Fighters that shouldn´t have become champion but did

A undertrain fighter would not have lasted as long as Johnson did in the HEAT and the pace he was thowing for almost 20 rounds. Johnson had to be in shape for that. The problem was Jess was pretty much a iron man and took it.

Watching the footage, I was impress with Willard as a fighter, a great change from the beating Dempsey was giving him.

Jess though loseing rounds, was pretty much feiting and countering Johnson though out the fight. and timeing his shots.

Vs Moran, Willard show impressive defense skills

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gpZdSNB93Mo[/ame]

Could not find the ten min match on youtube, only 4 min or so, but in the ten min, Willard pretty much made Moran miss.

A relly underated fighter.

 

McVea and Jeanette look fairly horrible on film with only a trick or two in their arsenal and many deficiencies. I give them a break, though, in that both were pretty much thrown to the wolves or worse... battle royales and such. Still, if they were the cream of the crop, that crop should have been allowed to go to seed.

Willard looks far better on film, cool and confident on his jab, a thudding right, nice uppercut, great- really spectacular- endurance. And consider, he too, was learning on the job, learning LATE in life, too. Further to your remarks, size is often an asset of a championship heavyweight... Jeffries, Carnera, Liston, Foreman... And durability is almost always an asset of the same... Jeffries, Marciano, Ali... I will not criticize him for having championship assets.

 

I feel like a bit of a heel for saying this but the late Steve Little didn't really deserve to be champ.

He caught a lazy,disinterested Michael Nunn on the right night but honestly didn't warrant a title shot to begin with.

He "earnt" his shot on the back of a draw with Merqui Sosa and splitting two fights with Tyrone Frazier not to mention possessing a 21-13-2 record going in!

He was a nice guy by all accounts and his premature death a tragedy but he simply was just an honest fighter and definately not championship material.

 

Tomas Molinares. He caught Marlon Starling with a lucky, launched after the bell right hand.

 

Mal Practice...Became champion because he had a good lawyer...

 

any guy who gets the belt deserves it....unless the other fighter took a dive...even if the guy lucks out and gets a champ who is totally untrained..he still earned it....

having said all that...Hasim Rahman really lucked the **** out..but still..it was his power that did it...so he deserved it.

 

Vitali reminds me so much of willard espically in this footage...the only thing i will say is vitali was a bit more mobile on his feet....thus making him the better overall fighter.

 

Your comments on McCoy sound remarkably like the reign of John L.

 

Without a doubt, one of the first names that sprung to mind is the incredible story of steve robinson. Its fair to say he was regarded as somewhat of a journeyman even at a youngish age, even by British standards. He had a record of something along the lines of 12-8-2 when he got the phonecall 2 days before the fight, sitting in his mothers house eating pie and chips. His manager was with barry hearn negotiating on behalf of another fighter (think it was robbie regan) when Hearn got the call that the fighter had pulled out of his fight with john davidson for the featherweight title (WBO i think). Hearn was panicking about finding a replacement at such short notice and Robinsons manager suggested him, saying he was fit (Robinson was a naturally fit guy anyway and walked around normally only a few pounds heavier than his fighting weight).

Anyway, Robinson took the fight and ended up winning against the odds. Not only that, he defended it 5 or 6 times! OK his oppostion wasnt the elite, but he still took out the likes of paul hodkinson, before meeting up with Naseem Hamed (who had talked his way into a fight) and getting stopped.

Ya just gotta admire the way this guy took his opportunity when given it and against all the odds too cos nobody gave him a hope of winning. A true underdog story that never gets the kudos that it deserves IMO

 

Eric Aiken

 

By the end of the fight he was about 6 and a half feet above Johnson's level.

 

Hasim Rahman to a certain extent.

 

As for the thread, it could be read two ways:

1) Which fighters were champions that didn't deserve it? In which case, I can think of zero. I truly don't believe there's any fighter who became champion without deserving it. It's a huge accomplishment even in the "fluke" cases and it's a measure of disrespect I can't bring myself to to say that about any of them.

or

2) Fighters who defied incredible odds in order to become champion, in which cases there's a number of guys who accomplished that feat. Braddock, Backus, and Steve Robinson have been mentioned and are great mentions. Nobuo Nashiro upsetting Martin Castillo on cuts in his 8th pro fight fits the bill, too.

 

Very interesting, I didn't know this. I do recall Bruce hanging around outside the then LA forum apparently very much down on his luck and basically pan-handling off the fight-guys. I'd often see some past greats there (like Ike Williams). A short time later a rumor started going around that Bruce had somehow won the CA state lottery.

Always hoped that was true.