Worst lineal heavyweight champion of all time

Coopman is in there.

 

Im not sure which argument you are attempting to construct. European heavyweight challengers ,by and large have been pretty awful, there is no arguing the fact.One of the best, Farr never won a fight in the US.
Many on your list went the distance or at least late into fights with champions.You can't say the same for most of the Euro heavies.

 

The most appalling challengers in history have always been American. For every Brian London (who actually beat contenders) there are three Dave Ziglewitcz’s, Marvis Frazier’s or Pete Radmachers.

That’s not to say the best champions were not American, of course they are, but history is far too harsh on euro challengers. An unsuccessful challenger is an unsuccessful challenger no mater where he flew in from. So far as unsuccessful challengers go Euros were no worse than anybody else.

 

There have been hundreds more from the US so it stands to reason they would have their share of palookas. Rademacher was good enough to floor Floyd something a tame London never came close to doing. Marvis wasn't anything special ,but he was good enough to kick Bugner's arse. Ziggy was a disgraceful defence ,along the lines of Daniels and Stander.

 

These conversations always irritate me to a degree because it's somewhat degrading... Even an old Foreman could punch holes in walls, Leon Spinks himself had the great 15 round efforts against Ali and if you ever actually watch Spinks against Mercado, he's pretty impressive there. More impressive when you consider Mercado was coming off knockout wins over both a young Berbick and Earnie Shavers. And this is after Leon's first round failure of dipping his toes into the deep end at heavy.

They all accomplished something.

 

More than us sitting here criticizing them!

 

What kind of performance did Tyson Fury turn in against Wlad? He landed like six jabs a round and won the fight, because Wlad landed like two punches a round.

BOTH guys were awful.

The only thing saving Tyson is he quit afterward. If Leon had quit after beating Ali, who knows where he'd be ranked.

But the only other good name on his record is Chisora. Fury is pretty UNACCOMPLISHED when compared to the other guys who won titles.

I wouldn't be surprised if Fury went on to win more great fights, or if he continued his career and never won again. He's that questionable at this point.

He could finish his career 25-25 at this point. He's still active, so it's hard to say. But he's a mess. He just didn't get in the ring while he was a mess. That's saved him to date.

But his title win was terrible. Worse than Moorer's that for sure.

 

They are all accomplished. So it does feel weird trying to pick the worst, since most contenders were worse than they were.

 

You are correct. We may quibble about one being better than the other but these guys all achieved what they set out to do. They are in an exclusive club of kids who all came from nothing to leave their mark on history, a history we can talk about.

Leon beating Mercardo was actually tops. I think Larry took Leon super serious on the basis of that and Larry beat a better fighter there than given credit for. Everyone in boxing circles knew if Leon had his act together he could have been a super talent. He beat an Ali that Norton and Shavers could not with hardly any professional experience! The fighters out there all knew he had something and it’s quite tragic he was unable to ever be rational enough to realise his potential.

 

I wonder if any kind of sane universe if he could have achieved success approaching his brothers, or was Leon just doomed from the start for a myriad of reason? Would have been pretty phenomenal to see.

 

Jack Roper? Charles Martin? Harry Thomas? That drunken dude Johnson fought who was in the John Wayne movie? Some of the guys Jeffries beat..

London was better than those guys. He beat Radmacher. He knocked out Rischer, Erskine and apparently had ingo quite disheveled..

So far as unsuccessful goes the Unsuccessful euro challengers were no less unsuccessful than any of the unsuccessful U.S challengers. The Unsuccessful American challengers were on the whole as unsuccessful and lost just as spectacularly.

 

Leon was a true enigma. People say they fought drunk or right after a night out and they really didn’t. Leon really did. He had so much talent the army gave him a pass. He won the Olympics then went awol. Nobody could really control him. He really was not a rational, mature, sane kind of person. It’s astonishing he achieved what he did on raw natural talent.

 

If you were ranking all HW champs (I'm sure you already have done so), would Fury be within 5 levels of Sullivan, Ali or Lewis? I'm not talking about who beats who, but a ranking based on competition and historical status.

 

He was his own person to say the least, for better and for worse... much like Kirkland Laing, another extremely talented fighter who became equally uncommitted and flakey after climbing their own personal mouth Everests in the ring.

I hear Donald Curry's brother was a similar type of out of control type of individual. Lots of crazy stories.