Weakest heavyweight world champions

[Cojimar 1946]

Also heavyweights are getting progressively bigger and stronger. Rocky Marciano and Dempsey would be cruiserweights today.

[Duran1970]

Fitzsimmons mid tier but Burns low tier?
Fitzy other than winning the strap accomplished lil as a heavyweight..also had 53 fights against winless fighters or 1 win fighters..
Burns 13 title defenses with 11 kos

Pssss: Boxrec records from that era are incomplete.

Maybe so but I have my own records and many many record books and I'll repeat even though fitzy was a great fighter he did next to nothing as a heavyweight..

[Tuan_Jim]

People are rated based on accomplishments. Bowe's accomplishments simply don't measure up regardless of how you think hypothetical matchups go. Also, the Golota fights seem like a pretty strong indication that Bowe's more beatable than the Holyfield fights might suggest.

Contemporaneous reports estimate Bowe waddling into MSG at an obscene 260lbs. Totally underestimated the Foul Pole, but at least in doing so he didn't get humiliatingly KOd by one punch like his pal Lewis did, twice.

Anyway two wins over prime Holyfield, one by KO, trumps most other credentials. Plus politics is important: Bowe had to fight for the WBO belt because the sanctioning clowns refused to rank him. They had Peter McNeeley and Lionel Butler and Frans Botha in their top 10s, but no Bowe--who the media ranked number 1.

[Nile4000]

The question should be, can you envisage your choice beating any champ in history at all? If not, that's your man.

With that in mind, Charles Martin is the obvious worst of the worst. No discernible talent, won a belt he should never have been boxing for on a freak injury, lost it on two punches, both of which knocked him down, the second one convincing him not beat the count. There has literally never been a less talented, more pathetic 'champion' in recorded history. Who can you picture him beating? Absolutely no one, I would hope.

Regarding lineal, I think calling Leon Spinks the worst is totally wrong. Leon was nuts and only dedicated himself to one full, disciplined training camp in his life, but that time he did it he showed that he had the intangibles. Surely you can see fit, aggressive, focused Spinks of that night bulldozing Hart, Burns et al? Out-working Willard, Carnera, Braddock, Briggs, Rahman? Leon with his brother's sane bent would have been a very good fighter. Personally I struggle to see Marvin Hart beating anyone--accept probably the aforementioned alphabet champ Charles Martin.

Leon focused could beat Champions Page, Thomas, Smith,Tubbs, and Weaver arguably. Maybe Marciano.

[HomicideHenry]

You gotta be shittin' me right?

[Duran1970]

You gotta be shittin' me right?

I second that

[tiny_acres]

The question should be, can you envisage your choice beating any champ in history at all? If not, that's your man.

With that in mind, Charles Martin is the obvious worst of the worst. No discernible talent, won a belt he should never have been boxing for on a freak injury, lost it on two punches, both of which knocked him down, the second one convincing him not beat the count. There has literally never been a less talented, more pathetic 'champion' in recorded history. Who can you picture him beating? Absolutely no one, I would hope.

Regarding lineal, I think calling Leon Spinks the worst is totally wrong. Leon was nuts and only dedicated himself to one full, disciplined training camp in his life, but that time he did it he showed that he had the intangibles. Surely you can see fit, aggressive, focused Spinks of that night bulldozing Hart, Burns et al? Out-working Willard, Carnera, Braddock, Briggs, Rahman? Leon with his brother's sane bent would have been a very good fighter. Personally I struggle to see Marvin Hart beating anyone--accept probably the aforementioned alphabet champ Charles Martin.

Leon focused could beat Champions Page, Thomas, Smith,Tubbs, and Weaver arguably. Maybe Marciano.

No way in hell

[cfang]

Fitzsimmons mid tier but Burns low tier?
Fitzy other than winning the strap accomplished lil as a heavyweight..also had 53 fights against winless fighters or 1 win fighters..
Burns 13 title defenses with 11 kos

Pssss: Boxrec records from that era are incomplete.

Maybe so but I have my own records and many many record books and I'll repeat even though fitzy was a great fighter he did next to nothing as a heavyweight..

Heavys of his era. Corbett, Jeffries, Sharkey, ruhlin, Maher and choynski.

Fitz lost to jeffries, drew with choynski and knocked out the all others. Wouldn't say that was nothing.

[Duran1970]

Lost to Sharkey and choynski was a light Heavyweight bout....ducked Corbett rest of career.

[cfang]

Sharkey loss was a joke surely. Fitz beat him easy but was incorrectly dqed by Wyatt Earp. Thats what every account I've read of that fight says. He fought Sharkey again in 1900 and koed him in 2. For effectively a middleweight Fitz had an impressive heavy resume. Dont ask me how he did it, he looked nothing special on film. Guess he must have been a 1890s Tommy hearns or something. Skinny but hit like a mule :-)

[HomicideHenry]

Fitzsimmons was a damn good Heavyweight (overall) even if his Championship reign was nothing really to speak about. One can argue that he was "The Uncrowned Champion" for quite a bit before facing Corbett. His obliteration of Peter Maher AND GETTING RAILROADED IN THE SHARKEY FIGHT by a crooked referee/overrated lawman, in combination with his feat of beating 7 Heavyweights in one day, and countless exhibitions, etc.... He was far from being "the worst" in any category... Mind you he was rated a top FIVE Heavyweight of all time going into the 1960s by RING MAGAZINE back when that actually meant something.

[BitPlayer]

Fitzsimmons didn't draw with Choynski, he was smashing him to bits when the police interfered, and it was agreed before hand in that case it should be a draw. The Sharkey loss was dodgy as hell and he evenged it solidly enough

Fights against opponents without a record on boxrec is meaningless, it's trivial to find matches from this era in newspaper archives that are missing from boxrec.

For example one opponent with no other's listed is Abe Cougle, but actually he was already notable atleast a year before that and had fought an epic 54 round draw described as one of the best near Chicago seen in some time.

Philidephia Jack O'Brien was also being listed amoungst the best Heavyweights of all time for years, and regularly ranked as the greatest Light Heavyweight for decades.


Not to mention tearing through the best Middleweights, M'Carty (McCarthy), Dempsey, Hall and Creedon.

[Nile4000]

The question should be, can you envisage your choice beating any champ in history at all? If not, that's your man.

With that in mind, Charles Martin is the obvious worst of the worst. No discernible talent, won a belt he should never have been boxing for on a freak injury, lost it on two punches, both of which knocked him down, the second one convincing him not beat the count. There has literally never been a less talented, more pathetic 'champion' in recorded history. Who can you picture him beating? Absolutely no one, I would hope.

Regarding lineal, I think calling Leon Spinks the worst is totally wrong. Leon was nuts and only dedicated himself to one full, disciplined training camp in his life, but that time he did it he showed that he had the intangibles. Surely you can see fit, aggressive, focused Spinks of that night bulldozing Hart, Burns et al? Out-working Willard, Carnera, Braddock, Briggs, Rahman? Leon with his brother's sane bent would have been a very good fighter. Personally I struggle to see Marvin Hart beating anyone--accept probably the aforementioned alphabet champ Charles Martin.

Leon focused could beat Champions Page, Thomas, Smith,Tubbs, and Weaver arguably. Maybe Marciano.

No way in hell

With his aggressiveness and workrate, it could happen. The Leon of Ali I of course.

[HomicideHenry]

Leon ONLY looked that way because he was tee'ing off against essentially a punching bag with hair.

[tiny_acres]

Leon ONLY looked that way because he was tee'ing off against essentially a punching bag with hair.

Exactly. Leon looked good against a punching bag. He never came close to looking good before or after

[HomicideHenry]

Leon ONLY looked that way because he was tee'ing off against essentially a punching bag with hair.

Exactly. Leon looked good against a punching bag. He never came close to looking good before or after

To enlarge on the situation... Just two FIGHTS before... Spinks had a DRAW with Scott LeDoux.... His unanimous decision win over top ten ranked Alfio Righetti, which cemented his shot at Ali, was against the weakest most suspect contender available.

Righetti was 27-0-0 when facing Spinks, but who did he beat? Nobody. All but a handful of men that Righetti fought had losing records. Arguably the best opponent he fought outside of Italy was 10-3 Dennis Jordan who lost a decision to 15-33-3 Charlie Polite.

Besides let's go beyond the Ali fights, just a little bit. He got poleaxed in one round by Gerrie Coetzee who had been a top contender since 1978. He gets annihilated by Larry Holmes inside of three rounds. The only people he beaten in between those matches was: Alfredo Evangelista and Bernardo Mercado; he also had a DRAW with journeyman Eddie Lopez.

Not to knock Evangelista and Mercado, but let's be honest here.... The Spainard didn't deserve a shot at Ali, and he sure as hell didn't really deserve a shot at Holmes either (LKO 7) .... Mercado's only great win was against a virtually shot Earnie Shavers, and he already been kayoed by Weaver and Tate... So what does it really say for Spinks?

He was in reality a fringe contender, who was at the right place at the right time.

[Ambling Alp II]

Of the guys mentioned recently:
Spinks is a clear lower tier heavyweight champion.
Bowe and Marciano are clear upper tier.

We should not even have to argue about these three.

I am coming around to thinking Douglas deserves to be mid-tier.
Ingo (and Spinks because of only 5 heavyweight fights) are the question marks.
I guess I never thought much of his wins over Ten Hof, Cavicchi, Cooper, Erksine, Bygraves, and Nuehus. (To me, they are no better than Norton's wins over Bobick, Middleton, Kirkman, and Clark). Are these wins underrated?

[Thunder and Lightning]

Of the guys mentioned recently:
Spinks is a clear lower tier heavyweight champion.
Bowe and Marciano are clear upper tier.

We should not even have to argue about these three.

I am coming around to thinking Douglas deserves to be mid-tier.
Ingo (and Spinks because of only 5 heavyweight fights) are the question marks.
I guess I never thought much of his wins over Ten Hof, Cavicchi, Cooper, Erksine, Bygraves, and Nuehus. (To me, they are no better than Norton's wins over Bobick, Middleton, Kirkman, and Clark). Are these wins underrated?

Like I said i Belive they are underrated, i dont know if im in the minority on that but they were the top fighters in europe and some of them were Top 10 in the world at some point, Johansson knocked out all of them including Dick Richardson who was also a top 10 fighter.
I may be a Johansson apologist and who knows maybe im wrong and see things that arent there but alot of people make the claim that Johansson only has ”2 wins that matters and he lost to Patterson twice” and I think its unfair, yes most of the fights were against europeans i get that but its not like it was just a bunch of bums.

[Ambling Alp II]

Well, none of them were rated at the time that Johansson fought them. I think they were fringe contenders at best. Every fighter in the mid-level group beat better opponents.
Is there anything that indicates that any of Johansson's wins (outside of Machen and Patterson) were pretty good wins?

[cfang]

Koing cooper was a good win.

[Boxing Writer]

Well, none of them were rated at the time that Johansson fought them. I think they were fringe contenders at best. Every fighter in the mid-level group beat better opponents.
Is there anything that indicates that any of Johansson's wins (outside of Machen and Patterson) were pretty good wins?

I think his resume is far superior comparing to Briggs' one. Shannon's biggest win was a gift decision against 49-years-old Geaorge Foreman. So I can't see Johansso in the same tier as Briggs.

[Ambling Alp II]

I agree that he was better than Briggs and anyone else in the lower tier for that matter. Where it gets complicated is that he is also worse than anyone on the middle tier.

Henry Cooper? I dunno. Is that enough to put him up there?

[Thunder and Lightning]

I guess it depends on were you draw the line and what you think of the European hw division in the 50s but i understand that it was behind the top in the world, maybe i give it more credit then it deserves.

[Joe Speck]

Bigjack: you stated that you lack an education about the real-olddays boxing. From Jack Johnson day and forward, it's common knowledge that Jess Willard AND Primo Carnera get "voted" the Top-worse [right thru Sonny Liston reign]

[APerno]

Briggs was a two-time champion.

He wasn't. "Beating" 49-yers-old George Foreman, who diidn't have any major titles for 2+ years by then (and in reality losing that fight clearly) doesn't make you a champion. If Lennox Lewis diceded to come back to the ring now he would still be a lineal HW chapion. Would you consider somebody like Jahannes Duhaupas a HW champion of the world for beating Lennox Lewis NOW?

But Foreman didn't lose his titles in the ring. Just through politics. Pay no attention to sanctioning body shenanigans.

Foreman was the true lineal champ and Briggs beat him.

It doesn't matter if the decision seemed faulty. Briggs won the fight, beat the lineal champ and deserves recognition as a legitimate champion.

At least until Lewis beat him and became a lineal champion.

Agreed - the lineal championship has had its flaws over the years but in the end it still far more legit than the sanctioning bodies' rotating door champions.