I think Lennox Lewis fought the MOST Names in 44 fights in his career. Oleksandr Usyk is one of the even better candidates (very few fights), but I didn't list him because he didn't finish his career; let's wait.
About tough debuts, Pete Rademacher could be the gold standard: 1. world champion Floyd Patterson 2. Zora Folley
Leonard Morrow. At age 22, just 14 months into a career he had already knocked out Archie Moore, Bert Lytell and Fitzie Fitzpatrick. By age 23 morrow had also beat Oakland Billy Smith, Jimmy Bivins, Arturo Gody and Johnny Flynn all within 21 fights.
well I listed him at 19 top lads on a Fury thread. which is great going for sure, but I'll bet there are a good few more beat that with say 35 fights. In fact even 'proportionately' there are probably a few careers with exptional numbers of fights that Percentage wise beat that too. But yes that is some going for Lennox Lewis and his like, just more proof Fury is miles behind, in fact he isn't even on such a barometer.
I feel odd. This doesn't feel right lol but it is a strong argument. You put me on to this fighter and the more I learn about him, it can't be denied he fought every person he should have and knew when to hang them up. There is something so appealing about Moon's resume, no padding, almost entirely title defenses, and a thrilling fighter to watch.
People often forget Joe Louis fought a lot of legit contenders before he became champion like Charlie Retzlaff, king Levinsky, Adolf Wiater , Lee Ramage, Al Ettore, patsy peroni, Charlie Massera, stanly Poreda, Roy Lazar, and Bob pastor. Not including world champions Carnera, Baer and Sharkey. All within 3 years and 30 fights.
yeah plus his Title reign, man I would have loved to have watched these 1930s & 40s fighters... Amazing in all honesty. the Era will never be matched.
Let's put it this way; by the time he'd had his 12th fight, Whitaker had fought Alfredo Layne, Rafael Williams, John Montes and Roger Mayweather. He stepped it up from there.
Good call on both. Regarding Uysk, by his tenth fight he was taking on all of the top fighters at CW and in most cases fighting them in their own back yard. By his 17th fight, he had completely cleaned out the division and is now on his way to potentially beating the top two heavyweights. Someone had already mentioned Michael Spinks but I would just like to reiterate how special he was an how he didn't duck anyone at 175 before moving to heavyweight.