Well past his prime Berbick scored an upset over Shance Sutcliffe for the meaningless Canadian Heavyweight title Sutcliffe would lose his spot on the Holyfield Lewis undercard with John Ruiz. This content is protected
I’m new to the forum but delighted to see this, mainly because I met Shane Sutcliffe back in 2002 when I was visiting family in Vancouver. I was at a park and got chatting to him (he had a Tyson-Holyfield cap on). I was still living in the UK at the time, and he was blown away that I’d heard of him. We ended up having a really good chat about his boxing experiences….sparring with Holyfield (“uses his head a lot but doesn’t mean to”), Riddick Bowe (“this scar underneath my chin is from a right uppercut”), and some of his fights. He said Tua hit him so hard that he had no idea the fight was over, and still doesn’t remember the punch.
Meaningless title? Maybe to you, but to consumers of maple syrup and back bacon everywhere this championship has meaning you hoser! The people of the Dominion of Canada take their titles seriously. Guaranteed there are lost episodes of Great White North where the Canadian title rankings were discussed and dissected. This content is protected (On a non-humorous note, everybody can’t be a world champion. To be a national or state or territorial champion is something in which someone can take pride. There’s no need to demean it.)
With regards to the Canadian title, I also remember Shane telling me that they were all trying to get that to land a fight with Razor Ruddock, which was still a big money fight at the time in Canada.
Sutcliffe seems like who's career was really mismanaged. Technically Lennox Lewis holds citizenship in Canada he actually tried to get a shot for the title early in his career.
