Who Had A Better Career Zab Judah Or Buster Douglas?

For the record love watching Zab. I think he was the more skilled of the two and had a bigger ceiling. It’s hard to crack that Tyson win though in my eyes.

 

Zab made the Ring annual rankings 13x. Buster made it 4x. It’s a pretty big gap even if Tokyo happened.

 

part of me thinks Zab, but Buster's win is just too big... Zab never had that type of win.. he was a decent fighter, but not great.

 

If it's a best win thread, okay, Douglas. No problem. But careers? I don't think it's close. Not because Douglas wasn't an excellent talent or didn't peak having proved it, or because Zab didn't have an even better career in the tank, but because showing talent at your best one or a few nights against quality opponents does not make a career. Okay, Zab could've certainly had an even better career but he was achieving throughout a large portion of his career while Douglas was floundering. Zab was earning title fights and plaudits while Douglas was getting yawned off and slagged off and dismissed and frankly not for invalid reasons biased for or against either, necessarily.

There was a not particularly unfair reason why Zab talk was usually about Zab underachieving or not shining when he had the ability to, and until Tyson the Douglas talk was a lot of "Eh. This guy fought on the card too." You can talk undisputed but home in on how many title fights over how long a period of time these guys had. Zab's career is barely visible from where Buster's career was, on merit. In terms of being known by random people who aren't boxing people, maybe you could say Douglas would still be more well-known and try to take that angle. But I'd be making the merit case.