Who are the most Polarizing fighters in history?

In the UK Naz and Eubank Sr really divided fans to extremes, real love or pure hate. Naz seems to be less polarising now...but Sr....it’s still the same.

 

Marciano and Dempsey because of their competition and Dempsey's refusal to fight black fighters. Jack Johnson, being a black fighter,dominating white men in the ring, esp considering blacks were thought to have a natural "yellow" streak and not capable of defeating a good white man. And his love of white women and flaunting that didn't endear him to white America( How he didn't end up lynched is one of America's great mysteries lol) Ali, brash, obnoxious, The N.O.I affiliation, his stance against the Vietnam war. Still some Americans's are still bitter about that even 50 yrs later. Sugar Ray Leonard, Especially on this site some don't give him any credit for Hearns (weight drained and green) Benitez(Only trained for two weeks) Duran,(upset stomach) Hagler, (he was old),Lalonde (Not his natural weight), Kalube (Oh he was never any good)Pryor (he ducked) so on and so fourth, some on this site don't consider him a top ten welter, which is completely ridiculous.

 

Hector Camacho pissed a lot of people off over the course of his career... Does that count?

 

I would say that Marciano, Dempsey, Jeffries, and Sullivan have all been highly polarizing at one time or another.

Any fighter who drew the color line is polarizing, and perhaps reasonably so.

 

Waldo, Pac, Chavez, Calzaghe, Lewis... basically anytime a non-Yank dominates

 

Then why not Jack Johnson, in and out the ring the guy is polarizing and used the color line to avoid the best more than all champions.

I don't think Jeffries is polarizing, as he beat the best in his time, and gave re-matches. More like misunderstood, due to lack of film and research.

 

This is coming from somebody who challenged somebody living on another continent, to a fight, in defense of his legacy!

If that is not polarizing, then there is no such thing as a polarizing fighter!

 

Does anyone really feel that way about this guy?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/László_Papp

 

Don't agree with this at all. Plenty of non-yanks gets plenty of credit. Duran,Arguello,Napoles,Sanchez,Monzon,Pederosa, Galaxy, Gavilan, etc can continue if I choose to. Maybe the fighters you named outside of Chavez,maybe Lewis didn't deserve that much credit?

 

Actually Duran and Monzon were a bit divisive also.

 

Yeah, but in Jack Johnson's time I 'll bet even the grand wizard of the KKK secretly said to himself, I must admit that guy has balls.

 

I must say Tyson's fervent detractors and admirers seem to stand out to me as the most irrational, at least at the extremes. He didn't build his reputation on bums and he wasn't unbeatable at his peak. Both equally absurd.