Significant run of loses immediately before a title fight?

Don't know if this is a "significant losing streak", but Chuvalo had lost 2 of his last 3 before fighting Ali in 1966. His last fight prior to the title fight was a loss to Eduardo Corletti. That's the only one I can think of, without consulting BoxRec, where the challenger had lost his last fight before fighting for the title. I'm sure there are others.

 

Used to happen quite frequently.

Joe Walcott lost two in a row before beating Ezzard Charles for the title and 5 of his last 10.

The losses before beating Ezz for the title were to Rex Layne and Ezzard (in a title fight). Before that, he won five in a row. Before that, he lost three in a row, all in title fights — twice to Joe Louis and once to … Charles.

Jersey Joe got FIVE title fights in 3 1/2 years when there was only one champion (well there was no champ for one of them as it was vacated when Louis retired, but there weren’t four or five versions of the ‘world title’ to choose from).

And how he got the title-winning fight with Ezzard is, let’s say, suspicious. He lost to him immediately before by a wide margin and got put down for a 9-count. No controversy. No close call. Just a one-sided loss. Then he’s back in the ring fighting the same guy for the championship again.

(It’s good to have mob ties.)

 

One of the WBA's favored sons, Jorge Lujan. Lost 3 in a row before getting another title shot against Sergio Palma. Those Panamanians could do no wrong.

 

Barry McGuigan had a pretty run prior to his June 8 1985 WBA Featherweight title win over Eusebio Pedroza. Barry had won 22 bouts in a row since his last loss prior to his meeting with Pedroza.

 

Richard, I think what the OP is looking for is most consecutive losses immediately prior to receiving a title shot.

 

My mistake.

 

This is cheating a bit but Wallace (Bud) Smith lost 4 in a row before fighting Joe Brown for the title. It’s cheating because 3 of those losses were non-titles while he was champ, so it really wouldn’t have effected his rating or the contractual rematch.

 

That used to confuse the heck out of me-how a boxer could lose to anyone (like Duran losing to DeJesus) and not lose his title! Enter the idea of a non-title bout!

 

Andrew Golota 2 dq's then gets a shot at Lewis. Then later getting 3 title shots in a row. Don King was good to Golota.

 

There's Freddie Beshore, who had lost both his last two fights and four of his last seven when he got his shot at Ezzard Charles.

 

Al McCoy - lost his last 2, and 3 out of his last 4 to get his shot at Joe Louis' heavyweight title. Moreover, those 2 losses before heading to his Waterloo, was against Solly Krieger and Billy Conn. Two light heavyweights.

 

Derek Chisora lost the British title to Tyson Fury, won a six-rounder on points against an 18-43 fighter, lost a European title fight to Robert Helenius, lost a world title to Vitali and then lost an outdoor fight to David Haye. That's not a bad example of falling upwards.

 

Mickey Walker lost four in a row (one of them a newspaper decision) going into his welterweight title-winning effort over Jack Britton, according to the boxrec machine.

In fact, he had won just 1 of his last 7 (with one no contest and two of the losses by DQ).