Worst record in boxing history?

Between the end of October 2003 and end of October 2008, Peter Buckley drew two and lost 88 of his 90 fights. They were all 4 or 6 rounders and he wasn't stopped in any of them. Then in his 300th and final bout he broke that non-winning streak and took the decision ending his career with a W!

Sure, he was a professional "loser", but he wasn't a soft touch and did a valuable job of testing the hyped fighters who he was there to make look good. He was a professional all the way. There aren't many guys out there who are ready to fight an average of 15 times a year.

I remember an article I read in honour of his 300th fight and one of the promoters said something like "Peter Buckley has saved more boxing cards than you can imagine". A true professional - just not the kind that is usually celebrated on this forum.

 

Buckley fought Acelino Freitas as well (no footage of that sadly) and I remember him saying in an interview that he rated Duke McKenzie as the best fighter he faced.

 

It is a disgrace that PB is even brought up on this thread. He is one of the reasons boxing is so strong nowadays in the UK, giving a prospect rounds and showing them up if they were mere hype and no potential.

 

Interesting article about guys who make a career out of losing...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/boxing/29520846

 

Great article - that's the truth of it.

 

He was brought up because of his losing record, that's all, not because he was a bad fighter.

 

Exactly. Losing record or not, I have a lot of respect for the man.

 

Unfortunately training for a few months wouldn’t get you anywhere as a boxer. Records rarely show the whole story. Most of these guys with these negative records have trained for years in boxing, but for one reason or another can’t get the wins. However, the biggest reason is down to money. I can’t speak on the UK, since I’m not from there, but in Los Angeles a guy with a decent amateur background, but no connections that can give top contenders a few rounds can often times make way more money losing than he would winning. Boxing is a very hard profession to make money in even if you are highly skilled and experienced and it’s virtually impossible to become a world champion without the proper connections.

My friend Kid Flash was a good amateur boxer with over 100 fights, but didn’t have a lot of opportunities once he turned pro. For some local promoters to let him fight he had a choice of paying to get on a card or make $500-$1000 or even more to give a young prospect some rounds. He chose to make money rather than spend money. His record was something like 4-20, but often times he was making more than the prospects, since managers knew he could give their fighters rounds while also not having to worry about him hurting their prospect (their investment). This also made him a hot commodity for being a sparring partner. He was PAC’s sparring partner for 4-5 year. Despite his losing record Flash made enough as a losing fighter to put a sizable down payment on a house and even open up a gym, which he still runs today.

Even Chris Byrd, who was a middleweight Silver Medalist with over 300 amateurs emphasized how almost nobody was interested in him when he turned pro and that he couldn’t make any money despite his amateur achievements. Byrd fought at heavyweight out of desperation, since nobody was offering money to fight as a middleweight, super middleweight, or light heavyweight.

 

This. I know quite a few guys that made very good money losing to prospects on a regular basis. These guys can easily clear $100K if they get called regularly.

 

I think Duran and Curry and Hopkins with an honorable mention for Marciano need to be considered, according to much of what I read on this forum

 

Great post.

This is the other side of the game and it's fighters like this that sustain the sport. It's easy to be dismissive of a fighter with a losing record but it definitely doesn't tell the whole story. There's more than one way to make it as a professional. No shame in that at all.

 

I can't get on Boxrec at the moment - but I believe Danny Wofford's final record looked something like 17-110 and those 17 wins were definitely biased towards the *start* of his long career.

Danny was overweight and undersized (he was about 5' 9" I think) - but not totally without skill. And he wasn't the easiest man to stop. I don't remember all the particulars but I think he managed to do the distance against Shannon Briggs in a 6 rounder back around 1992 or 1993. Quite possibly the only shred of true respectability that Peter McNeely's record boasts was that he stopped Wofford back when that had to be considered a bit of an accomplishment.

 

Noone mentioned Eric Crumble yet?

http://boxrec.com/en/boxer/5316

 

I can't believe that guy in the picture is a boxer!

 

But you probably can accept, if he truly is a boxer and not just somebody's idea of a clever joke on BoxRec, that he is a believable candidate for the worst in history.