Best British Boxer Never To Win A World Title (in the last 20 years)

Luke Campbell.
Jack Catterall.
Martin Murray.

In any order.

 

Kash Farooq

 

Campbell.

Fought Linares 2 weeks after his dad died in a fight that could have gone either way.

Was due to fight Fortuna for the vacant WBC whilst Haney was ‘champion in recess’ before COVID hit. By the time boxing started back up again Haney had recovered.

He’d have definitely won one had McGuigan trained him from the start.

 

Joe Joyce looked a beast when he KO'd the granite chinned Joseph Parker. You'd have thought that night he would be nailed on to win a world title.

 

Always thought it was a strange career move that Luke Campbell won Olympic gold at 56kg and then turned pro basically three divisions above that. Feels like that jump more than anything is what stopped him ever becoming a world champion, because he was giving away natural size and physicality from day one.

The other one that always surprised me was Kevin Mitchell. On pure talent he had more than Ricky Burns, yet Burns handled him way easier than I expected, mainly because Mitchell never had Burns’ discipline, consistency or activity. And loads of our middle/super-middle lads got jobbed in Germany in world title fights too – Martin Murray and Matthew Macklin in particular. Murray’s effort against a peak Gennady Golovkin was ridiculously brave as well.

 

Callum Johnson

 

Ryan Rhodes was very talented and had the easiest chance of winning the World crown from Jason Matthews than the other candidates though I have him pretty low on this poll.

He did bring real excitement to the division by winning the Lonsdale belt so quickly (90 days!) and the buzz of being Naz´s stablemate.

Jason could crack (as Ryan found out) and strong (looked more like a 160 pounder) but was very raw, easy to hit and didn´t seem to have that great a chin.

Rhodes looked finished especially after being stopped again by Lee Blundell.

Pulled himself together and put a nice winning run culminating in a shock ko of rugged Jamie Moore which got him another World title shot against Canelo.

Jason lost his title in his 1st defence and promptly retired 4 months later.

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Macklin got jobbed so hard against Sturm

 

I thought Kev Mitchell was great when he was coming through and would go on to win a world title. However I thi k it was his lifestyle that ultimately let him down..

 

Luke Campbell is the best boxer on that list

 

Luke Campbell or Kevin Mitchell. Used to really enjoy watching Mitchell, there were times he looked absolutely elite. Then he got a bit of a hiding by Katsidis, and it all went downhill pretty quick.

 

Kevin Mitchell. I remember watching him beat Breidis Prescott live. Mitchell was class that night.