Highest hype:performance ratio among failed heavyweight title challengers

Correct saying few gave Whyte chance with Fury; the hype was all payperview he had with UK audience & story about him having very very strong accomplishment, very exaggerated story. If 2017 and 18 was best Whyte proves he was not ever good. Same as Chisora or a tiny amount superior.

Tyrell Biggs was a real big wide underdog with Mike Tyson. Who were the people picking him as winner?

 

Michael Grant was tipped to beat Lennox Lewis by Ring magazine. Get your head around that doozy??

 

Bill Squires had a formidable record and reputation prior to meeting Tommy Burns. Burns put paid to that in under a round.

 

Bookies are hype proof. If I recall correctly, several of the HBO announcers and other members of the press favored Biggs but maybe im misremembering should go back and watch again

 

You could be or maybe you are correct. I read Dereck Chisora and David Haye both had winner Whyte pick over Fury! So not real surprise if announcers & press had Tyrell win picked against Iron Mike Tyson.

 

Rewatching the PPV lead in now. Biggs was #1 contender (hype rating on par with Whyte), the arena was sold out.

Barry Thompkins, after saying a year earlier nobody thought much of Biggs: "Now, everybody is saying, experts whose opinions i value very much, are saying that when this fight is over, the hand of a new champion will be raised."

Michael Katz and Larry Merchant picked Biggs. SRL said Biggs possessed "the physical tools" to beat Tyson.

I'm not saying they all actually believed this stuff. Hype to hype up the PPV fight.

 

Side note: Tyson-Biggs was just a regular HBO Championship Boxing card. It wasn't PPV.

 

Cooney = Most Hyped.

 

I don’t take issue with your overall points, but this particular nitpick I wanted to address:

At the time Tyson faced Briggs, I’d say only Quick Tillis — who gave young Tyson about all he could handle — could be seriously called an ‘Ali imitator’ in any sense.

I mean, Pinklon Thomas had a great jab but he fought nothing like Ali and he’s the nearest other I can find on Tyson’s record to that point.

If you count Tillis, Tyson had faced one ‘Ali imitator’ and one ‘Joe Frazier imitator’ (Marvis) … so hardly making a career of facing dime-store 1970s guy (does Bonecrusher get to play the ‘Foreman imitator’ in this movie?) … I just don’t see anything to back up this line of thinking.

 

70s Ali jab and grab style, fighting tall on the back foot, taking rounds off, was all pretty en vogue with the 80s heavyweights.

but specifically i'm thinking of Tillis, Berbick, Biggs and then Holmes, who admittedly came after.

 

I'm sure he held WBA belt going in after winning it off Valuev and defending it against John Ruiz prior to boxing Wlad Kiltschko.

 

That reads more like a snippet of David Haye’s career than one from Sam Peter’s.