Why Lineal shouldn t be here Let s go back to when the Lineal The Ring title didn t exist Back then there was only a World Champion Then the title s were split First between the WBA Known also by othernames and WBC then later the IBF was recognized and even later the WBO When the titles were first split The Ring Magazine created a The Ring title This belt was awarded to all reigning World Champions Challengers could win it by beating them Should someone vacate it the only way to win it would be to be recognized by The Ring as the No 1 or No 2 fighter in your division and beat the other man ranked 1 or 2 Some exceptions were made for No 3 Then came the unfortunate decision in the 1990s by The Ring to stop awarding these titles But they did not stop ranking fighters When the No 1 and No 2 fighters fought and a victor came out that person was dubbed the Lineal Champion An example is Floyd Mayweather Jr Lineal Super Featherweight Champion from 1998 2001 Ring belts were awarded again in 2002 Mayweather worked his way up to the No 2 spot and challenged No 1 and WBC Champion Genaro Hern ndez He was considered the Lineal Champion because there was no The Ring Champion Naseem Hamed won the Lineal title and lost it in a period when The Ring titles weren t being awarded The man who beat him for his title Marco Antonio Barrera was later awarded The Ring title His Lineal title was switched with the The Ring title because the Lineal title only existed as a substitute This applies for Lennox Lewis He was awarded the The Ring title when awarding them began again in 2002 Therefore the Lineal title was NOT on the line in his fight with Vitali Klitschko Any objections