Once in a while, we see heavyweights with unusual styles rising to the top. Ali was extremely unorthodox. Earnie Terrell's straight up jab-to-death strategy always struck me as a tad odd. Marciano's bob-and-weave crouch and windmilling punches were awful technically, but worked. And then came 2003. We got not one, but three unorthodox fighters holding the three major belts. Vitali was a 6'7" herky-jerky guy who threw arm punches, leaned back with his hands down, and sometimes stood straight up on his tiptoes to avoid punches. Chris Byrd was a southpaw former middleweight with quick, incredibly weak punches who sometimes held his hands out like somebody from the 19th century and seemed as if he was engaging in a long-distance arm-wrestling contest. Ruiz took the opposite extreme. Although many criticize him for his infuriating jab-and-grab tactics, I've come to appreciate (albeit not watch) his style for what it was. Whereas Ali relied on excessive holding from time to time, Ruiz built his style around it, and created a surprisingly effective, incredibly annoying approach that stretched Queensberry Rules to the limit without actually breaking them. And then there's the fact that Ruiz's opponents before and after that year were a virtual rogues' gallery of oddities: an "old school" former middleweight who emulated Archie Moore, a lightning-fast former middleweight with awful technique and excellent reflexes, and a 7 foot tall guy with surprisingly good technique but little power. Weird, weird year. Footnote: Too bad Briggs came three years too late, since he also fits into this category--a massively muscular glass cannon with fast counterpunches and literally the worst stamina I've ever seen in a top-flight heavyweight. His "stand still with your hands down, flex, and slip in a left hook when the opponent comes forward" style was pretty strange.
Strange and wierdly only, or mostly with the WBA title. Promoted by Don King, and King, strangely and weirdly had connections with this sanctioning body. Wierd!
