Quote Originally Posted by Larryboy
1.) When Bernard fought Tarver and won,he didNOT become the lineal champion?

2.) is the lineal champion the same as the RING mag 1 champ per division?If not,which is the more respectable.
1) he did not become the linear champ.

2) I beleive the Ring stopped doing champions for a while and re-instated it around 2002 (I'm not 100% sure as I didn't read it then). It would appear they started the division with who was top dog at the time. Roy Jones was a more famous American with more belts. You don't become linear champ just by uniting x amount of belts, you have to beat the previous champion, if there was one. Joel Casamor is still linear lightweight champion, even though he holds no official belt and Juan Diaz has 3. According to one poster everyone should just forget he was champion now someone else has more paper titles, but it doesn't work like that. To be the man you have to beat the man.
When Spinks moved to heavy the title became vacant, many fighters held portions of the title & Michalczewski managed to win 2 parts. But winning two parts does not constitute to becoming the linear champ!
The Ring installed their championship in the April 2002 issue, Lewis who had unified all three parts was recognized as champion, Jones Jr had also unified all three parts & was recognized as LH champ, Hopkins had done the same as had Kostya Tszyu. All 4 champions had either beaten the reigning recognized champion or unified all the belts. Just as Holyfield had done at cruiser & Whitaker at 135.