Who is the WORST challenger for a world title in HISTORY?

There should be many good suggestions for this.

My own pick would be a guy whose resume I only got acquainted with recently on boxrec,

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, who earned a shot at Joe Calzaghe's WBO smw title in 1999 on the back of this run of opponents:




- "Mr Munnderful" Neil Munn (magnificent record of 6-3, had lost his last 3 in a row)


- "Boombastic" Brian Murphy (astounding record of 0-2, had lost his last 2... er, his only 2)


- "Polu Sport" Joseph Polu (titanic record of 5-17-0, had lost his last 6 in a row)


- "Lord Almighty" Lionel Okulu (supersexy record of 1-0, the 100% undefeated king)


- Tommy "Fred" West (murderous record of 18-23-5... yep, had lost his last 6 in a row)


- "Da Champ" Davey Moore (funky record of 5-26-1... er, yep, you guessed it, had lost his last 6 in a row)





Can anyone top this? :bbb

 

As much could probably be said for most of Calzaghe's opponents in title fights. Matthew Hatton was the worst one I can think of recently even though he was a game fighter throughout and the fight was a farce. Hats off to him he stayed in there and he was fighting way above his skill level.

Audley Harrison of course.

 

Sebastien Demers against Arthur Abraham is the worst that I remember.

 

Pretty dreadful selection there. How about Said Lawal who 'challenged' Naseem Hamed back in 1996 and was knocked out 35 seconds into the first round.

 

Was about the say Audley Harrison, but you´ve done your homework. I take my thoughts back. Good work.

 

Why do you mention Thornberry being a Calzaghe opponent as the worst ever? Surely him fighting Ottke two fights after being schooled is even worse? Yeah, he always had a padded record but at least he was active and on a winning streak going into the Calzaghe fight. For Ottke, he'd been inactive, fought two bums and got a bizarre world title shot.

Both are absolutely ****, meaningless wins, yes, but Calzaghe's is a more significant win over the same guy.

 

I concentrate on the Heavys mostly so let me offer up this gem:

Larry Holmes vs. Texx Cobb. The fight itself was so lopsided that Howard Cossell quit calling fights because of it. That fight should never have been sanctioned.

 

Let's not forget Paul Briggs who faced Danny Green. That "fight" was a complete mess for the sport of boxing! A brain damaged guy is always a top challenger

 

Rocky Balboa. A club fighter at best suddenly gets a title shot?

 

:rofl

 

look at some of the lower weights... Flyweight ect..

and the "defenses" some of these southeast asian guys make

 

Audley Harrison.

Yeah, there are challengers with worse records, challengers with less experience, and challengers coming of 3 and 4 fight losing streaks, but Harrison went from being a farce to a reality in a matter of weeks, and was then hyped as legitimate.

 

Agreed - what a ridicule of the sport. Apollo Creed was cherry-picking a-hole. HW´s were in a state of shite in those days. I bet they weren´t getting much PPV -income and Creed was awful to watch anyway.

 

I think the fight was only hyped by brits... Everyone else was disgusted and confused imo

 

Pete Rademacher

Fights for the world heavyweight championship in his first fight .