Greats whose legacies were most victimized by bad decisions

Luis Manuel Rodriguez, Jimmy Young, Jesse Burnett, Tim Witherspoon. Maybe Winky Wright. P.S Ohh, sorry they are not all GREATS, but LMR and Wright are OK

 

Gennady Golovkin. The single biggest fight of his career years in the making and he was clearly robbed no question about it.

James Toney. Not that he was robbed but he would have more Ls on his resume had the McCallum and Tiberi fights been scored properly. At least 2.

 

Harry Greb would have even more wins on his resume.

 

Not great, but Tommy Farr's career could have gone somewhat differently, if he had lost less controversial decisions.

 

Twice some would say!

 

Reggie Johnson, because it wasn't just one possibly defining (or at least career-boosting) win he was denied - just about every close fight he was involved in at world title level went against him. The sole exception would be the Collins fight, but while that was pretty close I don't think there's much debate that Reggie deserved the nod. However....

The Toney fight could legitimately have gone either way by a point or so, or been a draw. Not a robbery, but in the coin toss Johnson was the unlucky party.

I thought he beat John David Jackson by a couple of rounds or so. Maybe not a highway job, but clearer than the Toney fight in my view and certainly getting into 'dubious' territory.

The first Castro fight was a joke. Johnson won it clearly in my opinion, despite looking as if he was boxing within himself at the time. In front of Castro's hostile home crowd and Castro's corner were allowed to get away with being up on the ring apron during rounds screaming instructions to their man, so hardly surprising that Johnson got jobbed there, unfortunately.

Haven't seen the second Castro fight yet, but again a split decision (controversial by all accounts) in Castro's backyard.

It might be a stretch to say that Johnson definitely won all four of those fights, but let's say that he gets a competent set of judges: he could easily have a draw against Toney and three wins against Jackson and Castro (x2). Of even if the Toney result stood and he only got a draw against Jackson, he could at least have had the wins over Castro. People who aren't familiar with Johnson probably look at his record and think, "Yeah, he fought anyone, but he was a guy who generally came up short at the highest level", but that doesn't do him justice.

Never seemed to have anything but bad luck with judges, and as such he's a bit of a forgotten man of the 90s.

 

Jimmy Young attributed his controversial decision loss to Ken Norton to trying cocaine for the first time immediately after the fight leading to his downward spiral.

 

Shoji Oguma.
A lot of Japanese viewers thought that he won the first fight with Canto (I'm not so sure, as the UPI report had Canto winning, and even the Japanese judge couldn't bring himself to score that fight for his countryman), and Canto II and Gonzalez III both elicited showers of garbage from the crowd after those decisions were announced. Give him wins in those fights and he no longer clearly ranks third among those three fighters. Of course then he has to give back the second win over Chan-Hee Park.

This is part of the reason he never became a true great, in my opinion. I like the guy, and the judges didn't help, but he never really put together a twelve-round masterpiece. Most of his fights, even the wins, leave me with the impression that he could have fought better.

 

I like Meldrick Taylor. He gets the decision against Chavez and he is probably considered an all-time great.

Ezzard is locked in my top 3 for all those fights that you mentioned, the two loses against Marciano and the wins listed below.

Defeated:

• Joe Louis
• Teddy Yarosz,
• Anton Christoforidis
• Gus Lesnevich
• Charley Burley twice
• Lloyd Marshall twice
• Oakland Billy Smith twice
• Jersey Joe Walcott twice
• Archie Moore three times
• Jimmy Bivinsfour times
• and Joey Maxim five times.

 

Pep, if Saddler was DQ in all his wins in the series.
Armstrong 4th division quest against Garcia
Zarate's lost to Pintor

 

Definitely love the post about Armstrong. If. It for those low blow points he would be the owner of 4 of 8 titles from 126 - 160.

 

Gavilan had a lot of close, dubious decisions go against him, his record would've been ridiculously deep to an even greater extent and he could have been a classic two weight champion.

Rodriguez is a great shout and so are Chang and Harada.

Legra's legacy would be a lot different with wins over Saldivar, Famechon and Jofre, though the losses to Saldivar and Jofre were close rather than robberies.

 

Like what? From what i remember Gavilan received a gift against Ike Williams. And Ike Williams is the strongest name in his resume.

 

And less losses had the Griffin and Peter I fights been scored properly. At least 3.

 

Holyfield BEAT Suga God the biblical 12ft deity?

Get off the gear you blue berry.