I, quite frankly, have no idea. I'll get back to this in a few days. This thread may be skewed a bit by some of the 'old timers' but: We've got that Willie Pep/Emile Griffith thing about most (Title holder) rounds fought in history but, what fighter, who was never Champ, fought the most title fight rounds?
Interesting. You're not talking about 15 rounders, which would include a lot of British and European title fights, you're talking about world title fight rounds. If that's the case, I know of one fighter who fought 57 championship rounds.
Billy Myer fought Jack McAuliffe 64 rounds, then fought him 15 rounds in a rematch, both for the Lightweight title, so 79 rounds.
Frank Murphy fought 80 rounds with Ike Weir for a world championship. He also had fights billed for World titles against Topedo Billy Murphy lasting 27 rounds, and Tommy Warren lasting 68 rounds. If you count those that puts it at 175 rounds!
I have: 68 - Leonel Hernandez 60 - Pierre Fourie 60 - Rocky Juarez 57 - Victor Polo 57 - Santos Cardona
Forgot about Hernandez. During the '70s and early '80s it seemed he was getting a title shot every couple of months.
Unsurprisingly, 4 of the 5 were for the WBA title. He actually only fought three fights outside Venezuela in his whole career...and lost them all.
Fighters from Venezuela, South Korea, Japan, Argentina, South Africa and Panama owed a lot to the WBA.
Thanks guys! Keep em' coming! As for the recent guys, Fourie & Yaqui came to mind immediately. Lots of double digit title rounds.