When did Eddie Chambers get great?

Chambers hurt his arm in the Adamek fight.

 

That explains it. If that fight never happened and we did a thread "Eddie Chambers v Adamek" I would pick Chambers without thinking twice.

The win is such an outlier for Adamek it still makes a difference.

 

They were very evenly matched, but the injury significantly affected the outcome.

 

I wouldn't call him anything close to great but he definitely was a top five guy for sometime. I always liked watching him as he was a nice break from the giant heavyweights that really took off in the 2000's. Crafty guy that was solid defensively.

 

He was a good, smallish heavy who managed to beat Sam Peter and win the first four rounds off Povetkin before melting down. Brock, Guinn, and Dimentrenko were also a decent wins, although there were those one here who always knew Sascha wasn't going anywhere.

He was too mall and didn't like to train, and the loss to Mchunu when he dropped to cruiser finished him as a serious threat.

 

You must be at least a few beers deep if you can't figure out that I was comparing Chambers to Marvis Frazier and Willie Meehan, not Bonecrusher and Dempsey.

Holmes during his title run only beat like three guys who better than Chambers in Norton, Witherspoon and Weaver. Cooney was worse in hindsight and Williams was about the same.

 

And he struggled with all of them.............

 

LOL.

Gerald Washington beat Eddie Chambers (who apparently was awesome)
Gerald Washington knocked out Robert Helenius (who knocked out Peter, Kownacki, Liakhovich, and decisioned Chisora)
Gerald Washington knocked out Jerry Forrest (who drew with Zhang and Hunter)
Gerald Washington knocked out Ray Austin.

Gerald Washington lost a close decision to Chisora.
Gerald Washington lost an IBF eliminator to Charles Martin.

Can't wait for the "Larry Holmes only beat three guys better than Gerald Washington" threads.

Eddie Chambers was a spoiler. Chambers got a top 10 ranking by the IBF and then just kind of hung around for years. There have been a lot of heavyweights like that over the decades. Chambers would barely edge a name, then lose to a name. Barely edge a name, then lose to another name.

Chambers was never a dominant guy. He was never championship level. Like the OP, I have no idea how his status grew over the years, but people really pick and choose who gets credit for beating him.

But Chambers certainly wasn't anything like he's hyped to be now.

Chambers wasn't even the best guy Gerald Washington beat.

 

Fast Eddie Chambers was a good heavyweight. A worthwhile contender. He cracked the top 10 ring heavyweights after his loss to Povetkin. He eventually climbed as high as 3 in the ring ratings. He beat undefeated Rossy, Guinn and the underrated Calvin Brock before losing a fairly competitive fight to Povetkin. Then after that he defeated Dimitrenko on the road and Peter. He unfortunately was non competitive with Wlad who was at his peak and dominating everyone by this point and just before the end of the fight Wlad scored one of the scariest knockouts you will see. Chambers looked lifeless. After that he was not the same.

 

Average HW and whilst there's nothing wrong with that, it's a bit of a stretch for people to be adding him to the top end of a fighters resume

 

Washington was better than some of the guys who Holmes fought.

 

He was never great, but he was really good. He was an extremely undersized HW that was still top 3-5 for a while. A pure skillset guy that could've given himself a real chance if he hadn't "obesed" himself into the division.

Absolutely not, he was good, he was not quite prime Chris Byrd good.