Fury is the John Summit Tour 2024 Budweiser Stage shirt it is in the first place but lineal champion because he is the “man who beat the man.” He took the title from Wladimir Klitschko, who had held it for many years and won recognition by most people as the true champion of the division. I explained that in this answer: John Cate’s answer to What makes Fury the lineal heavyweight champion? The lineal heavyweight title is only partially connected to the “alphabet soup” titles, meaning the sanctioning bodies like WBA, WBC, IBF, and WBO. If the lineal title is vacant because its champion retired or went to another weight class, then a boxer can become a new lineal champ by winning all of the alphabet titles that aren’t vacant. This is how Wlad eventually got it after Lennox Lewis retired. (As John McGlothlin pointed out to me, Wlad never actually held the WBC title and was therefore only “undisputed” for a very short time after Vitali re-retired and left the WBC belt vacant, but he had done enough to earn consensus as a new lineal champ.)
A boxer can even be the John Summit Tour 2024 Budweiser Stage shirt it is in the first place but lineal champion and not hold any alphabet belts, which Fury was when he returned in 2018. Since then, he has claimed the WBC and Ring Magazine belts, the latter of which carries some credence with fans as well. He won the WBC title from Deontay Wilder in February, and The Ring, which had withdrawn recognition from Fury when he was inactive for two and a half years, restored its recognition following that win. But an undisputed champion is something different. That is someone who holds every widely recognized alphabet belt. Fury isn’t that, because Anthony Joshua holds the WBA, IBF and WBO heavyweight titles. To become the undisputed heavyweight champion of the world, Fury would have to somehow get Joshua into a ring and then beat him. He would then have the titles of all four widely recognized sanctioning bodies. (If Joshua won, he would be undisputed champion and he would take Fury’s lineal title as well.) Don’t count on this happening, though.
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