we can agree to disagree

and thanks for your take on Figg, I find him to be an extraordinarily intriguing character for some reason

great post

Connect ancient Egyptian boxing to anything surviving today. You can't because it didn't spread. It has nothing to do with Greek boxing.

Punching another man doesn't make you connected to any sport.

My information isn't out of date, it's from better sources than Wiki.

There's a lot of fist fighting that happens through time, that doesn't make it boxing.

dueling with fists was never made illegal, boxing was.

Yes, you can see people punching one another, that sport either died or became something other than boxing. Boxing came from Greece.

[davefromvancouv]

For all you Americans out there that were promoting Fury as not only a better, more worthy, higher ranked heavyweight than AJ in the build up for the first Wilder fight, but were talking non stop about how he was "lineal champion"....does Wilder calling it bull**** change your opinion? Are you still going to post on here about how this is a "champ v champ" fight?

Nope. That's the beauty of the lineage. If you beat the man, you're the man, regardless if you want to acknowledge it or not. Wladimir Klitschko beat #3 Chagaev while #2 Vitali was still fighting, #3 Povetkin after #2 Vitali's last fight, and #2 Pulev after Vitali's official retirement. So he established himself as the lineal champion over his 10 year reign. Then Fury beat him, left for a bit, and fought 5 times after that.

If Wilder beats Fury, he's the lineal champion. Even if you believe the lineage is vacated, the rematch has Wilder and Fury #1 and #2 in RING and TBRB. The winner is the lineal champion.

[Marchegiano]

....

I felt like just saying better than wiki was ****ish but at the time I didn't have a good book come to mind. Gardiner, though massively respected, is a bit Hellenic-centric and supposses the Greeks were the first to make a sport of it, which is nonsense. I knew I didn't want to name him or his book but couldn't think of one and then forgot about it and never did plug in a suggestion.

Sport and Spectacle in the Ancient World by Donald G. Kyle seems to be what you want I reckon.

There is acknowledgement of boxing sports prior to our boxing sport in that book.

My point though, and the book won't say it directly by will make this point very clear, is boxing, if we're going to call all punching sports boxing, may have existed before the Greeks but Greek boxing is the boxing that exists presently. It did not die, it left Hellenic society and most of Europe for a long time then it came back through Anglo interest and Russian interaction. It's one long sport whereas at best Sumerian or Minoan or Egyptian boxing died rather than evolved.

Or it didn't. It's actually an avenue of research I've been working on. The forms of 'boxing' that are disconnected from our boxing but survive.

Look at Dambe:



Now realize this sport is not our sport. You have to recognize that. Sure, we can call it boxing, I've no issue with that, but, credit where credit's due, our sport came from Greece. It began prior to our sport and has existed unbroken the entire time our sport has existed, but, it did not inspire out sport, these cultures did not mix, the Greeks new nothing of Nigerians, they were all Ethiopians to the Greeks.

I'd agree it's a form of boxing but disagree it has anything to do with our lineage or rather the sport most think about when talking about 'boxing''s lineage.