Who was the worst fighter that was a Champion?

Seriously, have you ever actually watched Josh Taylor? He's remarkably skilled on the inside and rolls shots very well up close. Just go to 4:19 to see a plethora of examples of Taylor fighting in the pocket and staying defensively sound.

This content is protected

 

That looked really stiff and sloppy.

 

I don't really like saying this... but YDKSAB

 

I watched the stiff legged Jacquot utterly own Donald Curry to win that title, and couldn't believe what I was seeing. He was the first native born Frenchman to win a world championship in France since Marcel Thil over forty years earlier. (The news cited Marcel Cerdan as the last Frenchman to be a champion, but Cerdan's fellow Algerian Alphonse Halimi became Bantamweight Champion in 1957.) The Cobra was clearly finished.

Next, Jacquot lost that title in a freak opening round injury against a completely shot Mugabe, the only way the former Beast could have become a champion after MMH ruined him.

 

Jimmy himself said the very best four rounds of boxing in his entire career were the first four rounds against a peak Joe Louis. If that had only been a four rounder, Braddock would indeed have won (unlike Schmeling in his first bout with Louis, where Joe had the better of it until the fourth round knockdown by Max). From round five on, arthritis began inflicting its tool on Jimmy, fatal against a guy Braddock readily admitted was vastly superior anyway. But the counter right he decked Louis with was a thing of beauty, incorporating all of Jimmy's experience and long evolution as a boxer.

Interestingly, Braddock never took a backwards step against the Bomber. Joe actually did all the maneuvering back away from and around Jimmy, before finally knocking him out with a technically perfect right cross, elbow tucked tightly against the side of his body as he torqued his follow-through. Gene Tunney rated it the hardest right cross of the first half of the 20th Century, and the camera angle from behind Louis captured the textbook execution perfectly.

Charley Goldman repeatedly stressed to Marciano while developing Rocky that, "The closer the elbows are to the body when you punch, the harder the punch. With the left hook, we also see that principle in play when Eduardo Lausse hands Gene Fullmer the Mormon Mauler's first career knockdown. Gene was tearing after Lausse into a corner, threw his right at the Argentinian's body, dropped it, and Eduardo countered with a left hook which the camera angle caught perfectly tucked into Lausse's body, tumbling Gene forward and down.

Although Gene was caught more by surprise rather than staggered, he did spend the rest of the bout boxing around the ring perimeter, costing him the match. SRR studied that footage, then knocked out Gene in that exact same situation by design with the "Perfect Left Hook." This time, the angle which was originally filmed in full color is also behind Robby. But this time, as Gene was coming in after dropping his right to the body, Ray doesn't use Lausse's dragging hook, but stops, steps forward, plants, dips and steps forward with his torque crashing into Gene's jaw over his lowered right with perfect placement, and no reactive instinctual spontaneity, but an intended and designed one punch knockout blow.

Regarding Braddock, at LHW He stopped Slattery in nine between Slattery's reigns at LHW. This massive win got Braddock to Loughran. Previously, he'd also fractured Pete Latzo's jaw and snapped a 50 win steak by Tuffy Griffiths. He also wiped out future Louis title challenger Jack Roper in one. Granted, Loughran looked like he was shadow boxing against the taller and longer armed Braddock, but Tommy also did that to Max Baer and plenty of others.

Guy had two goals. Win the HW Championship and win his final bout. Mission accomplished when he ruined a promoter coveted returned between Louis and Farr by not only rocking the boat, but capsizing it. We have the Max Baer, Louis and Farr footage. He had an awful lot of offers after Farr, and deserves much respect for choosing to walk away from more good paydays after needing social assistance, and while the Great Depression was still in full force, and never coming back. (Manager Joe Gould should be acknowledged for his exemplary management of Braddock though in arranging that contract for defending against Louis which gave Jimmy ten percent of the gross from the Bomber's title defenses for the next ten years. That covered 24 defenses ending with Mauriello in 1946, so that contract only missed out on JJW I & II. Pretty good deal Gould arranged for his client and friend.)

When Braddock did maneuver, he circled right extremely well against Max Baer.

 

not even close

He wasn't great but there have been many worse fighters to win a title.

We could start with the fighter he obliterated in less than one round to win the WBA title - Art Frias

One guy who was pretty bad but somehow won a title was Stefano Zoff.

 

He was average.