The weakest title challengers of HW champions

Patterson was the weakest challenger when he fought Liston.
No HW challenger in history made a worse showing.

 

Terry Daniels?

 

For individual champs I would say for Frazier it would be Dave Zyglewicz who really never had a meaningful win and for Ez Charles it would be Freddie Beshore who dropped 3 out of his last 4 before landing a title shot.

 

Ziggy came to mind. Didn't he fall down a smokestack a couple years after his Frazier fight?

 

I went over to boxrec and read the record your post pointed to, and I don't think it makes your case.

Stander had a respectable 23-1-1 record with a KO win over Earnie Shavers, and wins over a couple of washed up former names in Thad Spencer and Manuel Ramos. I think there had been a lot weaker, but this line

"most undeserving title challenger"

implies he is worse than any of the others. I think that is clearly not true.

I remember watching the fight back then, and while he was overmatched, he gave a decent account of himself.

And, as others have pointed out, he was better than Daniels and Zyglewicz.

*aside--would I be wrong to consider Sanders' KO of Shavers to be a greater achievement than anything Gerry Cooney accomplished.

 

"No HW challenger in history made a worse showing."

What about Liston in 1965?

 

Doesn't Tom McNeeley deserve a mention here?

 

...yep and a lot of Burns' opponents. Also Joe Louis's McCoy.

 

I did not suggest Leapai was the worst challenger, I just asked who the man he beat to give him a ranking had beaten?

Being unbeaten only means something if you are fighting opponents with some pretensions of class.

eg At one point in his career Lamar Clark had 41 consecutive ko wins on his resume.

What would you say Boytsov's best two wins were? :think

 

Jim Jeffries defence against 4-2-4 John Finnegan takes some beating.Finnegan had been ko'din his last fight by Gus Ruhlin in 4 rds.Ruhlin floored him 7 times, knocking him out of the ring once.

After being knocked out, Finnegan had to be dragged back to his corner. Hardly a qualifier for a title shot.

 

Patterson was the Champ, Liston the Challenger

 

Think he means the return.
PS. Nice to see you back .:good

 

Cheers.

I cant see how the first 2 time HW champ can be seen as a weak challenger, especially at 27/28 years of age

 

Lorenzo Zanon must rate up there.

In defence of Rademacher, Amateur Boxing then resembled Pro Boxing much more than today. Teofilio Stevenson was mentioned as an opponent for both Ali and Holmes at various times.

 

I was going to stand up for Burns, as many of his lower ranked fighters were quite good and champions of their country.

but, going off Boxrec, in terms of performance, surely James J Walker and Jim O Brien take the cake. Both fighters lost by a first round knockout, on the same night!

incidentally, it is amazing the things that you learn (or have forgotten or just never taken notice of). I never knew that Burns defended against Fireman Jim Flynn. (a pretty decent string to his bow). Does anyone have any reports on this one?