The Five Worst Heavyweight Title Challengers?

You might think that this would be an easy list to make, but the criteria are pretty tough.

A fighter ranked in the top ten, however bad, could not be considered anywhere near the list.

A fighter with any sort of win over a name opponent, would likely evade the list.

 

does finnegan qualify?

 

Possibly, but it is a hard call.

Finnegan has half a credential as a challenger, and it is hard to pierce the fog of time, and pick apart how good it was.

 

That was a completely different era at the time and would never be repeated. That being said, Pete was a 'career' non-pro with Olympic Medals, was 7 years older than Floyd and outweighed him by 20-25 lbs.
After Pete's flash knockdown, Floyd rose and K'ddown Pete about a thousand times...
He fought Folley in his 2nd fight next year.
Holds a solid UD over Chuvalo.
IMO not the worst Challenger for the title.

 

Good names.
Finnegan, Mitchell, Jewey Smith-The Worst?-Nick Barone.

 

Tony Musto
Leon Spinks
Joe Roper
Richard Dunn
Pete Rademacher

 

Greetings Wass from stateside.
Dunn especially; I think he beat the German heavy several months earlier (can't remember his name) for the Ali 'road show shot'. The German said even if he beat Dunn, he would have declined an Ali shot feeling he wasn't in the same class.

 

Ross was 1-5-1 going into his shot with Johnson and the one win was over a fighter who had not fought in 3 years. According to boxrec. That is pretty awful.

 

Scott Frank, although he did have a draw against Renaldo Snipes in Snipes' first fight coming off the Holmes loss, in which Renaldo was very competitive.

 

A whole bunch of Heavyweight European boxers come to mind.

1) Jean Pierre Coopman
2) Lorenzo Zanon
3) Richard Dunn
4) Lucien Rodriguez
5) Steffan Tangstad

You could probably throw Alfredo Evangalista in there as well.

 

Damon Reed.

His challenge of Herbie Hide's WBO title lasted 52 seconds and that included the 10 count.

 

Frank,TANGSTED,Coopman, Dunn, come to mind

 

Off the top of my head, from the last fifty years (lineal title only) I'm going to go with Terry Daniels, Jose Roman, Jean-Pierre Coopman, Lucian Rodriguez, and Crawford Grimsley.