I vaguely remembered Vaughn Bean back in the late 90's when men like Holyfield and Moorer squared off with him. But, I never realized exactly how padded his record was until I combed through it on boxrec this morning while having coffee at my work desk... He went undefeated in his first 27 fights, and unless I missed it, there wasn't a single man with a respectable record on that list. They were all basically 8-13-1, 5-6, 0-7, etc.... He fights a slew of these men, and gets a shot at Michael Moorer for the IBF title. He loses a decision, then goes and beats another slew of bums like Kimmuel Odum and Bryant Smith, then gets a second shot at a world title with Evander Holyfield.. He drops another decision. Two or three years goes by, and all the while Bean is fighting his usual group of no-hopers. Then he all of a sudden lands in the ring with Vitali Klitschko for the WBC intercontinental ( non-world ) title..... Who was promoting this guy? I'd really like to hire him to come run my business, because he was obviously a pure genius...
I think the thing about Bean was that even though he didn't deserve the title shots at all, he acquitted himself pretty well in those title fights, and gave both Moorer and Holyfield some difficult moments.
He was promoted by Butch Lewis who had strong ties with King and the IBF. He turned on King in the Holyfield fight and you never saw him again.
You weren't kidding about that record - he must hold some sort of mark for least # of winning records fought before a title shot and worst combined record of opponents before a title shot. He fought 3 (!!!) winning records before his shot at Moorer; and they were 5-3-1, 3-2-1, 5-4-2! That is absolutely indefensible. He had 4 fights after that, with 1 guy having a winning record, then he got Holyfield. Unbelievable. Interesting find. I'd certainly never thought of him as anything other than a fringe contender but a look at his record makes even that designation seem dubious. It's truly one of the outstandingly padded records in title-challenger history.
Unfortunately there has been a lot of fighters with this similar path. Sign with a good promoter who has good connections or is in control of the division and you get multiple shots. They always said if you want to get a title shot sign with Don King. If you want to make money dont!
BINGO. That and the guy was a softie title defense and that's why certain guys have so many title opportunites.
Stumbled across this post when I fell into a boxing rabbit hole and came across Vaughn Bean. I then noticed what others have pointed out because as I was casually browsing his fight history and saw he got his first shot at a title vs Moorer, I happened to start noticing a trend regarding the fighters those 27 victories came against. He actually fought 5 guys out of those 27 who had a winning record. 3 of the 5 only had a winning record by a single fight. The combined record of those 27 fighters he beat was an atrocious 112 wins against 247 losses. And he got a title shot?!?!? Moving forward, he won 45 professional fights, and only 13 of those fighters had a winning record. None of them were ever ranked or contenders when he fought them. He fought ranked opponents 6 times and of course lost all 6 including (and this is where the question lies) the 3 shots for the title. How on earth did this guy even get a single title fight, let alone 3? I don't care how he acquitted himself in those bouts. I just wonder how he got them in the first place. It kinda shows, or explains how boxing gradually started losing popularity right around this time frame and why it's dwindled to where it is today as politics and deals (who you know rather than what you've done) took prominence over the sport. It became a farce when it became about the promoters getting the best deals for themselves and putting those fights on rather than the obvious fights which should happen (the obvious best versus the obvious best contender) which the people wanted to see. You lost the casual fan when you force feed them fights that they never cared about, seeing handheld champs fight hand picked "contenders" and ignoring their voice or desire to see the best against the best. They stopped caring as they saw time and time again that the promoters would avoid those best vs best fights in favor of making sure their fighters remained the champion by avoiding any serious threats to their title. Unfortunately, those are the best fights usually and instead casual fans stopped watching these watered down, hand picked fights designed to keep their guy on top. It's the best explanation I can think of as for why a guy like Vaughn Bean would get 3 shots when he deserved none on merit and a perfect example amongst many similar examples as to how boxing lost it's dominance in the national sports limelight that it once had a stranglehold on
Yes, things like this really hurt the sport. It's happening now, the heavyweight division stinks like sardines right now.
Nothing remotely new about it. Jersey Joe Walcott’s records over the 3 1/2 years leading up to beating Ezzard Charles for the title was 5-5. Two of those losses were to … Ezzard Charles. Neither was close. He had lost two in a row. One of those to Charles and another to Rex Layne. If he didn’t beat Ezz when he did, he’d have probably kept getting rematches until Charles just threw up his hands and said eff it, let him win. Heck, maybe he did. Joe was ‘connected.’ Mob ties. Joe lost four title fights before he finally won it. Makes you wonder if it was on the up-and-up.
Your right, there's been stinky times thru history in boxing. But some seem to pong longer than others.
