The 10 worst WBC, WBA, IBF alphabet heavyweight champions

If we are including WBO.... Damiani..

Seldon is a must..
Bennt...
Chagaev...
Brewster..
Sergei..
Briggs..
Maskaev..
Ruiz..
Smith...
Douglas..
Tucker..
Akinwande..
Hide..
Ellis..
Bruno..
Tate..
Dokes..

 

I don't think the WBO should be included during Damiani's time ( early 90's ), and incidently he was a pretty good fighter. He won a silver medalist at the 1984 olympics, and for whatever its worth, held that WBO title for two years. He beat a fairly decent collection of good fighters such as Biggs, Duplooy, Broad, an old Page, plus a number of Euro fighters who weren't that bad. His only defeats were to prime versions of Mercer and McCall when he was on the decline, and he was outboxing Mercer handedly before having his nose broken.

Francesco Damiani is one fighter who I would have been interested to see how h emight have been had his career been handeled a little differently. He never got into ideal condition, and in his later years, slowed down in activity and comp quality.

 

I personally think that he would have been just as qualified perhaps even more so between 1988-1990 than Carl Williams, James Douglas, Frank Bruno, Tony Tubbs or Larry Holmes. Spinks is the only one during that time period who was a stand out guy in terms of his entitlement to a shot at Tyson. Damiani was undefeated, fighting more actively and beating as good or better opposition than the other named fighters were.

 

Were most of those other guy's fights being aired outside of the US? I don't think so. Sure, Damiani fighting in Italy may have kept his winning streak from reaching the rest of the boxing world's eyes and ears, but it was the responsibilty of the promotors in power to see to it that the right challengers were receiving the proper recognition.

 

Maybe so, but he won that fight regardless of dumb luck. He still deserves credit for the win, and his victory over Lewis is better than most of the ones that other alpha champions have chalked up in order to take fragments of the title.

 

I don't understand rating Chagaev or even Maskaev as some of the worst. Let them finish their careers first, especially Ruslan.

Where does Coetzee figure in this discussion? Pinklon Thomas?

 

Neither of those guys did much as title holders, but their overall body of works isn't too bad. Coetzee Ko'd an undefeated Dokes, plus drew with a prime Thomas, and also beat Leon Spinks, Scott Ledoux and a few others. He wasn't all that bad. Pinklon Thomas beat Witherspoon and drew with Coetzee, but did little else. He might barely make the list. I personnly think that Oliver McCall was a better fighter than Pinklon Thomas or Coetzee though. Especially if look at total number of wins against Quality opponents as well as the types of losses that they had.

 

If one considers "everyone from Lennox Lewis to Akinwande" to consist of Lennox Lewis, Bruce Seldon and Henry Akinwande, then I suppose so.

Which ones?

 

As a great man once said, "I would rather be lucky than good anyday."

And yes Rahman gets all the credit for the win.

I don't consider Lewis "over-rated" but then again I do not believe there is some mythical consensus rating of each fighter nor is there a purely objective actual rating. Lewis did have a tendency to come in under-prepared, even in some of his victories. That does effect his final status as champion and fighter. Still, I rate his very highly all-time H2H, and slightly less high in terms of legacy.

 

This is a fair assessment. I too rate Lewis higher on a head to head basis than I do legacy. As you say, he had the tendency to show up at a subpar level even in victory. A fully motivated Lewis could have beaten or troubled a lot of great fighters in my opinion.