Undisputed champion recognised a different champion. The disputes were usually short-lived as a lucrative fight would be organised between the rival champions. The longest split was ten years, of the middleweight title, between Mickey Walker's move up to heavyweight in 1931 and NBA champion Tony Zale's defeat of NYSAC contender Georgie Abrams in 1941. An early use of "undisputed" appears in a "New York Times" preview of the 1941 fight. The growing popularity of boxing outside of the USA led to creation of various boxing organizations, each strengthening their influence (most notably BBBofC) and having their own champion. This resulted in a
Lineal championship Lineal championship In combat sports where champions are decided by a challenge, the lineal championship of a weight class is a world championship title held initially by an undisputed champion and subsequently by a fighter who defeats the reigning champion in a match at that weight class. In professional boxing the secondary choice if the remaining champions don't fight each other is for a unified champion to fight an alternate title holder as in the case of unified champion Wladimir Klitschko vesus interim WBA champion Ruslan Chagaev, the only way this can be negated is if the other major title