Who was the worst fighter that was a Champion?

Al McCoy won the MW title w/ a shocking 1st rnd KO of George Chip, then spent a title reign getting outfought by 1 challenger after another, but couldn't lose the title w/o being KO'd thanks to the no-decision rules.

 

Oliver McCall

 

Wrong, Taylor was a fundamentally sound infighter who excelled at setting up his shots. His achievements speak for themselves. Also, no power? In all of his wins he’s either stopped or dropped all of his opponents outside of Cat and Prograis.

 

My Grandfather would definitely have agreed with your assessment of Marvin Hart as not the worst Lineal Heavyweight Champion. He always maintained it was Leon Spinks who held that spot. I know some of my Grandfather's friends mentioned Jess Willard as a possible candidate. They sure had some interesting conversations about Heavyweight Boxing. Those were fascinating times for me, as a little girl allowed to observe those conversations, as long as I kept my mouth closed.

 

Sad Sammy Serrano

 

Carlos Baldomir.

 

Fair point. I do still consider his resume to be pretty thin though and he mostly relied on his power to bail him out. Lew Jenkins is kinda like the LW equivalent of Deontay Wilder imo. A huge puncher but very crude. Jenkins was certainly one of the lesser LW champs of his era and was wildly inconsistent due to his drinking. He lost most of his big fights and lucked out against a faded Lou Ambers who'd been through a fair few wars at that point.

 

He should have been undisputed as well haha.

 

The correct answer to any thread of this title is ALWAYS "Eddie Gazo". Try to discern anything he did or had or showed that looked beyond that of your average local forgotten main event club fighter from the 70's. The best that you will come up with is "Well, he could go some rounds...." and then shrug.

Play his scintillating and skill laden performance against Thomas Hearns just a couple years after dropping the belt and you'll be shocked that this guy won anything beyond a giant stuffed banana at the local county fair. Mindboggling it is.

 

I get that but I feel Braddock proved enough where we know its there. I mean theres people declaring Usyk the GOAT for 5 fights and Braddock has a better 5 fight run than Usyk does with Lewis, Lasky, Baer, Louis and Farr. Braddocks struggles were mostly confined to one very bad losing streak. In the beginning and in the end he was great. He never should have been at 175 but he still started 23-0.

Braddock also only getting stopped twice once by Louis the other by a cut he incurred in a previous fight that caused a doctor stoppage against Scozza.

 

Pedro Adigue Jr. was a very average fighter as far as I can gather yet somehow managed to snag the WBC super-lightweight title in a vacant title match in 1968 against Adolph Pruitt in the Philippines. I haven't been able to find any information about Adigue's fight with Pruitt (which I assume was a homer decision) but he did get stopped in their rematch and was beaten by every other respectable super-lightweight he fought like Bruno Arcari, Eddie Perkins, Nicolino Locche, Antonio Cervantes, and Oscar Albarado. Surprisingly though, he did take the 0 of the later undisputed and lineal JMW champion Koichi Wajima, stopping Wajima in the first round of their bout in 1969. This win is made even more perplexing by the fact that Adigue was, as far as I can tell, not a big puncher and Wajima was known later on in his career for having a granite chin and being able to absorb hellacious amounts of punishment before making his come-backs. Wajima was still in his first year as a pro (self-taught btw) and I can't assume making 145 was easy for him either, the lightest he ever weighed in at in his career. In another odd twist of fate, Albarado went on to dethrone Wajima 5 years after facing Wajima's former conqueror Adigue. Despite being a pretty run-of-the-mill gatekeeper, I think Adigue might be the only super-lightweight title-holder to have defeated a junior-middleweight champion.
EDIT: Just remembered that Wilfred Benitez would actually fit the bill of a SLW who beat a JMW, since he beat Cervantes and Duran. Pacquiao also fits this bill since he beat Hatton and Margarito (though many don't consider Margarito to have deserved his 154 strap, though Mosley and Cotto did win legit titles at 154 too anyway). Still, pretty good company to be in for Adigue.

 

If we are talking Lineal Championship, I imagine Eleoncio Mercedes is up there. He was 11-6-2 when entered the ring against Freddy Castillo for the Flyweight Title. After winning, he immediately lost to Magri and then finished his career at 14-12-2 (3KOs).

If we are talking alphabet soup champions, Francisco Quiroz is one of the few who finished with a losing record. He ended at 11-15-1 (5 KOs).

 

Ironically, amateur boxing has features that posters on this forum clamor for, but they won’t embrace it:

1) People that want deductions and DQs for holding and other infractions should love amateur boxing. It’s aggressively officiated, which leads to a lot of stop-start that we’d see if the pros were officiated that way.

2) You can’t build someone’s record in amateur boxing by picking and choosing opponents. To accomplish anything of note in the amateurs, you have to fight in tournaments — and if you’re fighting in tournaments you’re going to face the best. Whether that’s the local/state Golden Gloves (where you face the best in your area/state), regionals (where you face the best in your part/corner of the country) or nationals (where you face the best in your weight division, who have beaten the best in their areas to get there), you’re fighting against progressively better competition. Beyond that, you’re fighting in the Pan Am Games and the World Championships and the Olympics, where the best from each country advance. There’s nowhere to hide.

3) Can’t really be a weight bully in amateurs without being drained. You weigh in day of fight and in tournaments you have to weigh in every day. I’ve seen it where a guy is running in a sweatsuit in the parking lot on the morning of the fight trying to trim to his weight class for the third day in a row and it takes a toll.

 

Haha, came to see if anyone had already dropped his name. Everybody else is playing for second (worst).

 

Francisco Quiroz.

Give me the trophy for finding the absolute worst