The Lineal (and true) World Heavyweight Title

[billeau2]

I'm not sure of everyone's knowledge. The history of titles is fascinating to me but I don't want to be taken as patronizing y'all and I don't want to write out a long explanation to folks who already know but maybe forgot or overlooked. So I'll just answer the question and use this opener as an explanation to allude to my ability come more complete, but, if you want more on the lineal or history of the HW crown I can pretty well explain every hole left by Cyber Boxing Zone. It can't hurt to ask and I more than likely do have an answer....I don't mean to brag or claim I am more educated than anyone else it's just that if none of you have ever charted and explained every champion from 686BC to the present I have actually done that work and research so you don't have to....and yes, to understand the three hundred years since the English revival you must have some understanding of the history that lasted over a millenia prior...what they were reviving helps understand the revival.



Anyway, The question is does Tyson keep his lineal status in retirement, correct?

When dealing with lineal, which has no official rules, you still have accepted rules yes? Like Man who beat the man? Alright, where did they come from if lineal has no rules? Of course they came from presidence.

In Man who beat the man's case, probably the most famous and exalted rule of lineal, that goes all the way back to James Figg's death. Prior to Figg's passing boxing was controlled by Figg and his Amphitheatre. I think something like the first seven or so champions are all Figg students, the men they beat for their title are all Figg students outside of Bob Whitaker fighting a Venetian. They fought in Figg's House. They promoted and managed the House, and most of their fights are dubious at best. For example after Bob beat the Venetian, who quit while claiming the English don't know boxing and would never give any foreign man fair play, Figg took the stage to announce in a week's time he'd produce a student who'd make short work of Bob....also his student. Nat Peartree did just that. Figg's era reads that way until Figg dies and his two star pupils split the House. From Figg's Amphitheatre came the split of Broughton and Tailor both star pupils of Figg, both opening an amphitheatre for themselves, both claiming the title based on being the best and last of the Figg students. The man who owned the title by victory was not defending it and both Broughton and Tailor had wins over him.

Broughton beat Tailor. Man who beat the man becomes far more important than Figg credentials. Broughton is king of boxing and that is why Broughton codified boxing. So that when he lost control it'd only be by so much, his rules would continue.

So what is our precedence for an unbeaten champion coming out of retirement to reclaim their belt?

Well, just loads really. One of my favorite examples is Jem Ward. Jem won his title off a fix, lost it, regained it, then went straight to ducking any challenge.

Jem Ward was ducking Deaf Burke when he retired. Back then the retired champion elected a bout for his vacant title so the next champion would have the previous champ's blessing. Ward retired so that he didn't have to face Burke and elected the man who he had fought for the title last to fight Burke. That man was Simon Byrne.

James Burke killed Byrne in the ring.

Ward claimed Burke was no fit to be champion and came out of retirement to reclaim his title. Jem Ward is still recognized as champion.

Burke goes through legal trouble for the Byrne death and is told by Ward they would fight in the ring for Ward's title if Burke can raise enough funds. The purse was some absurd number for the day but Burke got it eventually by working odd jobs, chopping wood and ****.

Ward took Burke's money and retired.

Ward elected his younger brother Nat Ward and Deaf Burke to fight for his title.

Deaf Burke knocked Nat Ward out.

Jem Ward announces Deaf Burke is not English enough to be champion, reclaims his title, Jem Ward is the champion.

Jem Ward never actually got stripped or removed, he never fought Burke, and he never honored a Burke victory.

James Burke got his World title acknowledgement from America when he defeated the Irish champion Sam O'Rourke on US soil while avoiding UK law for the Byrne death.

To this day historians argue as to where exactly Burke's reign begins and Ward's reign ends.

Not good enough you say? Need more examples?

How about Peter Maher? Did you know Maher was the World champion for like a blink?

Corbett retires. Maher fights someone, name escapes atm, for Corbett's title in the same fashion as the Ward-Burke fights; Corbett elected the title fight for his title. The other man was Corbett's but unlike Ward Corbett had some honor to him and handed Maher his title.

James went off to become an actor. Maher wanted to legitimize himself still because by this time the public had soured to champions just picking the fighters to fight for the title and pressure for something like the sanctioning bodies today was growing.

Maher would lose a couple of months later to Fitzsimmons. With fans unhappy with how the belt is transferred and so unwilling to recognize Maher as champion Fitzs, like Peter, did not claim the title but would be happy to defend it all the same. Corbett came out of retirement unbeaten and announced he's still the champion and Fitzs was happy to accept this because it set up a much bigger match between him and Corbett.

To this day Fitzsimmon's reign is recorded as having begun when he defeated Corbett. To this day you can see Fitzsimmons vs Sharkey, the one fight Bob had in between Maher and Corbett, was promoted as a HW title fight.

You will not see Sharkey or Maher on most lists of champions because their time as champion was stricken from record books when Corbett reclaimed his.


So there's two cases I pulled outta my bum that sent the precedence for Tyson Fury reclaiming the lineal title provided you see Wlad as lineal.

Great information. Thank you! That was very interesting to say the least.

[Marchegiano]

Great information. Thank you! That was very interesting to say the least.

I appreciate it.

Boxiana, Pugilistica, and Fistinia are the main sources for most of very early bare knuckle boxing. You can read everyone else's books and get snippets from these by doing it or just read these three. From those you'll see quotes and such from Lord Byron, James Byrom, a doctor at the time and I think he was also a Lord but I don't quite remember, and Captain Godfrey.

Byron and Byrom both offer some first hand accounts into boxing and prizefighting from their day and were published, but the nature of their work is more like diaries and poems.

Captain John Godfrey wrote Treatise Upon the Useful Science of Defence, Connecting the Small and Back-Sword. Which may not sound like a boxing manual but it very much is the source Boxiana, Pugilistica, and Fistinia all use.

You can find Treatise Upon the Useful Science of Defence, Boxiana, Pugilistica, and Fistinia all on Archive.org for free.

All three majors will cover the same history and do so with some differences, sometimes major. Treatise can usually be used to settle the dispute because Godfrey is the primary, he was a patron at Figg's Amphitheatre. Sometimes even all four do not agree with one another and you have to look to early publications, legal records, and church records. Bell's Life and the London Times, if I remember correcting, are a bit after Figg but still do a good job covering the era.

Alright bubba, now if you choose to you know right where to look for all the known information on the James Figg era.


edit- I forgot to add, from there it is pretty easy to follow the trail. Boxiana etc will bring you into the newspaper era. Bell's Life, London Times, etc. A lot of it overlaps. Then you get into just newspapers, NY Clipper, Police Gazette, etc.

[billeau2]

I appreciate it.

Boxiana, Pugilistica, and Fistinia are the main sources for most of very early bare knuckle boxing. You can read everyone else's books and get snippets from these by doing it or just read these three. From those you'll see quotes and such from Lord Byron, James Byrom, a doctor at the time and I think he was also a Lord but I don't quite remember, and Captain Godfrey.

Byron and Byrom both offer some first hand accounts into boxing and prizefighting from their day and were published, but the nature of their work is more like diaries and poems.

Captain John Godfrey wrote Treatise Upon the Useful Science of Defence, Connecting the Small and Back-Sword. Which may not sound like a boxing manual but it very much is the source Boxiana, Pugilistica, and Fistinia all use.

You can find Treatise Upon the Useful Science of Defence, Boxiana, Pugilistica, and Fistinia all on Archive.org for free.

All three majors will cover the same history and do so with some differences, sometimes major. Treatise can usually be used to settle the dispute because Godfrey is the primary, he was a patron at Figg's Amphitheatre. Sometimes even all four do not agree with one another and you have to look to early publications, legal records, and church records. Bell's Life and the London Times, if I remember correcting, are a bit after Figg but still do a good job covering the era.

Alright bubba, now if you choose to you know right where to look for all the known information on the James Figg era.


edit- I forgot to add, from there it is pretty easy to follow the trail. Boxiana etc will bring you into the newspaper era. Bell's Life, London Times, etc. A lot of it overlaps. Then you get into just newspapers, NY Clipper, Police Gazette, etc.

The connection of boxing to sword is integral to the origins of English Pugalism. This is for many reasons, not the least that Figg was a swordsman. Also, and this is an interesting cognate in certain Japanese arts, the body becomes a substitution for the sword... Aiki Jutsu is based on this principle, and with Figg, the original set ups, cadence, concept of an organized offense, defense and parry was all sword concept. Even the way weight was distributed, and the movement of the body.

This is one of the reasons why I personally feel the older system, pre dempsey, pre when Louis and BlackBurn started really emphasizing the variety of punches and squaring up to the opponent, were better fighting systems from a purely martial perspective. If you look at how it was done back then, just as with the sword, the body was moves as so not to telegraph, punches stressed accuracy, an accuracy that had to go when bigger gloves needed more swinging force on the punches to do damage.

A proper right hand lead could be thrown from an inch and knock a man as senseless as any giant bomb squad special! provided the energy could transfer, vis a vis a glove had to not be too large. But Figg's sword modified methods made a man concentrate on footwork, distance, timing and to use technique when possible. It does not always look that way which confuses people, but in those grapples, and in those short shifting movements many guys were decent technicians.

Interesting thing also was the use and development of the bastard sword from late Euro Medieval times. A sword that was designed exsclusively to kill people, with no finess, no elegance...to get up close and personal. To use this sword, which was the weapon of choice for ruffians and near do wells, one had to develop the capacity to close quickly and to grapple. In early Japanese Kendo there is also grappling. It seems under these conditions that grappling is foundational to all the combat skill sets of a swordsman as well as a boxer and that Figg may well have been aware of that when developing boxing techniqhe.

[Marchegiano]

The connection of boxing to sword is integral to the origins of English Pugalism. This is for many reasons, not the least that Figg was a swordsman. Also, and this is an interesting cognate in certain Japanese arts, the body becomes a substitution for the sword... Aiki Jutsu is based on this principle, and with Figg, the original set ups, cadence, concept of an organized offense, defense and parry was all sword concept. Even the way weight was distributed, and the movement of the body.

This is one of the reasons why I personally feel the older system, pre dempsey, pre when Louis and BlackBurn started really emphasizing the variety of punches and squaring up to the opponent, were better fighting systems from a purely martial perspective. If you look at how it was done back then, just as with the sword, the body was moves as so not to telegraph, punches stressed accuracy, an accuracy that had to go when bigger gloves needed more swinging force on the punches to do damage.

A proper right hand lead could be thrown from an inch and knock a man as senseless as any giant bomb squad special! provided the energy could transfer, vis a vis a glove had to not be too large. But Figg's sword modified methods made a man concentrate on footwork, distance, timing and to use technique when possible. It does not always look that way which confuses people, but in those grapples, and in those short shifting movements many guys were decent technicians.

Interesting thing also was the use and development of the bastard sword from late Euro Medieval times. A sword that was designed exsclusively to kill people, with no finess, no elegance...to get up close and personal. To use this sword, which was the weapon of choice for ruffians and near do wells, one had to develop the capacity to close quickly and to grapple. In early Japanese Kendo there is also grappling. It seems under these conditions that grappling is foundational to all the combat skill sets of a swordsman as well as a boxer and that Figg may well have been aware of that when developing boxing techniqhe.

That is all very, very, interesting. Thanks bud.

I'm honestly fairly weak on Figg and the era that preceded him. It was a about a decade ago that I read into Figg himself and since then I have read up on Peartree and those sorts but not really anything that predates Ned Sutton and absolute nothing outside of the butcher story that predates Figg.

I did read a little on 'fencing with fists' a while back but got distracted by Russian medieval boxing.

It would be interesting to know where Greece fits into all of this.

It's kind of embarrassing to admit, but I was told boxing in England picked up in the 18th century because it was a trend for the upper class to revive classic Greek culture and since that makes sense I've never actually looked into it to see if there's is more to it than that. Figg is not long before America which is all sort of d****d in English love for Greek culture so I never thought to challenge it.

Most of what I see as far as sword play in boxing I may have been mistakenly giving credit to the greeks when in fact it's english sword play boxing reflects.

Ancient boxing is no different, in short the left is your shield and the right is your sword.

I wonder if the swordplay itself is connected as well. It's easy for me to assume Greek sword fighting would influenced Roman and Roman influenced British, but again that's assumption, and I don't know very much about sword fighting or it's history outside what I came across while looking into boxing.

It seems obvious, but for some reason I never thought to look to swordplay to link Olympia to London. Reckon I'll get to work on that.

[billeau2]

That is all very, very, interesting. Thanks bud.

I'm honestly fairly weak on Figg and the era that preceded him. It was a about a decade ago that I read into Figg himself and since then I have read up on Peartree and those sorts but not really anything that predates Ned Sutton and absolute nothing outside of the butcher story that predates Figg.

I did read a little on 'fencing with fists' a while back but got distracted by Russian medieval boxing.

It would be interesting to know where Greece fits into all of this.

It's kind of embarrassing to admit, but I was told boxing in England picked up in the 18th century because it was a trend for the upper class to revive classic Greek culture and since that makes sense I've never actually looked into it to see if there's is more to it than that. Figg is not long before America which is all sort of d****d in English love for Greek culture so I never thought to challenge it.

Most of what I see as far as sword play in boxing I may have been mistakenly giving credit to the greeks when in fact it's english sword play boxing reflects.

Ancient boxing is no different, in short the left is your shield and the right is your sword.

I wonder if the swordplay itself is connected as well. It's easy for me to assume Greek sword fighting would influenced Roman and Roman influenced British, but again that's assumption, and I don't know very much about sword fighting or it's history outside what I came across while looking into boxing.

It seems obvious, but for some reason I never thought to look to swordplay to link Olympia to London. Reckon I'll get to work on that.

Well first of all you are quite right about the Greek revival. Hitherto, before Imanuel Kant and the birth of Modern philosophy circa 1740's give or take lol!!!, it was the Egyptians that were considered the keepers of the logical flame of reason. This came from the Romans, who were often copied in our technology and systems (they copied the greeks...) who felt that the Egyptians were highly developed culturally. Hence Cleopatra, and lets not forget that the Greeks also held these attitudes. Plato himself wrote in the timateus and Crito that there was an island of Atlantis that the Egyptian Priests claimed to him, they had learned from regarding their own culture.

Anyhow after the Romantic era, where the Greeks were considered passionate, emotionally immature, noble and small minded, Greek philosophy took root and the Greeks became the locus of order, including moral and aesthetic (Hellinistic ideas, etc), which is why we study Greek ideas today, when in fact the Romans were really the principle architects of most of our institutions.

REgarding the combat arts, there is a distinct difference between the Greek lines and European lines. Greek combat, along with Persian combatives were based primarily in feets of strength and agility, and conditioning. Arts such as Pankraton, were all inclusive, similar to MMA today. Hence we never really have a record of the combat masters and fight masters that tells us technical preferences. It does however appear that the military application of wrestling and boxing in Greek technology was distinct. Sword and shield was based on military formation, to such an extent that the Athenians were even able to stave off the Spartans for a while! But even against each other and the battle of Marathon, the emphasis seems to have been on large scale tactics and weaponry.

This is different from China and Japan where the martial arts were military arts...Yes even the Tai Chi one sees today was a battlefield art at one time. So, for example, we have MOng dynasty Generals in China commenting on how poor the staff techniques are at the Shaolin Monastery.

English rudimentary theory was based on sword masters from the German school, the Spanish school and eventually the Italian school of sword work. German sword was based on the different angles of entry, more practical than fencing today...Spanish/Portugese sword work, which was no doubt influenced by overseas head to heads with various small south East Asian tribes, like the MOro Moro, used a natural walking motion with the blade, useful for dueling! along with in the field. Spanish work was also great with shorter weapons, and many Spanish teachers preferred a short and a long weapon to a long sword and buckler.

English sword play came about during a post renaissance revival of the Italian Rapier, the Buckler, and Bastard Sword, and weapons that were used when the rapier was deemed "impractical" due to its length and fraility. Some say that the Italian duelists were being killed because of these problems, run through by those who used a shorter more durable weapon that was less pretty.

In response to this concern young men late renaissance carried shorter rapiers or foils so the weapon could be drawn quickly. Finally, Saber fencing from the Eastern Germanic countries made its way into England as well, but English sword theories, as well as traditional German (Lichner) ideas about sword held that running a man through was a prefarable aim to end the encounter than, trying to slash away. This was not a concern for the more well travelled Spanish schools, who employed both methods.

So the thust held sway! Now...keep in mind that when we look at a Scottish Dirk, and some of the weapons employed in the British Isles, we see the influence on the Roman Gladiator Sword...Some would also see this on the Bastard Sword, though as a Japanese based bladed weapons guy myself, it is obvious that the long handle of the bastard sword makes it superior as a killing blade, to the gladiator sword which worked well for Roman purposes (it was used in the troops as well) but as a single weapon? Not so much.

So What you wound up with was similar to what you see in fencing today. This is as outlined above, somewhat distinct from Greek ideas about combat which were a different emphasis. Though obviously the logical order and teaching of the weapon, the illustrations involved, to manuscript these works, was very much influenced by Hellinistic Greek ideas of the human form.

The main way to understand this difference is that in fencing, as employed and developed by the schools in Europe mentioned above, that came down to Fig, did use the Buckler, but did not emphasize it. The Shield, essentially a gigantic buckler, is a whole other set of theories and technical applications. In boxing the original form and process assumed a man had two weapons at hand, both to be employed in a forward thrust of weight, to be defended by putting weight on the back leg and manuveuring into a proper attack sequence, much as a fencer does.

[Ben Bolt]

Great information. Thank you! That was very interesting to say the least.

Agree.

Well, I find wikipedia’s list of lineal bareknuckle champs pretty accurate, equivalent with all the books I’ve read about the era (it IS fascinating stuff).

You do find a lot of injustice during the period. And questions and rumours.
Which followed into the gloved era.
Champions drawing the color line. Yes.
Dempsey tampering with the gloves. Hopefully not.
And if Ingo had beaten Floyd in their 3rd meeting, Sonny Liston probably hadn’t been found on the lineal list.

Still, the lineal list (while it still mattered) had everyone – also those who didn’t care for or disliked boxing, or sports whatsoever – knowing the name of the heavyweight champion of the world.
That was unique to this sport.

[heckmanfred]

very detailed discussion

[Anthony342]

The connection of boxing to sword is integral to the origins of English Pugilism. This is for many reasons, not the least that Figg was a swordsman. Also, and this is an interesting cognate in certain Japanese arts, the body becomes a substitution for the sword... Aiki Jutsu is based on this principle, and with Figg, the original set ups, cadence, concept of an organized offense, defense and parry was all sword concept. Even the way weight was distributed, and the movement of the body.

This is one of the reasons why I personally feel the older system, pre dempsey, pre when Louis and BlackBurn started really emphasizing the variety of punches and squaring up to the opponent, were better fighting systems from a purely martial perspective. If you look at how it was done back then, just as with the sword, the body was moves as so not to telegraph, punches stressed accuracy, an accuracy that had to go when bigger gloves needed more swinging force on the punches to do damage.

A proper right hand lead could be thrown from an inch and knock a man as senseless as any giant bomb squad special! provided the energy could transfer, vis a vis a glove had to not be too large. But Figg's sword modified methods made a man concentrate on footwork, distance, timing and to use technique when possible. It does not always look that way which confuses people, but in those grapples, and in those short shifting movements many guys were decent technicians.

Interesting thing also was the use and development of the bastard sword from late Euro Medieval times. A sword that was designed exclusively to kill people, with no finess, no elegance...to get up close and personal. To use this sword, which was the weapon of choice for ruffians and near do wells, one had to develop the capacity to close quickly and to grapple. In early Japanese Kendo there is also grappling. It seems under these conditions that grappling is foundational to all the combat skill sets of a swordsman as well as a boxer and that Figg may well have been aware of that when developing boxing techniqhe.

That's a great name, Bastard Sword. And you have to get in close, like a fighter with a grappling based style, a jiu jitsu fighter or a catch wrestler who emphasizes submissions. From the pictures I see, it looks like it's a lot bigger than a dagger, but a little smaller than a conventional sword. Although if you want to be a real bastard, one could also sneak up to their prey from behind or in their sleep.

[OctoberRed]

Agree.

Well, I find wikipedia’s list of lineal bareknuckle champs pretty accurate, equivalent with all the books I’ve read about the era (it IS fascinating stuff).

You do find a lot of injustice during the period. And questions and rumours.
Which followed into the gloved era.
Champions drawing the color line. Yes.
Dempsey tampering with the gloves. Hopefully not.
And if Ingo had beaten Floyd in their 3rd meeting, Sonny Liston probably hadn’t been found on the lineal list.

Still, the lineal list (while it still mattered) had everyone – also those who didn’t care for or disliked boxing, or sports whatsoever – knowing the name of the heavyweight champion of the world.
That was unique to this sport.

And now bareknuckle is back in full force.

[billeau2]

That's a great name, Bastard Sword. And you have to get in close, like a fighter with a grappling based style, a jiu jitsu fighter or a catch wrestler who emphasizes submissions. From the pictures I see, it looks like it's a lot bigger than a dagger, but a little smaller than a conventional sword. Although if you want to be a real bastard, one could also sneak up to their prey from behind or in their sleep.

The devil is in the details....The handle is almost as long as the blade. That makes very effective, gives one leverage.