True. Nobody remembers Ibragimov anymore but he has some serious chops as a boxer. Pity he wasn't more active with a longer career.
Jim Jeffries - Undefeated and never knocked down until he emerged from 6 years retirement to fight Jack Johnson. Jeffries was considered the GOAT by his contemporaries and for many years after that.
Jersey is a good mention. At this point I’ll say Dempsey gets a lot of heat and taken off top ten lists because of avoiding Wills. Deserves to be slammed for it but record wise he is pretty deep.
Marvin Hart perhaps. He was not one of the best, but his resume does not have the kind of stats, that would make him a candidate for being the worst.
One of the most educational threads/threads for me, of recent years, was the one where we ranked the top five wins, of every lineal heavyweight champion in turn. It didn't do much to resolve who was he beast, but by God it narrowed down who was the worst. For men like Burns, Braddock, Johansen, Spinks, Douglas, and Briggs, those top five lists got pretty thin at the bottom end. You were left with a question mark against Corbett, Willard, and Tunney, but you could give them the benefit of the doubt. Men who comfortably filled their top five, and had a man left on the bench, included Hart, Sharkey, and Carnera, who sometimes feature in arguments about the worst lineal champ. In Sharkey's case, he had a whole army left on the bench!
Have to mention Floyd Patterson, well loved back in his heyday but the love seems to be overshadowed these days because of all the ATGs since. Youngest champ at the time and should have been first to be champion three times, great post championship career after no longer letting himself get protected by Cus.
Knowing the rules as a fighter and then being thrust into the role of refereeing a heavyweight championship fight are two different things. Refereeing is an entirely different skill set and one he was ill prepared for. Heck, look how long it took for him to peak as a fighter … probably would have taken 20 years for him to become a top-flight ref.
The problem is he DID let himself be protected by Cus to a shameful degree. Rademacher? McNeeley? Brian London? Roy Harris? Kept Liston waiting for 3 years? No thanks.
The 80's bunch don't get much attention, so I'm glad some of you above gave mentions to Weaver, Thomas, Spoon, and even Dokes had the talent but couldn't stay on top. Coke is it!!
As for underated, I'm going to say Michael Spinks. For the longest time Larry Holmes was though of as underated but as time has passed I think he is now highly regarded by folks in the know. Spinks however, is mostly remembered for getting blown out by Tyson or for his exploits at 175. People rarely give him credit for his performances against Holmes which was pretty brilliant. Folks like to say that Holmes was shot but the man went on to beat top fighters like Mercer and he should have beaten McCall.
