educate me about gus lesnivitch...

it is a point one could make...bivins did win after all but was bivins ever any better than bettina? I have watched film of bivins and he was no fun to watch. His stats were good though. I dont think bivins credentials were ever any better than a bunch of other fighters at LH or HW by the outbreak of WWII. Gus was the real champ. He was no more a paper than many many others. Too much stock can be put into non title fights. bivins should have got a crack at the title though. Pity he moved up to HW.

As far as gus goes there was no comparison to red cochrane in the paper champion stakes.

 

Gus lost directly to bivins.

Zivic lost to kaplan before red beat him.

 

Most amazing guy on his record is that Young Corbett 3rd. Guy fought so many top fighters, only got one title shot and lost decision, never got chance again. 110 wins, only 10 losses, most at end when he was over as fighter and going in for the money.

 

T, a few points :
During WW2 when a champion went into service his title was "frozen", and there was never a serious protest from deserving fighters, [most of the best] was in the service along with the champion. AFTER the war things changed ,and not for the best particularly...

 

lesnevich v mills was a unification fight. Mills held a version of the world title since beating len harvy. internationaly it was a big showdown.

 

The titles were rightly frozen, these guys deserved huge fanfare and paydays when they returned from service.

On paper they were champion, it's just in gus's case he should have lost his title to jimmy (178 is effectively lhw) or atleast had a rematch for the title.

Once he returned, charles was the king and he was on another level.

All I mean by paper champion is that the champion wasn't the best fighter in his division. For the vast majority of gus's reign this is the case in my opinion.