Which Champion was the least gifted ?

Marvin Hart, Jesse Benavides, Luis Santana, Rene Jaquot.

 

Bonecrusher smith.

 

Great pick. He was crafty as hell. And could do a bonghit and beat a prime Camacho.

 

I have seen some clips of Burns.
5'-8"
He looked pretty dam good - especially for his size.
Check it out if you can.

 

that could be true,

but smith was a huge, strong heavyweight that had a huge right hand... maybe on par with lewis.

 

at any weight--Lauro Salas

 

I agree, Bonecrusher had plenty of physical gifts. In fact, if boxing was a question of measurements, he'd be very hard to beat. His tale of the tape was ridiculous.

 

Marciano had the least natural talent IMO. He had natural power as a puncher but the time and dedication Goldman put into Marciano is an understatement. Marciano was known to have two left feet with poor balance and Goldman helped him cure that problem.

I'm not sure if the Rocky movie was an illustration of this problem when Mickey tied the string around Balboa's legs in the training session, but the reference to Marciano is there.

 

He may not have been gifted in the same way that Jack Johnson was, but any 168lb man who could score kayoes over 200lb plus fighters has some natural talent. Plus, by all accounts, he wasn't a bad boxer. He was certainly more gifted than Marvin Hart, for example.

 

Jimmy Braddock could punch. At one time, Louis said that only Max Baer hit him harder than Braddock.

I sometimes think Vito takes the cake here. Short, slow, no punching power, a bleeder, and couldn't throw a straight punch to save his life. Yet, many believed he got the better of Hugo Corro (RIP), an excellent if dull lateral mover with a superb jab, Hagler in their draw (which Bob Waters said Vito won 11 of the 15 rounds), and Minter in their Las Vegas brawl. (British judge Roland Dakin humiliated and embarrassed his countrymen with his obscenely prejudicial and corrupt 149-137 score in favor of Minter. Only Padilla's mistaken ruling of Vito's shoving of Minter to the deck in round 14 as a knockdown prevented Dakin from scoring a 15-0 shutout for Minter. Is there a single member of ESB's British contingent who saw Minter/Antuofermo I, that truly believes Alan deserved to win the title by a score of 150-135, like Holmes did to Cobb and Berbick?)

The only inherent attribute Antuofermo clearly had going for him was an armored chin. He created eveything else out of a mind boggling work ethic. The endurance and physical strength he possessed were self made qualities. As for his heart, "The harder you work, the harder it is to surrender." - Vince Lombardi

Bruce Curry was far past his best when he made history by joining brother Don as history's first simultaneous champions. But Bruce was lifting weights, and counterproductively let his late career fascination with karate alter his punching technique into one of pushing his shots out. This version of Bruce would have never been able to floor Benitez. Bruce wasn't a bleeder, but he was afflicted with the Curry family chin, completely disregarded input from his trainer Jesse Reid, and was chronically overtrained for his miraculous championship surge.

When he lost his title to Billy Costello, it was to a challenger who had very solid technique. (Costello later would be shutting out Arguello, making Alexis look horrible, before getting caught with one of those patented placement shots Alex was famous for.) Going into round ten of their title fight, Costello had been outboxing and beating up Bruce in every way possible yet the lunatic Curry wouldn't stop coming. It was beginning to look as if Bruce might overcome Costello's vast superiority with sheer conditioning, heart and persistence. Costello had to be getting extremely discouraged, but he didn't show it, and finally broke through to end it.

Again, it bears repeating that Bruce was not playing with a full deck at this stage of his career. This is somebody who was weight training in the gym at 3:00 AM, went after his trainer with a gun at one point, and had seemingly lost all the incredible talent he displayed in the amateurs, and in arguably deserving two decisions over a prime Benitez. (I sometimes wonder if Bruce was also messing around with steroids as well as other drugs. Roid rage might explain a great deal about his manaical defense against Costello.)

 

marciano was supremely talented. trained well, yes, but possessed of gifts of power and stamina that damn near none have displayed in the ring.

 

And that stamina wasn't a natural gift.

The story of Marciano kneeing a guy in the stomach in a amateur match because he was so gassed is well known.

Marciano's the epitome of hardwork overcoming physical short comings.

Marciano also had the shortest reach of any Heavyweight champion.

 

john ruiz comes to mind immediately, slow, very basic, but he is like muhammed ali compared to frans botha. botha was slow, only threw a jab and straight right, not much power, not much stamina yet that right hand continually would catch people. I can't find my copy of it, but botha and shannon briggs was a very underrated fight, good stuff.

 

Nicolino Locche comes to mind if we're talking about measurable athleticism, especially when you consider his style of fighting and what he ended up accomplishing. He had minimal punching power, less than stellar hand and footspeed, and was a chainsmoker who, as legend has it, actually blazed up in between rounds at times to "recharge". Not the kind of guy you'd envision becoming champion and fighting over 1400 rounds in the course of his career.

What he did have was a granite chin (never knocked out), and a defense in the pocket that was best described as psychic. This is a guy who physically had no business clowning people the way he did, but compensated with a tenacious will, stellar ring generalship, and pure instincts that were nearly incomparable. If one needs evidence that God can be merciful, look no further than Locche being born without a punch.