Jimmy Young beat Lyle and Foreman. Many believe he beat (or at the very least fought on even terms with) Norton and Ali. Not bad...
Audley Harrison. I believe he was the first Heavyweight Olympic Gold medal winner not to win a version of the world title.
I was going to say Tony Tucker, but on reflection he did hold the ibf belt for a couple of months. The boxing press did quite a good job of keeping that one quiet at the time.
Vacant. Foreman was stripped for refusal to face Schulz in rematch. Then he fought Botha and lost a close and controversial decision to him. Fans pelted the ring with garbage. I thought the fight could go either way but that Schulz came on strong in the end. Then Botha popped for anabolic steroids in the post fight. Title became vacant again and Schulz faced Moorer. This time he lost close but clear to me. 7-5. He just didn’t engage enough in that bout.
I could see that but I’m going by overall career performance. Rather than a head 2 head. Placing each fighter according to had best career in my opinion. Golota was highly skilled and Grant was very big man.
Always a question of who you compare fighers with. If you compare with Ali, Mike Tyson, Klitschko etc, then many guys who never were belt holders honestly just didn't deserve it. But if you compare with Stiverne, Charr, Charles Martin, then many better boxers would have deserved more than these guys did. Gotta accept that guys like Povetkin just didn't have destiny on their side to be beltholders of the big 4, which often is a requirement to be considered ATG.
His destiny in his prime was large Wlad who then was old but not too old for win vs Povetkin. Career wise he still had not bad success: he had been ranked highly for long years. Was known cos his fights vs Huck and Wlad, had fans friendly style. Might had retired when he was 37. Nope, he continued to fight in the ring.
