For those who say where's the belt...I'm not saying you're wrong, but, please let me explain what happened to the lineal belt.
To understand modern boxing belts we first have to go back to bareknuckle. I've read, even from historians, it said that BK is more akin to MMA than boxing. That's super untrue. BK is where boxing got its traditions and theories. There is no Mike Tyson without there being a Marciano first, there is no Marciano without a Dempsey, there is no Dempsey without a Jeffries, there is no Jeffries without a Ryan, there is no Ryan without an NP Dempsey, there is no NP Dempsey without a Mace, No Mace without a Sayers, no Sayers without a Belcher, no Belcher without a Figg. Bam *****, that's your lineage for how and why the crouch came into and stayed with boxing. From Figg to Mike Tyson...I don't think I need mention Tua and beyond cause y'all know them....but OFC no Tua without Tyson.
So, to say MMA has more in common with BK than boxing is purely to look at rule sets and identify things like slams being legal in BK. Not actually taking a peek at the actual techniques employed by the athletes. Boxing became a sport about punching because it's proven itself the superior tactic in a sport that started with no rules. MMA, allows more than punching, BK allows more than punching, that's where the similarities end. That's it. Exactly how they punched, like boxers today. Exactly how they clinched to set up for slams? Same way we clinch in boxing.
So, now that I've established bare knuckle boxing is the mother sport of boxing....which is GD absurd I even feel the need to be honest, let's get into this belt business.
From the beginning, from Figg's Amphitheatre onward, there was the sashes.
These sashes were called the colors. We didn't have red and blue set corners, we had colors, often the favorite color of the boxer but not limited to a set color, it could be plaid or zigzags or just plain, whatever.
The boxers would wear their colors around their waist, tie their colors to the post that signified their corner and sell their colors to their fans so's to have something to wave in support of their fighter.
Finally, the colors were exchanged at the end of the fight. A man who beat another man walks away with his colors.
So if i'm Orange, like Young Molyneaux, and you're green like Peter Maher and you KO me, you walk away with my orange. This is olden proof you whooped my ass.
It does not take long for colors to fail as record keepers. Like our championship belts today, a man with many colors could be found just about anywhere and was not necessarily a good way to tell he was talented. By like 1808.
In theory the man with the largest rainbow to display is the clear champion, but when everyone's got a rainbow something needs done.
Of course it wasn't a major problem. Everyone knew who the champ was, well everyone in boxing anyway, but as fan we want to award our champions and give them a symbol that signifies their placement above the heap.
When Tom Cribb cheated Tom Molyneaux for the first US-UK unification bout they were each awarded their belts. Cribb for winning, Molyneaux because the English fans felt bad about cheating him.
Both of these belts are lost to time, but, I can describe them. Both very simple, Cribb's belt was Lionskin with a gold center plate. Moly's was leather and copper.
This started the tradition of a belted champion. When the champion lost or retired, just like the colors, he was to hand over his belt.
This only happened sometimes. Cribb was awarded his belt by the King himself, who did commission the belt specifically but did not retain control over it. That particular belt is so early it was seen as a simple trophy. not to be transferred upon retirement, but, it is alone in this. From then on belts would transfer like colors for the same reason as colors with of course a few exceptions for major contests.
It's a little odd, to me, to have a King who enjoys boxing and would influence her, but, wished no control over he. that is what happened, the Crown created the belt and washed their hands of it all at once.
So from 1810-1880s there are belts but the belt may not be on the champion....halfassing the whole meaning of the thing.
When a champion refused to give up their particular physical copy of a belt the Fancy, which is rich dudes into boxing, would commission a new one for the new champion. Yes there were multiple champion in the BK era. Today we call them claimants or champions in pretense. Back then, they were two dudes with belts that said the same thing.
These are essentially fan awards. The fans dictate who is champion and they dictate who carries the belt. The guys and dates you see on lists like the one at Cyber Boxing Zone are historian's best estimates of fan consensus based on newspapers and the like from the time. Not a complete list of who held what belts when. There's a few eras where fans act helpless and the man with the belt does what he pleases, but for the most part creating a new belt works okay.
By the time of Heenan-Sayers, the first real US-UK showdown as Tom v Tom happened prior to the US having any sort of scene or culture. Heenan came from American boxing where as Tom at best learned Euro boxing and simply was American...it's a small difference but important to the men who lived at the time.
Heenan, like Tom, was robbed of his win by the English fans, and like Tom were not so long in the tooth as to avoid accepting their fault. Both men would be award belts, again, commissioned by the Fancy.
These two belts are important because they are the prototype for the world champion belt. Everything else leading to this point just explains how we got to this point. This is the belt, the real lineal belt, or at least, the original inspiration. Toms' belts started it but this one would standardize it.
There are lineal champions prior to Heenan-Sayers but their belts are hardly lineal belts as they hardly transferred and when they did they did not rest on the shoulder of every lineal
Example:
Jem Ward the Black Diamond 1827 1832
James Burke the Deaf 'Un 1833 1839
William Thompson Bendigo 1839 1840
from CBZ
Jem Ward did not give up his belt until Bendigo won in 39. James Burke got skipped, James Burke is a lineal champion though....albeit strapless.
Okay, it's time for Paddy Ryan to fight John L. Sullivan now.
Twenty years ago Heenan fought Sayers for the world, not US or UK champion. Sullivan reckon'd himself the baddest man on the planet. He wants that world recognition.
Let me explain a little more what I mean by Heenan-Sayers for those a little in the know, who know Heenan as the US champ and Sayers as the UK. Those names came about to distinguish the world champions from one another. In their day they were thought of as the world champions, in equals. The world champ from American is Heenan. The world champ from England, Sayers. Today they are often just called the American champ because in their day for shorthand that's how they were colloquialized. The title they fought for though was not for the US or English titles but rather the World title. The first World title.
But, there is no governance in boxing and the only thing making any stir to try is coming from Europe.
Enter Richard K Fox and the Police Gazette.
Fox liked BK and didn't want Sullivan to make boxing a gloved sport. So as to entice the boxing community into sticking with bare knuckle Fox had a belt commissioned in the fashion of the Heenan-Sayers belts. Like a replica. The World Championship in gloved boxing was created....sorta.
Sullivan won this and still made boxing a gloved sport. Fox hated him for it and searched for a man to defeat Sully to take his belt and proclaim bare knuckle's place as the champion of all boxing. Jake Kilrain becomes the Gazette's man despite Sully being the Gazette's champion. Fox being dictator of his belt publicly strips Sullivan in a bar, it doesn't take, and crowns Kilrain as champion.....also not given a damn about by fans.
What exactly is PG? The Police Gazette was sort of a tabloid and sort of a men's mag but more than anything else the prototype Ring Mag. So much so that Nat Fleischer, Ring's founder and editor for decades, plagiarised quite a lot of his work directly from Fox and the Gazette. PG founded in 1845 and had covered boxing since 1877
PG creates another belt for Kilrain, a beautiful silver. Sullivan's fans respond by creating a gold and diamond belt for Sully.
Sullivan fights English champion Mitchell to a draw. The English are proud enough of the draw to no longer press the issue. John can be world champion, there man is equal, officially, so they're good. They kinda want another Heenan-Sayers situation at best.
Kilrain fights and KOs English champion Smith in the BK arena....Jake Kilrain is the world HW champion of bare knuckle, period.
There's two boxings and two world champions. It has to be ended. Sullivan's motivated, Kilrain is motivated, they fight, Sullivan KOs him, Sullivan is now the clear and true champion. The HW champion of the world period. The first real HW champion of the world, no cheating needed. No bull**** needed....well...maybe a little, Fox is also the guy, through PG as well, issuing Colored championships. So his Colored HW world's champ, George Godfrey really should have gotten a crack at Sully, but, racism...damn shame really. Godfrey did get beat by Kilrain prior to Sullivan KO'ing Jake so he does have man who beat the man over Godfrey anyway, but, the legitimacy of the George-Jake fight is questionable anyways...racism. So, that's also worth consideration. All the same, for the first time ever a single man is accepted as the world's champion.
Divisions are not yet formalized, Heavyweight had no minimal yet and so really meant champion of all men. Anyone could and would fight for it. MW Fitzsimmons is legend for it.
Fox had lost his bid to preserve bare knuckle, but, was not so bitter as to keep awards from Sullivan, Sullivan is the man no matter what, it's in Fox's interest to play along. Sulli, of course, has the PG belt. His was made of gold. It was very popular because it was said to be worth 10k. I doubt it, but that's the claim.
The Gazette failed to keep BK on top but did not fail in creating prestige for their belts. When Corbett KOs Sullivan PG creates him a belt. Creates, does not ask Sullivan to give up his version....just like a modern belt.
Corbett retires and hands his belt to Maher. Maher loses to Fitzs, who gets a belt, Fitzs loses to Sharkey in a fixed fight. PG plays no bull on this one, Sharkey can have Fitzs' belt but PG won't make him one. Sharkey doesn't request one either. The NSC does support him though.....even if Sharkey himself did not. Anyway, Corbett returns, PG creates a belt for him to fight Fitzs for. Fitzs wins.
The National Police Gazette lasted for 132 years, publishing from 1845 to 1977, and produced 5,000 issues–becoming one of the five longest-running periodicals in North American history. Its heyday was the Fox years, from 1877 to 1922.
Now, it don't take much of a genius to figure out what happened from there I don't reckon.
PG was The Ring of its era but Ring would be the Ring of Ring's era of course.
PG was the most respected and closest thing to a body but the NBA would have its NBA superiority era all the same.
In a single word, Dempsey.
The Ring/ NBA/ NYSAC champion was really, really popular. New money, new faces, new interests in boxing came in and the PG, the lineal itself, did not matter.
People today conveniently forget lineal is the era that has such massive BS that making the BBBofC, EBU, WBC, and WBA sounded like a good idea.
No one, and I mean no one, cared about getting the lineal off Dempsey or the PG titles. They cared about that sweet NBA title and the coverage that would bring them. Their territory was largest. Just fighting for them meant you'd be more well known.
Ring did a good job coming in and ripping off Fox's history while conforming to body regulations.
What does #1 and #2 fighting one another have to do with lineal? Not a damn thing, there is no 1 or 2 in the lineal era. 1 and 2 are sanctioning body ideas. Ring enforced these ideas and this culture and the fan's loved them for it.
Being fair to PG, they did start the idea that it's probably not best to allow the champion to pick just any old fighter to defend against, but they did not go as far as a number one contender, they were more this is the champion, these are the contenders, the champ may fight any of them and it is a valid defense or vacancy claim.
Just prior to the Willard fight, around those years, the lineal title did become a symbolic title. With no reason to produce belts for champions, the lineal title was held in a picture of a belt. I think this alone should tell you just how little anyone cared. Yes, it survives, yes it is around, no, it isn't anything the fans cared about and the fighters themselves saw it as less than Ring let alone NBA. It was like a world champion participation plaque you hang on your wall...or a drawing from a kid on your fridge.
Not even the Police Gazette cared enough about their belts anymore to actually create them. PG had always printed a version of the belt in their papers for their readers, drawings of the actual, realistic, nonrealistic, all sorts of different types in different eras. From 22 and sporadically onward when they felt like it, that would be the only form of 'belt' PG issued anymore as Ring had taken over.
It isn't until Ali's era and the death of the Gazette that we find any fan mention of lineal outside of Ring or PG themselves dropping history. Fans during say Marciano's era, or Luis's, did not give a piss about any lineal status. They did not give a piss about Sullivan's era at all and saw it as the old timey lawless era of boxing where champions were crowned in bars. Not some glorified honorable era of best fighting best. That was their era. Louis would tell you, Marciano would tell you, hell, guys like Primo would tell you, they know they fought the best because they had rankings to go off. Sullivan's era did not. We can say Sullivan fought the best but there was no authority making sure it happened.
When that authority finally failed, of course there was no remnant of those belts. PG had died off the boxing scene for sometime and Ring was so integrated into boxing fanbases and history their belt, which was only ever meant to honor lineal not be lineal, became conflated with the lineal championship.
Lineal was revived by fans in name alone. They can commission a belt and it'd be lineal. They can bother PG who still exists and awards BK belts to ****ty BK fighters. They can draw themselves a picture and make that lineal. Really, it's been just about everything one could imagine at one point or another. Who's to say the WBC/WBA split and rebirth of lineal, without so much as a printed championship, is any less legitimate? It seems by 22 onward the title was seen as less than a body belt and less than a ring title.
My final thought on lineal, from the 70s to now the fans who request lineal be respected have done little to nothing to make it be respected. Why does Tyson have no belt if so many call him champion? Does the idea alone make it respectable or the number of people who believe it?
See the thing is, is when a champion won the title there was always a physical belt of some kind to give to him. It may not have been the belt he was meant to get but a belt all the same would be awarded. Until no one cared....and to make the lack of giving ****s about the lineal apart of lineal tradition seems more insult than revival. Lack of understanding rather than carrying the torch.
It seems like, to me, when there is a real and true lineal there's a big enough fan base with enough vehemency around their claim to have a belt of some form created.
Then again, who am I to say Sullivan's PG Gold belt is any more legit than Dempsey's drawing in the newspaper belt or that Dempsey's drawing is more legitimate than Ali's absolutely nothing but fans claiming ****, and isn't Tyson's claim at least more legit than just some fans once upon a time being upset?
He is man who beat the man, I'd like to see him as lineal, but, really, lineal does and did have a belt until lineal died.
I still see Tyson as the lineal, but, I think the lineal is really a dead title. When there's some kind of physical belt to represent it again it will be a title worth owning.
Right now, Fury's King of the Dead.
Here's some pics of some old belts.....bet you can guess how Ring got to their design:
PG original:
Belt made for Mitchell by fans:
Sully's Gold PG:
Ring Original:
To understand modern boxing belts we first have to go back to bareknuckle. I've read, even from historians, it said that BK is more akin to MMA than boxing. That's super untrue. BK is where boxing got its traditions and theories. There is no Mike Tyson without there being a Marciano first, there is no Marciano without a Dempsey, there is no Dempsey without a Jeffries, there is no Jeffries without a Ryan, there is no Ryan without an NP Dempsey, there is no NP Dempsey without a Mace, No Mace without a Sayers, no Sayers without a Belcher, no Belcher without a Figg. Bam *****, that's your lineage for how and why the crouch came into and stayed with boxing. From Figg to Mike Tyson...I don't think I need mention Tua and beyond cause y'all know them....but OFC no Tua without Tyson.
So, to say MMA has more in common with BK than boxing is purely to look at rule sets and identify things like slams being legal in BK. Not actually taking a peek at the actual techniques employed by the athletes. Boxing became a sport about punching because it's proven itself the superior tactic in a sport that started with no rules. MMA, allows more than punching, BK allows more than punching, that's where the similarities end. That's it. Exactly how they punched, like boxers today. Exactly how they clinched to set up for slams? Same way we clinch in boxing.
So, now that I've established bare knuckle boxing is the mother sport of boxing....which is GD absurd I even feel the need to be honest, let's get into this belt business.
From the beginning, from Figg's Amphitheatre onward, there was the sashes.
These sashes were called the colors. We didn't have red and blue set corners, we had colors, often the favorite color of the boxer but not limited to a set color, it could be plaid or zigzags or just plain, whatever.
The boxers would wear their colors around their waist, tie their colors to the post that signified their corner and sell their colors to their fans so's to have something to wave in support of their fighter.
Finally, the colors were exchanged at the end of the fight. A man who beat another man walks away with his colors.
So if i'm Orange, like Young Molyneaux, and you're green like Peter Maher and you KO me, you walk away with my orange. This is olden proof you whooped my ass.
It does not take long for colors to fail as record keepers. Like our championship belts today, a man with many colors could be found just about anywhere and was not necessarily a good way to tell he was talented. By like 1808.
In theory the man with the largest rainbow to display is the clear champion, but when everyone's got a rainbow something needs done.
Of course it wasn't a major problem. Everyone knew who the champ was, well everyone in boxing anyway, but as fan we want to award our champions and give them a symbol that signifies their placement above the heap.
When Tom Cribb cheated Tom Molyneaux for the first US-UK unification bout they were each awarded their belts. Cribb for winning, Molyneaux because the English fans felt bad about cheating him.
Both of these belts are lost to time, but, I can describe them. Both very simple, Cribb's belt was Lionskin with a gold center plate. Moly's was leather and copper.
This started the tradition of a belted champion. When the champion lost or retired, just like the colors, he was to hand over his belt.
This only happened sometimes. Cribb was awarded his belt by the King himself, who did commission the belt specifically but did not retain control over it. That particular belt is so early it was seen as a simple trophy. not to be transferred upon retirement, but, it is alone in this. From then on belts would transfer like colors for the same reason as colors with of course a few exceptions for major contests.
It's a little odd, to me, to have a King who enjoys boxing and would influence her, but, wished no control over he. that is what happened, the Crown created the belt and washed their hands of it all at once.
So from 1810-1880s there are belts but the belt may not be on the champion....halfassing the whole meaning of the thing.
When a champion refused to give up their particular physical copy of a belt the Fancy, which is rich dudes into boxing, would commission a new one for the new champion. Yes there were multiple champion in the BK era. Today we call them claimants or champions in pretense. Back then, they were two dudes with belts that said the same thing.
These are essentially fan awards. The fans dictate who is champion and they dictate who carries the belt. The guys and dates you see on lists like the one at Cyber Boxing Zone are historian's best estimates of fan consensus based on newspapers and the like from the time. Not a complete list of who held what belts when. There's a few eras where fans act helpless and the man with the belt does what he pleases, but for the most part creating a new belt works okay.
By the time of Heenan-Sayers, the first real US-UK showdown as Tom v Tom happened prior to the US having any sort of scene or culture. Heenan came from American boxing where as Tom at best learned Euro boxing and simply was American...it's a small difference but important to the men who lived at the time.
Heenan, like Tom, was robbed of his win by the English fans, and like Tom were not so long in the tooth as to avoid accepting their fault. Both men would be award belts, again, commissioned by the Fancy.
These two belts are important because they are the prototype for the world champion belt. Everything else leading to this point just explains how we got to this point. This is the belt, the real lineal belt, or at least, the original inspiration. Toms' belts started it but this one would standardize it.
There are lineal champions prior to Heenan-Sayers but their belts are hardly lineal belts as they hardly transferred and when they did they did not rest on the shoulder of every lineal
Example:
Jem Ward the Black Diamond 1827 1832
James Burke the Deaf 'Un 1833 1839
William Thompson Bendigo 1839 1840
from CBZ
Jem Ward did not give up his belt until Bendigo won in 39. James Burke got skipped, James Burke is a lineal champion though....albeit strapless.
Okay, it's time for Paddy Ryan to fight John L. Sullivan now.
Twenty years ago Heenan fought Sayers for the world, not US or UK champion. Sullivan reckon'd himself the baddest man on the planet. He wants that world recognition.
Let me explain a little more what I mean by Heenan-Sayers for those a little in the know, who know Heenan as the US champ and Sayers as the UK. Those names came about to distinguish the world champions from one another. In their day they were thought of as the world champions, in equals. The world champ from American is Heenan. The world champ from England, Sayers. Today they are often just called the American champ because in their day for shorthand that's how they were colloquialized. The title they fought for though was not for the US or English titles but rather the World title. The first World title.
But, there is no governance in boxing and the only thing making any stir to try is coming from Europe.
Enter Richard K Fox and the Police Gazette.
Fox liked BK and didn't want Sullivan to make boxing a gloved sport. So as to entice the boxing community into sticking with bare knuckle Fox had a belt commissioned in the fashion of the Heenan-Sayers belts. Like a replica. The World Championship in gloved boxing was created....sorta.
Sullivan won this and still made boxing a gloved sport. Fox hated him for it and searched for a man to defeat Sully to take his belt and proclaim bare knuckle's place as the champion of all boxing. Jake Kilrain becomes the Gazette's man despite Sully being the Gazette's champion. Fox being dictator of his belt publicly strips Sullivan in a bar, it doesn't take, and crowns Kilrain as champion.....also not given a damn about by fans.
What exactly is PG? The Police Gazette was sort of a tabloid and sort of a men's mag but more than anything else the prototype Ring Mag. So much so that Nat Fleischer, Ring's founder and editor for decades, plagiarised quite a lot of his work directly from Fox and the Gazette. PG founded in 1845 and had covered boxing since 1877
PG creates another belt for Kilrain, a beautiful silver. Sullivan's fans respond by creating a gold and diamond belt for Sully.
Sullivan fights English champion Mitchell to a draw. The English are proud enough of the draw to no longer press the issue. John can be world champion, there man is equal, officially, so they're good. They kinda want another Heenan-Sayers situation at best.
Kilrain fights and KOs English champion Smith in the BK arena....Jake Kilrain is the world HW champion of bare knuckle, period.
There's two boxings and two world champions. It has to be ended. Sullivan's motivated, Kilrain is motivated, they fight, Sullivan KOs him, Sullivan is now the clear and true champion. The HW champion of the world period. The first real HW champion of the world, no cheating needed. No bull**** needed....well...maybe a little, Fox is also the guy, through PG as well, issuing Colored championships. So his Colored HW world's champ, George Godfrey really should have gotten a crack at Sully, but, racism...damn shame really. Godfrey did get beat by Kilrain prior to Sullivan KO'ing Jake so he does have man who beat the man over Godfrey anyway, but, the legitimacy of the George-Jake fight is questionable anyways...racism. So, that's also worth consideration. All the same, for the first time ever a single man is accepted as the world's champion.
Divisions are not yet formalized, Heavyweight had no minimal yet and so really meant champion of all men. Anyone could and would fight for it. MW Fitzsimmons is legend for it.
Fox had lost his bid to preserve bare knuckle, but, was not so bitter as to keep awards from Sullivan, Sullivan is the man no matter what, it's in Fox's interest to play along. Sulli, of course, has the PG belt. His was made of gold. It was very popular because it was said to be worth 10k. I doubt it, but that's the claim.
The Gazette failed to keep BK on top but did not fail in creating prestige for their belts. When Corbett KOs Sullivan PG creates him a belt. Creates, does not ask Sullivan to give up his version....just like a modern belt.
Corbett retires and hands his belt to Maher. Maher loses to Fitzs, who gets a belt, Fitzs loses to Sharkey in a fixed fight. PG plays no bull on this one, Sharkey can have Fitzs' belt but PG won't make him one. Sharkey doesn't request one either. The NSC does support him though.....even if Sharkey himself did not. Anyway, Corbett returns, PG creates a belt for him to fight Fitzs for. Fitzs wins.
The National Police Gazette lasted for 132 years, publishing from 1845 to 1977, and produced 5,000 issues–becoming one of the five longest-running periodicals in North American history. Its heyday was the Fox years, from 1877 to 1922.
Now, it don't take much of a genius to figure out what happened from there I don't reckon.
PG was The Ring of its era but Ring would be the Ring of Ring's era of course.
PG was the most respected and closest thing to a body but the NBA would have its NBA superiority era all the same.
In a single word, Dempsey.
The Ring/ NBA/ NYSAC champion was really, really popular. New money, new faces, new interests in boxing came in and the PG, the lineal itself, did not matter.
People today conveniently forget lineal is the era that has such massive BS that making the BBBofC, EBU, WBC, and WBA sounded like a good idea.
No one, and I mean no one, cared about getting the lineal off Dempsey or the PG titles. They cared about that sweet NBA title and the coverage that would bring them. Their territory was largest. Just fighting for them meant you'd be more well known.
Ring did a good job coming in and ripping off Fox's history while conforming to body regulations.
What does #1 and #2 fighting one another have to do with lineal? Not a damn thing, there is no 1 or 2 in the lineal era. 1 and 2 are sanctioning body ideas. Ring enforced these ideas and this culture and the fan's loved them for it.
Being fair to PG, they did start the idea that it's probably not best to allow the champion to pick just any old fighter to defend against, but they did not go as far as a number one contender, they were more this is the champion, these are the contenders, the champ may fight any of them and it is a valid defense or vacancy claim.
Just prior to the Willard fight, around those years, the lineal title did become a symbolic title. With no reason to produce belts for champions, the lineal title was held in a picture of a belt. I think this alone should tell you just how little anyone cared. Yes, it survives, yes it is around, no, it isn't anything the fans cared about and the fighters themselves saw it as less than Ring let alone NBA. It was like a world champion participation plaque you hang on your wall...or a drawing from a kid on your fridge.
Not even the Police Gazette cared enough about their belts anymore to actually create them. PG had always printed a version of the belt in their papers for their readers, drawings of the actual, realistic, nonrealistic, all sorts of different types in different eras. From 22 and sporadically onward when they felt like it, that would be the only form of 'belt' PG issued anymore as Ring had taken over.
It isn't until Ali's era and the death of the Gazette that we find any fan mention of lineal outside of Ring or PG themselves dropping history. Fans during say Marciano's era, or Luis's, did not give a piss about any lineal status. They did not give a piss about Sullivan's era at all and saw it as the old timey lawless era of boxing where champions were crowned in bars. Not some glorified honorable era of best fighting best. That was their era. Louis would tell you, Marciano would tell you, hell, guys like Primo would tell you, they know they fought the best because they had rankings to go off. Sullivan's era did not. We can say Sullivan fought the best but there was no authority making sure it happened.
When that authority finally failed, of course there was no remnant of those belts. PG had died off the boxing scene for sometime and Ring was so integrated into boxing fanbases and history their belt, which was only ever meant to honor lineal not be lineal, became conflated with the lineal championship.
Lineal was revived by fans in name alone. They can commission a belt and it'd be lineal. They can bother PG who still exists and awards BK belts to ****ty BK fighters. They can draw themselves a picture and make that lineal. Really, it's been just about everything one could imagine at one point or another. Who's to say the WBC/WBA split and rebirth of lineal, without so much as a printed championship, is any less legitimate? It seems by 22 onward the title was seen as less than a body belt and less than a ring title.
My final thought on lineal, from the 70s to now the fans who request lineal be respected have done little to nothing to make it be respected. Why does Tyson have no belt if so many call him champion? Does the idea alone make it respectable or the number of people who believe it?
See the thing is, is when a champion won the title there was always a physical belt of some kind to give to him. It may not have been the belt he was meant to get but a belt all the same would be awarded. Until no one cared....and to make the lack of giving ****s about the lineal apart of lineal tradition seems more insult than revival. Lack of understanding rather than carrying the torch.
It seems like, to me, when there is a real and true lineal there's a big enough fan base with enough vehemency around their claim to have a belt of some form created.
Then again, who am I to say Sullivan's PG Gold belt is any more legit than Dempsey's drawing in the newspaper belt or that Dempsey's drawing is more legitimate than Ali's absolutely nothing but fans claiming ****, and isn't Tyson's claim at least more legit than just some fans once upon a time being upset?
He is man who beat the man, I'd like to see him as lineal, but, really, lineal does and did have a belt until lineal died.
I still see Tyson as the lineal, but, I think the lineal is really a dead title. When there's some kind of physical belt to represent it again it will be a title worth owning.
Right now, Fury's King of the Dead.
Here's some pics of some old belts.....bet you can guess how Ring got to their design:
PG original:
Belt made for Mitchell by fans:
Sully's Gold PG:
Ring Original:
I've seen that fight and did not remember.
Comment