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WHO ARE BOXING’S REAL WORLD CHAMPIONS?
12 September, 2006 by Cliff Rold
DIFFERENCE BETWEEN ALPHABET BELTS AND WORLD TITLES!
Landover, MD – With seventeen weight divisions, multiple sanctioning bodies, and the growing number of interim and ‘super’ championship situations, it’s no wonder so many fans throw their hands up at the thought of following Boxing too closely. Since I began writing about this great sport, I have made sure to acknowledge that some fighters transcend the insanity of the sanctioning body mess as true world champions while others are merely titlists. The word to describe them, re-popularized among the hard core fans in the last decade, is lineal i.e. the man who beat the man.
FOREMAN’S IMPACT ON LINEAL MOVEMENT!
The rebirth of the lineal movement for most fans was the World Heavyweight title reign of George Foreman in the mid-1990’s. In the year following his win against Michael Moorer in 1994, Foreman would see himself stripped of the alphabet titles he owned (WBA and IBF) for not fighting who they demanded he fight (Bruce Seldon-Tony Tucker and Axel Schultz-Frans Botha were the stellar fights used to fill those belts). Foreman continued on, billing himself correctly as the lineal champion of the world. Right around the same time, the internet began to emerge as a strong voice in Boxing with educated fans beginning a drumbeat back to lineal recognition across the board. The Cyber Boxing Zone (CBZ) became the premier source for tracking the baseline of Boxing’s most important histories…it’s line of champions.
Read the Rest Here...
12 September, 2006 by Cliff Rold
DIFFERENCE BETWEEN ALPHABET BELTS AND WORLD TITLES!
Landover, MD – With seventeen weight divisions, multiple sanctioning bodies, and the growing number of interim and ‘super’ championship situations, it’s no wonder so many fans throw their hands up at the thought of following Boxing too closely. Since I began writing about this great sport, I have made sure to acknowledge that some fighters transcend the insanity of the sanctioning body mess as true world champions while others are merely titlists. The word to describe them, re-popularized among the hard core fans in the last decade, is lineal i.e. the man who beat the man.
FOREMAN’S IMPACT ON LINEAL MOVEMENT!
The rebirth of the lineal movement for most fans was the World Heavyweight title reign of George Foreman in the mid-1990’s. In the year following his win against Michael Moorer in 1994, Foreman would see himself stripped of the alphabet titles he owned (WBA and IBF) for not fighting who they demanded he fight (Bruce Seldon-Tony Tucker and Axel Schultz-Frans Botha were the stellar fights used to fill those belts). Foreman continued on, billing himself correctly as the lineal champion of the world. Right around the same time, the internet began to emerge as a strong voice in Boxing with educated fans beginning a drumbeat back to lineal recognition across the board. The Cyber Boxing Zone (CBZ) became the premier source for tracking the baseline of Boxing’s most important histories…it’s line of champions.
Read the Rest Here...