Which Heavyweight had the worst resume prior to getting a title shot?

I'll give you that one...
Interesting that Pete's career did include a nice resume of opponents with a few wins against ranked contenders...

 

Yes, but Oma was an enigma. I have only seen film of his fight with Charles, but Oma was at his best considered a real talent who did not apply himself to his trade. He was a party animal who often showed up in the ring out of shape, hungover, or even perhaps drunk. This is an evaluation of Oma from the Sept, 1950, issue of the Ring Magazine.

"Among such is the talented Lee Oma, Tex Sullivan's handsome heavyweight, who might be world's champion today if he had applied himself to developing his great natural abilities. Only a few weeks ago the clowning Lee and Bill Weinberg were disqualified for fouling and clowning in a bout in Ohio. Joe Louis, himself, is among those who rate the Detroiter as the only man who might have been given a real chance with the Brown Bomber."

"For natural skill, Oma has been compared favorably with the likes of Tunney and Johnson, and by such a competent veteran authority as Joe Woodman. On his good nights, light-hearted Lee can vanish from punches as if by magic. Had he been of a more serious frame of mind, he would unquestionably have made his mark as one of the really superlative boxers of all time."

Ted Carroll "Boxing Playboys" Ring Magazine, Sept 1950.

Also, while Oma had had some terrible losing patches in his career, he was on a good run at the time of the Charles fight and was highly rated. He had won 15 of 17 with the one NC with Weinberg. The lone loss, to Bob Satterfield by ko when Oma ran into one when well ahead, had been reversed, and, while beating a fair number of second-tier contenders, he had also beaten Beshore and Barone, each of whom had gotten a shot at Charles. If Oma didn't deserve a shot, why did they?

 

Gene Tunney was also "slung out" against Jack Renault. Refs apparently ran a tighter ship in the old days.

 

Well, while Patterson did slaughter Rademacher and the fight probably should have scant inpact on his all-time rating, boxing was not one of the sports in which amateurs were tossed in against the top professionals without seasoning, and the Rademacher fight set up a howl of protest. Patterson lost a great deal of prestige and, rightly or wrongly, some began to doubt Patterson's true quality. In retrospect, I think D'Amato blundered badly in going for this match.

 

Be honest, are you just going off boxrec when you pull out Sekona, Lovell and Sharkey ?

Because I know nothing about them, except I think I saw an older Bill Sharkey get crushed by Bruno.
From boxrec, I gather Lovell and Sharkey were clubfighters. If you can show they were remotely on the radar as real prospects for contendership then I'll listen up. Otherwise we're just talking about some obscure prelim bouts or club fights between journeymen or middle-rung guys.

You are mistaken.
Firstly, I meant Page was currently the WBA champion when BEY CHALLENGED HOLMES, and I'm sorry if I didn't make that clear enough. I thought my comment about Page taking Bey's place in challenging Coetzee (and winning the title) explained that somewhat.
Secondly, Page didn't lose the WBC title. The Page-Witherspoon was for the vacant crown.
Thirdly, the "was well on his way to acquiring numerous defeats" is a ridiculous statement. Irrelevant, completey based on hindsight, somewhat inaccurate (seeing as he had only lost twice - to Berbick and to Witherspoon) and ignoring the facts of that place in time.
Page had just lost a close decision to Witherspoon for the title when Bey beat him, and previous to that had been avoided by Holmes, so he had some status. If you want to talk about AFTER the Bey fight you will see that Page KO'd Gerrie Coetzee for the WBA title in his very next fight. And that's EXACTLY how things stood when Bey challenged Holmes.

Who said anything about hoopla ?
Page was a top heavyweight fighter in 1984, regardless of anything I say. I would never argue that Page wasn't a top-flight heavyweight in 1984. That's like me saying Lennox Lewis wasn't world champion just because I dont rate him much.

What do you mean Bey's ONLY win ? It was a damn good win. Better than anything Weaver brought to the Holmes match.
Bey had 14 wins.
You talk up such non-entities as Bill Sharkey etc. and accuse me of "hoopla".
Bey had a stoppage win over veteran toughie journeyman/fringe contender George Chaplin (who went the distance with world class fighters), and Bey debuted with an upset win over 6-0 prospect Buster Douglas.
These wins mean little to me, but if you're going to throw Billy Sharkey and Kid Komena (or whatever his name is) out, then accuse me of "hoopla" AND dismiss Bey as "ONLY" having beaten Page, you need to check some perspective.

Well, his record previous to Tate was not more impressive than a pre-Holmes Weaver, but the Tate win was a big win and landed Berbick near the top of the rankings.

 

LeDoux wasn't rated when he fought Spinks in 1977. At best, LeDoux might have been 15th to 20th worldwide. No better.

Spinks was selected as an Ali opponent because of his marketability. He was a household name, and Ali was looking for an easy, entertaining title defense before retiring.

The alphabet organizations edged Spinks into the top 10 in order to accomodate Ali and Don King.

 

Weaver was legitimately rated in the top 10 when he fought Holmes. This is because Weaver had stopped the top 10 rated Stan Ward in 1979.

Although his won-loss ratio was poor going into the Holmes fight, in truth, Weaver was far better than his record suggested. Most of his losses had occured very early in his career, when he was unprepared and overmatched. By 1979 however Weaver was a winning fighter.

 

The least qualified title challengers that I can think of are Rademacher, Jean Pierre Coopman, Terry Daniels and Ron Stander.

Coopman was especially weak, as he hadn't fought anyone close to world class prior to challenging Ali.

 

Yes, I found their names on boxrec, and frankly, I'm no more guilty of this than most here. I also illuded to the fact already, that these men did nothing in hindsite, but my point was that they were active fighters with good records who at the time could not be labeled as has beens or bums. Fighting a guy like Sharkey who was 15-0, is far riskier than fighting the three men that Berbick fought going into the Holmes fight which were Gardner, Findlay, and Rouselle. Weaver was regularly fighting active men with good records.

The wording was a bit fuzzy, and I misunderstood, but hey what do you expect from the comprehensive abilities of a yank.

Correct. I was merely addressing that he had lost.

As is your observation of what became of men like Sekona, Sharkey, and Lovell.

I'm not ignoring anything. My point is that Bey had one ****ing win in a 14 fight career, that otherwise mainly consisted of crap. He also went the distance in a 10 rounder and a 12 rounder on only two mere occasions. Bernardo Mercado was a contender when Weaver beat him. Sharkey, Lovell, and Sekona ( while apparently lacking in talent ), were prospects with impressive records. You could argue that beating Page was better than anything that Weaver had done by that point, but Weaver was noticably proven against a larger spectrum of better opponents overall. As for hindsite, I agree that it means jack ****, but for just for fun, let's compare what Weaver and Bey did immediately following their fights with Holmes. Weaver goes unbeaten for the next three years, acquires a world title, and chalks up wins over Tate, Coetzee, Tillis and Ledoux. Bey goes 4-10-1 through the end of his career, and never again beats anyone worth anything. What this comparison clearly tells us is that Weaver was a great fighter in the prime of his career in 1979, Whereas Bey turned out to be a flop..

My comment stemmed from past claims of yours that Page often looked like **** in most of his biggest fights. The Witherspoon match is one of your favorites used to describe both of them as "fighting fat men". Now all of a sudden you cling to his status as a top-flight heavyweight, which in all honesty may be true, but in a different argument, you'd likely describe him as an unworthy underacheiver.

I gave my response to this above.

Is this what you consider to be a number reflecting adequate seasoning? The only part about it that I find appealing is the "0".

Yes, but I wasn't the one in contradiction with my usual claims. That's why I said " I don't know what all the hoopla is about".

My perspective is that Weaver was more proven than Bey was, regardless of what Bey may have been ranked or weather his single win over Page was better than anything Weaver did. If you consider wins over Chaplin and Douglas as some sort of grand opus, then sobeit. Frankly, Weaver defeated a much larger volume of fighters who had greater winning percentages, and engaged in more battles, over many rounds. His experience and abilities should have been rather apparent to anyone who is honest, given that he went life and death with a PEAK Holmes, while in 1985 Bey was smoked far more easily by a much older and worn down version.

Perhaps..

 

Didnt Johnson, Jeffries and other early dayers give shots to men who had never fought before (not even amateurs). That trumps Rademacher

 

Okay, magoo, what we both agree on is that Weaver was a better fighter than Bey.

I wasn't following boxing in 1979 but if I had been I believe I would have PERCEIVED Weaver to have less credibility in his resume than I perceived Bey had in March '85.
You seem to believe/perceive otherwise, and that's cool. :good

BTW, I wasn't claiming Sharkey & Lovell were clubfighters in hindsight, I thought they had clubfighter credentials going in to fights with Weaver. And I LIED about not knowing anything about Lovell, he was of course SPIDER RICO, a tough fighter who famously battled Balboa in a church hall in South Philly '75.

 

Is this true. That's truly terrible.