Which of these One Hit Wonders could have been legit; which ones just got lucky

They pretty much were all legit, especially Johansson who was not a one-hit wonder.

 

Hey all had talent.

Rahman would get out of shape between fights and feast on bums between fighting the best in the HW division. He should have been fighting guys who would keep him sharp. Stopped Sanders and Lewis. Drew with Tua. Was out boxing Tua and Maskaev x2 before being stopped. Should have been able to win clearly over Ruiz and Toney. Should have fought the likes of Byrd, Briggs, McCline, and others.

Johansson pretty much fulfilled his potential. Should have fought Liston.

McCall had one of the best chins I've ever seen. Drugs kept him from being better. He would go into sparring partner mode in a lot of his fights. He could give and take and he had a decent jab... sometimes. I always wanted to see him vs. Mercer.

 

Rahman was the luckiest in that sence that he was picked by Lennox as an easy defense in SA, and he was lucky to be picked as there were considered few others.

Lewis' team considered to fight Larry Donald, David Izon and Rahman.

Donald had boring style (but was 38-1-1 and only decilison loss to Bowe), Izon at that time was considered more dangerous than Rahman who was KOd cold by Maskaev (who in turn was KO'd cold by Kirk Johnson and Whitaker).

So they picked Rahman. I don't believe that if Hasim had 20 more fights vs Lennox he would've ever scored KO once again.

 

Douglas had win 6 in a row, 4 by KO, prior to his fight with Tyson. He stopped Wimpy Halstead and Mike Williams. He beat Trevor Berbick, and Oliver McCall by decision. He fought a great fight vs. Tyson and won by KO. He got fat, it didn't even look like he trained one day when he took on Holyfield. He came back almost 6 years later and won 6 in a row, 3 by KO. One of those wins was a a DQ over L. Monaco when Douglas was knocked out right after the bell rang to end the 1st round. He lost to Savarese, LKOby1. He won his last 2 fights by KO. A fight vs. Roy Jones Jr. was talked about but Jones Sr. advised against it.

 

Johansson was undefeated, the european champ and had just annihilated the number one contender when he fought Patterson. He was very legit.

 

I would characterise these guys more as “two hit wonders”

They all effectively have two major wins, thus implying that the first one was not a fluke.

 

All of them were legit champs who beat an ATG heavyweight. They all had areas in which they were strong, and they were all quite talented.