The Five Worst Heavyweight Title Challengers?

Owen "What the Heck" Beck - the first challenger for Nikolay Valuev
Audley Harrison - a David Haye challenger

 

Lots of idiots in this thread, who are naming solid fighters as "terrible" challengers... Only the JP Coopmans, Richard Dunns etc should be brought up here.

 

McVey made it very clear in post #1 and post #9 that he was looking for the fighters with the worst credentials to be fighting for the title, not their overall career stats.

 

A tired old subject, but I'd say

1) Rademacher
2) Lucien Rodriguez
3) Jean Pierre Coopman
4) Evangelista
5) Mando Ramos

 

Chuvalo probably makes this list.

 

Lateef Kayode. Peter Okhello. Dave Zyglewicz. Terry Daniels. Manuel Ramos.

 

Riddick Bowe's lineal title defenses to Ferguson and Dokes.

 

There are worse guys than those two, but the travesty that the 90s was so loaded with talent and Bowe picked them to defend against really is unforgivable. I went from liking Bowe in the 90s to really changing my opinion of him in retrospect.

 

I remember Dokes walking like a fat crack mummy to the ring and just shaking my head. It's not that Dokes wasn't once a fine fighter, a very talented under-achiever, but he looked awful before, during and after the fight. Fat, stiff, lethargic... just out of it.

 

Lateef Kayode looked exactly the same in his heavyweight title challenge, but, unlike Dokes, he wasn't a former heavyweight champion with solid wins under his belt.

 

But that wasn't for the lineal title from a Champion that just beat Holyfield and is supposed to be The Man.

 

Easily the worst I can recall, at least against the genuine top Champion.

I remember thinking "Dokes! He's still fighting?" I think the Ruddock blow out years previously was his last televised fight, and he looked washed up there.

 

I'm not saying they are good. But I'd pick that Dokes and that Ferguson to beat Kayode, Okhello, Zyglewicz, Daniels and Ramos.

There have been plenty of bad title challengers, that's for sure. When I saw Kayode recently against Ortiz, I couldn't imagine Kayode beating the worst of the worse.

He may have been the all-time worst - stiff, robotic and chinny. Lucky for us, that fight is being played on a loop all this month on FoxSports1.

Pete Rademacher - fresh off his gold medal win - obliterates everyone on my list.

 

Scott Frank
Gerry Cooney
Leroy Jones
Alfredo Evangelista
Marvis Frazier.

 

If anyone has film or a link to Leroy Jones actually winning a fight, I'd love to see it. I know he beat Weaver. I know he was a top amateur and was considered by the 1972 U.S. Olympic coach to be a better pro prospect than Duane Bobick - who actually went to the Olympics.

But I've only ever seen him against Holmes, and he was truly bad. (I heard he was very sick before that fight. Still, terrible performance. One of the worst ever.)