In Kostya's second fight, he fought against Nedrick Simmons, a tomato can with an 8-19 record. The only reason this is even worth posting is that Mr. Simmons was the only fighter Tszyu ever faced in his 33 fight professional career that didn't have a winning record (I define a winning record by winning 1 more fight than you lose, ties don't count). I see Kostya's resume knocked from time to time because of either the Philips loss or because people feel he didn't get the best names at the time, but his entire career was made up of fighting pretty good opposition and he was moved at a blistering pace, even if some of the names were faded at the time. Just found that interesting. As a follow up question, can any champ beat this? Was there ever a title holder who never fought an opponent with a neutral or losing record?
By any measure, the standard of opposition faced by Oscar is by far, the highest of any active fighter. But Kostya had a pretty good resume and a good career.
I reckon we'll see him added to the list at some point in 2009. Povetkin's close, but not quite there as he's fought one losing record and one tied one.
Not much in most cases, which is the difference between a pretty good level of opposition and a great one.
First half of The Golden Greedy One's (TGGO) career was filled with a bunch of no names, naturally smaller men, and champs or former champs who were either past-their-primes or weren't great champs. Second half of TGGO's career was better, but that is when all the losses came. I guess TGGO found the comp a little bit more difficult to deal with when they were-in-their-primes and the same size as he was. Last chapter in his career? QUIT against a midget who he thought he was going to beat. I guess he figured he would end his career the way he started it, which was fighting smaller men, beating them, and getting credit for it. Can you say, "FAILED!!!" Ha ha ha!!!
Surely you can see some logic in asking what they accomplished BEFORE Tszyu ? I'm not a complete believer in fighters getting ruined by a bad beating, but it happens. Lacy comes to mind. Willie de Witt. In Tszyu's case, Zab's career was coming along fine befor the chicken dance. In Roman times, gladiatorial combat was usually to the death. A gladiators record BEFORE the fight was all that mattered. What he did later was not the question. For obvious reasons.
