Journeymen who could have pulled a "Cinderella Man" if given the chance?

With 4 belts in the division I think it's fairly likely a journeyman level fighter will be champ.

 

Look no further than the 1930's. Sharkey, Braddock and Primo. I don't think any of those guys were the best heavyweights when they were champs.

Of course once the alphabet titles became a thing we had tons of guys that held belts despite not being all that great. Too many to mention but with that said, we the fans have always known who was truly the top dog.

 

I had a couple of thoughts and then you throw in this caveat.

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But I’ll play anyway. I have a couple of ideas.

In 1978, Leon Spinks, in his sixth fight, fought to a draw with Scott LeDoux.

LeDoux was coming off a stoppage loss to Duane Bobick, and had gone 3-5 in his last eight (with losses to George Foreman, among others).

Four months later, Leon becomes lineal champion, upsetting the declining Muhammad Ali.

Of course Leon lost the rematch, but let’s just say in this scenario Spinks decides to squeeze in an ‘easy’ defense and grants it to LeDoux since they had fought to a draw.

If Scott can fight Leon to a draw, an unfocused Spinks could conceivably lose to him in a rematch.

So I’ll give LeDoux about a 33% chance of pulling off an upset unanimous decision. (I figure if it’s close judges are probably going to give Leon the nod as he’s champ and there’s bigger fish to fry with an Ali rematch, hence the 1-in-3 shot.)

In a similar vein, how about … Lorenzo Zanon?

He’s Italian, which is all he needs to be, because Ali had this idea, based on the popularity of the movie “Rocky,” of giving a shot to a true journeyman underdog as Apollo Creed did for Rocky Balboa in the film.

I believe Alfio Righetti was the opponent mentioned for this, but Spinks beat him and got the shot.

But let’s say Ali decides to have one ‘farewell’ defense after beating Leon in the rematch. We know the man doesn’t have a lot left and he’s probably not likely to train his ass off.

What better place to fight Rocky than the Coliseum in Rome (or some arena/stadium there)?

So right around that time Zanon has shown well in KO losses to Ken Norton and Jerry Quarry — he’s ahead of both on the scorecards (or should have been) with his quirky-jerky style when they whacked him out. He also later does get his shot and gives Holmes some trouble til Larry turns it on.

But old Ali isn’t gonna thump him out with a big shot. And Lorenzo is busy enough, awkward enough, and facing an opponent who has regressed enough that maybe, just maybe, he walks away with a unanimous decision.

(And promptly gets sparked out by someone — Leon would still have some shine, maybe Gerrie Coetzee or John Tate, etc. — in his first defense.)

Now I guess Lorenzo was European champ somewhere along this timeline which means he was ranked, but realistically I think we can call him a journeyman (especially following closely after his losses to Quarry and Norton, with say a tuneup win or two to make him just viable enough).

So there you have it.

(EDIT: Haha, I was typing out my Leon scenario when you posted about him.)

 

Ross Purrity

 

Douglas did it in the 1990s.

 

Johnny Risko beat multiple world champions, as well as a number of contenders. He also gave Tunney a hard fight before he started piling up losses.

Risko is a plausible candidate.

 

I like watching Ron Simmons when he was paired with Butch Reed, with Teddy Long as their manager, they were known as Doom. Doom had beaten The Steiner Brothers in WCW, in May 1990, which was televised by TBS.

 

Ron Simmons! Him and Butch were some bad dudes

 

They sure were, I did not expect The Fabulous Freebirds to beat them and win the tag titles.

 

Joe Hipp

 

The Freebird Rule is one of the best things in wrestling history.