Most disgraceful performances by defending champions

A DQ would have been on the table and Lane would have made that perfectly clear to Wlad.

It would have then been up to Wlad to try to handle Povetkin by way of boxing, i.e. develop an actual defense, or risk being kicked out of the ring (a la Lewis/Akinwande) without his titles.

 

As a huge Duran fan the answer here has to be Roberto in the 2nd fight with Leonard. That sent shockwaves throughout the boxing world that is still being debated.

 

Floyd Patterson defending against an amateur with zero professional fights in Pete Rademacher was a disgrace.

Getting knocked down by Rademacher was even more disgraceful.

Floyd sullied the most important, glorified title in all of sport at the time to make a few quick bucks. For shame.

 

Ali defending against Young wasn’t too hot - given the poor condition Ali came into the ring and the pitiful performance that his lack of conditioning limited him too.

Ali was even semi boastful about his lack of conditioning - suggesting it was a reflection of how little he respected his upcoming opponent. .

 

Freddie Norwood against Derrick Gainer

He lost his title on the scales, then somehow didn’t get DQ’d during this fight

This content is protected

 

Now that I understand the question, let's tag Terry Norris for somehow screwing up TWO title defenses against an ESPN level challenger Luis Santana.

Honorable mention to Greg Haugen for needing hated rival Vinny Pazienza to jump in the ring and save his belt against lowly and barely on the radar Miguel Santana. His rep would take a much bigger hit if there was actually any footage of it.

 

Bent judges a go-go, Terry Moore and Tom Kelly having Ali 7 points ahead are the worst two cards of the decade. Even worse than Rolf Neuhold's 75-75 (all rounds even) in the Carmelo Bossi-Jose Hernandez Light middleweight world title fight.

 

Eubank vs Schommer. I give him about 3 rounds...of course he got the decision! Another Eubank 'comedy', rivalling Sven Ottke's many farces.

 

Yes, in his latter fights, there was the premeditated scoring for Ali “factor” for opponents to have to also overcome.

When he fought Bivol, Canelo also benefited from a similar type of scoring mentality - fortunately Bivol beat Canelo so clearly as to eclipse the biased scoring.

Returning to Ali, as someone once said, you weren’t just fighting the man - you were also fighting the legend and judges who were likely to be slanted in Ali’s favour.

 

He literally turned his back and ran away , which is something you have endlessly derided Tommy Morrison for doing against Foreman.

https://s02.yapfiles.ru/files/708906/Wladimir_Klitschko_vs_Alexander_Povetkin_3.gif

Name a performance more disgraceful that that? Can't think of any.

 

100% without question.

Henry Akinwande got DQ's against Lews for less!!!

 

All that size and power in both hands and he had to fight like that.

 

Agreed. Although, to be fair, Young didn't do himself any favors, either.

While Ali, for large parts of the fight, acted like a clown, Young appeared to have little to no means (or inclination) to take advantage of that and almost played into stage show script. He did show some fleeting moments with his jab and counter-punched well - again, on occasion.

Ali was fairly awful, comparatively speaking. Young just couldn't fully break out of his tendency to fight negatively and take the initiative.

Poor fight all round.

 

True but the performances were not disgraceful, they got the job done, albeit against weak opposition. I think Calzaghe vs Manfredo is worse as Joe looked terrible while winning.