Who was the biggest hype job in heavyweight history?

Hype??

 

Lou Savarese
Alex Garcia

 

Joe Mesi

 

Excellent..You beat me too it!!

 

On the way home from Vietnam somebody had the issue of Ring Magazine with Jerry Quarry on the cover unloading a vicious body punch on Foster. 1970 that was a good memory.

 

Had the exact issue signed by Jerry.

 

Jose Urtain is a great choice. From the buildup and the promo pics, you'd have thought he was an absolute Monster. Then seeing him on film, he was a small and limited brawler who got outboxed by King Roman.

I have to throw out the great Joe Savage. He got tons of magazine hype and even a guest shot on David Letterman. And then he eventually got in the ring with Bert Cooper and he couldn't even throw as credible of a punch as most of us could in grade school. Just a complete goof.

 

I disagree. Quarry had hype around him. He was white, he was from Southern California and clean cut all that. A hypejob IMO is a fighter that has nothing behind it. Quarry had plenty of substance as a fighter. He fought and beat good fighters all throughout his career. Your example of Jerry beating former champ Floyd Patterson at such a young age speaks to quality not hype.

 

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Great shout on Urtain. He was massively popular in Spain, both with the people and Franco himself. He had no amateur career as far as I'm aware, and made his name with feats of strength rather than performances in the ring.

There was talk of him challenging Frazier before he even got stuck in to the European scene. He won the EBU title, but struggled badly in scraping a win against decent but unspectacular Juergen Blin, and was then completely outclassed by an aging Henry Cooper. He rallied with some decent wins against Richard Dunn and Jack Bodell, but that wasn't much of a return on the hype.

Pure hype job, based on publicity, a padded record and exploits outside the ring. If you focused purely on his record, there was no reason for him to warrant more than a passing reference in the Ring rather than being plastered on the front cover.

 

I think there's a distinction between a hype job, and fighters who were either overrated or just didn't reach the heights expected.

Moving away from the heavyweights, Mark Breland was the most hyped amateur to come out of the class of 1984, even more so than Whitaker or Holyfield, but didn't achieve anywhere close to what they did. However, the hype at the time was probably justified - he was 110-1 as an amateur, Olympic gold medalist, and looked to have all the tools to be a great fighter. There's something wrong with the promoter and management team (and not to mention boxing fans) if that kind of talent isn't hyped.

Proper hype jobs to me are the ones you look back on and wonder why anyone thought they would be the next great anything, rather than the ones who either lost their way or lacked a couple of vital ingredients at the highest level.

 

David aka "the next coming of the Klitschkos" aka "let me bend over backwards over the turnbuckle and present my rear end to Christian Hammer as a humble sign of submission" Price


I busted Out laughing when the commentator said "somewhere Tyson fury and W. Klitschko are watching" and not 10 seconds later Price was knocked out by a grazing blow.

 

Remember this fight well. USA Thursday night fights.

 

IMO Jerry was, certainly, not a hype job; a tough out in any era.
Was badly beaten when he stepped in against the world's best?
Two losses to Frazier, the second brutal as Jerry was 'losing' it at that point; their first fight was the fight of the year; how many fighters could toe-to-toe slug and win early rounds with Joe? Ali was all BAD for Jerry as were MANY others.
Beat Lyle 10-2 and had him ready to go in the latter stages of their fight.
Took Shavers out in 1.
Foster...Spencer...
I agree with Urtain; I've got his 1970 fight with Cooper on tape. Cut 'enry early; may have been a head butt. They pretty much closed it and 'enry ' whittled' him down.
In watching him Jose was, sorta, like a 'doughy' Chavalo, running up his undefeated KO string against Euro-wannabes.