:rofl:rofl:rofl:rofl:rofl At least Rahman won fights legitimately. Ruiz was a glorified clubfighter who violated the rules against excessive holding in just about every fight. And his connections with King allowed him to get away with it. Although I will say this, Rahman's glass jaw was much, much worse.:yep
Come now, Ruiz won his fights the way Hopkins won most of his fights I agree Rahman was better over all but the moment he became Champ he got lazy Ruiz if anything did what he had to in order to stay champion. And as far as the chin is concerned Rahman lasted longer against David Tua than did Ruiz :deal
The first Tua fight with Rahman was fvked up He should've been allotted extra time Ruiz was of a lower caliber than Rahman ... Rahman actually had some decent skill and power ... nothing spectacular but did do very, very well for a man who took up boxing late and managed to KTFO that smirking ****** Lewis
u got me there, forgot that. they're both weak champs and i'd much rather watch a young rahman fight, but with the h2h win for ruiz guess i gotta concede the quietman's superiority
underrated big time, calling him gatekeeper is way wrong, too many good wins on the record. he just gets BS cause he upset the champ. another good beating was Kali Meehan, that guy has always had a great chin i couldnt believe he didnt go down from that head/body assault rock poured on. The record he has certainly has some that could of easily been wins (toney, tua mainly)
I think he's clearly better than other champions like Spinks, Braddock, Willard, Carnera, etc. You could also argue him above or close to guys like Briggs, Burns, Sharkey, Hart and maybe others. He's probably somewhere between the bottom and the middle of heavyweight champs. Rahman had that big win over Lewis and that alone was one of the better wins in heavyweight history. But he beat guys like Sanders, Barrett, and Meehan and had draws with Tua and Toney in fights that he probably won. He was also a top 10 contender for years-there's a lot more to Rahman's resume than just the Lewis win. Rahman was inconsistent in his big fights and lost a couple key fights he should have won like Holyfield and Ruiz. Overall, I'd say he was a good heavyweight, clearly not a great one, and had a pretty respectable career.
Rahman once went 3 years without a win. He lost to old Holyfield! Braddock beat an ATG power puncher! Braddock didnt just land one shot and get the belt like Rahman did. Rahman was however better than Carnera but Spinks? No! Spinks beat Holmes,Cooney,only had one loss!
Braddock had over 20 losses when he finally got the belt and lost against a number of guys that same Holyfield would have beaten easily.He was known as the Cinderella Man for a reason. I agree with you about Michael Spinks but I was referring to Leon.
It would be ridiculous to say that Ramhan was a gatekeeper or even just a spoiler. At the same time we shouldn’t make him into more than he was based on a single great win. He was always going to be one of the better contenders of the era, but he was also inconsistent. There is one thing that you always have to give a guy like Douglas or Ramhan credit for. Like so many contenders through history, they got their chance at the lineal title while an all time great was the lineal champion, and unlike them they found a way to seize that immortal title. Nobody can ever take that historic accomplishment away from Ramhan.