LHW and Cruiser champions that failed miserably at HW

Bob Foster. Caught in a bit of a catch-22 situation; too small at Heavyweight to implement his come-forward, heavy punching and aggressive style which was so effective at 175, and not a natural when trying to adapt to a more back-foot, cautious style at the higher weight to make up for this.

 

Jirov did poor at HW. So did Foster.

Lesnevitch? He was never a player in the HW division despite being a top 20 LHW.

 

Al Cole - 1 loss at cruiser, several defenses as champ, moves to heavy and becomes an opponent.

Eddie Mustafa Muhammad - I don't know if one fight counts as "failing miserably", but I seem to recall Eddie talking a lot of smack about taking over the heavyweight division before losing a one-sided fight to Renaldo Snipes and returning to the lt. heavys & later cruisers. I do have to give Eddie respect for seemingly realizing that heavys weren't for him and going back down.

Johnny Persol - Announces he's going to the heavyweight division, gets a couple of decent wins against top 20 types, then gets iced by Jimmy Ellis before moving back down to light heavy.

 

Jack Delaney - gave up his light heavyweight title to compete at heavy with very little success. This despite seeming to be able to make 175 comfortably. The lure of riches will get them everytime.

 

The ultimate example.

 

Good call. He was an outstanding light heavyweight champion, who was far less successful at heavyweight than many of his peers.

 

Juan Carlos Gomez - Cuban southpaw who dominated the CW's in the late 90's/early, moved up to HW and did nothing for a long time but fight Oliver McCall and a bunch of nobodies and then finally got a title shot against Vitali K. in 2009 and lose.

 

Dwight Qawi

 

Dwight was very far past his prime by the time he got to HW

 

Oleksander Usyk

Wait a minute...

 

nah I think hes something special

 

So do I, but you never know.

 

Yeah but I don't see a prime Qawi really doing well at heavyweight either.