When the first top contender to get a title shot would have been the next champion

Briggs impresses me more against Lennox than against Foreman even though he was knocked out.

 

On March 22nd 1984 Murray Sutherland became the first ever SMW champion when he defeated Ernie Singletary via 15 round unanimous decision.

Murray made his first defense on July 22nd 1984, and got sparked in the 11th by Chong Pal Park. Park went on to have a pretty decent title run.

Sutherland was a good fighter, but he could never quite hang with the best of his era. His resume' reads like a who's who of very-good to great fighters he lost to.

 

Billy Backus

 

It's impossible to say really.
I disagree with the Buster Douglas hypothesis.

A fat October 1990 Buster Douglas might have beaten a slow old George Foreman or a fat fading version of Witherspoon or Carl Williams, he might have been too much for a green Mercer or Bowe.
The problem was he unequivocally had to be on the top of his game to have a chance against a hungry, fit, fast outstanding contender like Holyfield, and he wasn't. Against most of the others - an uninspired, under-trained bunch of has-beens or inexperienced newcomers - he's in with a decent chance of retaining the title.

 

Yep; Billy was no mug, but also no Napoles...

Leon Spinks has to be up there