Hasim Rahman - Worst in Heavyweight History

He rocked Lewis, but did not deck him. It was distinctly different from a run of the mill pummeling.

Holding the record for most 1st round knockouts is also pretty nice. Most were cans, but not all.

 

Rahman is your basic Jab right hand type of guy, poor ring IQ, average power/ mediocre chin and sloppy overall.

Many people forget that he was ready to quit in the first Lewis fight due to a little cut ....Lewis's chin bailed him out in that one.

Rahman was a Athlete not a fighter.

 

No, Rahman was an enforcer for gangsters before boxing. He was a fighter.

 

He is obviously not the worst, but c'mon Frankel! You did not even make any arguments, you just asserted the conclusions. You did not even offer any unsupported PREMISES about why Rahman would lose to those guys.

Yopu can dop better than that. Don't you want anyone to be able to consider an argument & perhaps persuade someone?

Nobody can respect an opinion as well thougt out or persuasive if'n you only make the most primitive, unsupported claims.

 

Rahman was a solid heavyweight with respectable skills, good power, and definitely had heart. 50-9-2 with 41kos is a very respectable record. In the 90s, I followed his career very closely and enjoyed watching him fight. I am one of the few who thought he might give Lewis a test. He beat Ross Puritty, a guy with a punch and a chin, who dropped Tommy Morrison twice, and later handed Vlad his first loss. Rahman fought a beautiful fight in outboxing and defeating former WBC champ Trevor Berbick. The Jeff Wooden fight was very entertaining, and showed rock's heart, chin, power, and conditioning. Victories over Obed Sullivan and Jesse Ferguson were solid wins. Although he was stopped by tua and maskaev, he was ahead on the scorecards against both at the time of his demise. The Corrie Sanders fight was a wonderful war. Rock showed that he could go up against a very tall big and powerful man and do well. He showed heart in that fight as well as the power to hurt a big man. Keep in mind that Sanders was 36-1 at that point and would go on to knock out Vlad.

 

Possibly. But I'd say Seldon and Briggs are probably equally bad.

 

True Dat.

Expect a Briggs/Seldon thread coming soon

 

Among the worst.

Rhaman had his share of good wins. I think Rhaman beats Patterson, Braddock, Hart, and L. Spinks.

He was a big man who can hit and whee in shape & motivated box.

 

Briggs was mediocre and overrated. His first round ko streak means very little. The first time he stepped up he was flattened by Darroll Wilson. Then Wilson was starched in less than a round by David Tua. Briggs didn't do anything to deserve a fight with Foreman. Foreman was largely inactive before facing Briggs.
I know purists believe "The guy who beat the guy" who was linear champ should be considered Linear Champ. But, an exception should be made for the extenuating circumstances in this case. Briggs beat a guy who had been stripped for inactivity. Sometimes the sanctioning bodies get it right. They stripped the inactive Foreman. Meanwhile, the superior Holyfield held a title having Tyson. Holyfield was the best champion at the time of Foreman/Briggs. Also, Lewis had regained a portion of the world title by beating Oliver McCall (although not convincingly as McCall was mentally f'ed up and put up minimal resistence.)
So, I don't even consider Shannon Briggs a world champion. But, if we must consider him champ because technically "he beat the man who beat the man" than he is worse than Rachmann so no Rachmann is not the worst Heavyweight Champion.

Shannon Briggs = well connected and overrated
Rachmann = Solid contender with a legitime victory over a legitimate champion (Lennox Lewis).

Even without the Lewis win, Rachman is still better than Briggs
because


David Tua KO 1 Darroll Wilson who Kod (for a 10 count) Shannon Briggs

Rachmann D 12 David Tua and Ko by 11 David Tua

 

well put. I think that is a perfect summary, Saad.

 

I was at that fight in Arizona.

I left after the 11th round to beat the traffic thinking Sergi would win an easy decision. Briggs was getting schooled. When I was at the airport the next morning I looked at the paper and was shocked Briggs had won. Credit to him for winning but that WBO title means very little.

 

You are putting way too much emphasis on what you think might have happened had these guys fought.

We can't even predict the outcomes of fights between guys from the same era.

Lets start with what these fighters actually proved in the real physical universe.

 

0-2, twice KO'd, by Oleg Maskaev.

 

Considering the thinness of the ranks, the pathetic depth, and amount of lousy talent that has frequented the division throughout the past few generations through the low and long declining participation rates that is an absurd contention ...

No need to answer one ridiculous statement (i.e., moronic opening post's "Hasim Rahman - Worst in Heavyweight History) with a similarly ridiculous assertion (i.e., "The hardest job in pro sports is to be a heavyweight boxer and win a title").

When there are many dozens if not hundreds of combatants that are conditioned to the limit, physically talented, and competing regularly on the highest athletic plane THEN such hyperbole could have a measure of truth to it.

That has not been the case for as far as the eye can see ... (not because it is the "hardest job" to get there - not in this lousy era - but because no one (or almost no one) has grown up from youth wanting to get there)

In the US (in a commonly held view of athletes) you may just need to be too lousy to make it the competitive sports where ALL the talent wants to be, have an aversion to hard training and conditioning, and you can likely find your way into a professional boxing ring as a heavyweight.

As for the other countries, maybe their compatriots can offer thoughts on where all of their athletic talent is at.

It is one thing to enjoy or prefer the heavyweight division. [I know athletes that won't watch much (or even any) of the lower weight classes (saying that "they aren't much bigger than chicks").] But it is another to ignore the obvious when you see a steady stream of poorly conditioned, or untalented, or uncoordinated, or mediocre "professional" athletes among the heavyweights. Merely being of size does not make for a high level of athletic competition or impressive entertainment value.

If that were the case, you could just put anyone in a professional uniform or the colors of one's country for the Olympic Games and expect the times, marks, and achievements to be second to the mere fielding of a team. Who cares if the marks are worse than decades past in an era with the best tracks, great facilities, and larger resources? If they are there they must be good, right? No. It doesn't always work that way.

Heavyweight boxing has been the victim of a third world war in which the talent pool has been miniscule and the able bodied few and far between. Slow and/or unathletic is not a combination that produces much interest unless that was the ONLY athletic activity or unless nothing better existed. If that were the case heavyweight boxing would be immensely popular in the US today. But it is not. And, the US loves high-end athletic talent and quality competition. It spends an immense amount of money on it.

That said, I agree with you regarding Hasim Rahman.