BoxRec

These are undisputed champions. So guys like dianomite dokes, tony tubbs, and bruce seldon lol dont count.

HM: Hasim Rahman- he gets HM for worst heavyweight champ of all time when he felled a cocky undertrained lennox lewis with once punch. he showed his true colors when he was dominated in the rematch. Rahman always has a punchers chance but he never seems to have the heart, he lost to ruiz and a old holyfield as well as getting knocked out in the 1st tua fight when well ahead on the cards. He was one of those fighters that that had that one miracle night.
5. Tomym burns- only 168 lbs, and not strong. he would fare well as a super midleweight but he didnt have a good enough build to take on heavyweights. johnson toyed wit him for 14 rounds. he was only 5'7. at least he had some heart .
4. james j braddock - the cinderella man, he outboxed a undertrianed and cocky max baer and he fought the best fight of his life., baer found out to late he couldnt KO him with the right. braddock lost to a lot of bums, but he showed what he could really do when he fought his best and he even managed to knock down louis in the next fight. braddock overall was an average fighter who had one lucky nite.
3. buster douglas- the man with the greates upset ever. he fought the figh t of is life and he had al the motivation. he had the physical gifts he was just lazy and never trtrained hard for any other fight., he was lucky to run into a mentally shot and undertrained tyson who was asking to lose and tyson still almost koed him. douglas has no heart and hoylfield easily koed him and tony tucker stopped him down on points.
2. leon spinks- luckyto get a title shot and beat a old old ali who i think purposely lost the fight so he oculd regain it for the 3rd time. leon was not a good fighter and after he lost the title never made a showing on the scene again getting koed by holmes and coatzee. leon won the olympics and but never became a good pro.
1. marvin hart- who has heard of him anyway. he won the title by knocking out jack root. his biggest win was a 20 round desicion over johnson in a fight that everyone though johson won. he then lost his title to little tommy burns. marvin hart was just another light heavyweight and lacked the skill and strentgh to compete against top heavyweeights.

3. buster douglas- the man with the greates upset ever. he fought the figh t of is life and he had al the motivation. he had the physical gifts he was just lazy and never trtrained hard for any other fight., he was lucky to run into a mentally shot and undertrained tyson who was asking to lose and tyson still almost koed him. douglas has no heart and hoylfield easily koed him and tony tucker stopped him down on points


comeon he kicked tysons ass

Tommy Burns defended his title 11 times... How the hell is the the fifth worst ever?

yea !!!!!!!!!!!

1) Leon Spinks
2) Frank Bruno
3) Marvin Hart
4) Hasim Rahman
5) Buster Douglas

omfg buster douglas should be like #10 not in the top 5 he kicked ass !!!

Tommy Burns was a very powerful fighter, who had as good a right hand as anyone, and it's a shame that he is so underrated, but usually those who underrate him, really just don't know anything about his career, except what they might have read in a book, or two and more times than not, the articles in the books are very poorly researched and usually state the same thing over and over. An example of Burns physique...Joe Grim, who fought every top fighter from lightweight to heavyweight during his run and never cowered from a fight and took severe beatings from Fitzsimmons, Gans, Walcott, Peter Maher, Jack Johnson and Tommy Burns among many others. The big difference between those bouts was that after Burns stripped to be weighed at ringside, Grim had a change of heart after seeing Burns physique forcing the club management to change the rules governing the bout and instead of facing Burns for six three minute rounds, Grim insisted the bout be changed to three one minute rounds, or he would not fight, so they fought three one minute rounds during which Grim was down three times in the first, once without being hit, twice each in the second and third rounds and went down once more, voluntarily without being hit, before the final bell. Grim never made any such requests for any other fighter in history, but Burns actually put fear in the man who feared no one. Of course you will never read things like that in most boxing history books because unfortunately a lot of people are not diligent enough to dig deep in a fighters career. Burns was one of the most underrated champions in history!

How about Primo Carnera?

People always say Hart which I find funny b/c the reason is that usually b/c no-one knows anything about him. From what limited stuff I've read about him he was limited technically but was as game and tough as they come and had a good punch. Maybe he was one of the worst but who really knows??

From the guys I've seen footage of (and who were REAL champs not paper titlists) I'd say Rahman was the worst HW champion. Buster Douglas would have tattoed Hasim all over the ring.

thats interesting barryy, ill try to watch and read more in depth on tommy. the only tape i saw of him was when jack johnson totally toyed with him and embarrased him for 14 rounds. he looked totally outclassed in that fight.

Fighters have said Primo is not as bad as everyone thinks considering most of his wins were fixes. however, he basicalyl oculdnt fight and pawed with his jab. his best weapon was his size which he used ofr intimidation. I think he probably should be in that list. I think a big guy like buster would take him out. I dont know if tommy burns could beat him. When ur giving up that much size, u better have some power and tommy didnt have the power like marciano or dempsey who could easily take out primo. Joe lous gave up 60 pounds but Joe louis is so strong and has so much power he easily destroyed primo. Does tommy have enough power??? or marvin hart????

Hey another one here for the great Canadian legend Tommy Burns.

Tommy was actually Italian but changed his name to Burns after killing a man in the ring.

And that fight against Johnson, i believe was in Australia, and Tommy had come down with a mysterious case of food poisoning just prior to the fight, he was also getting up there in age and was past his prime when he started fighting in Australia.

I am just going off memory here, but as far as i remember that was basically the story of Tommy Burns.

Get him off that list before somebody puts you on their list.

How can you say that a man who climbs off the floor to win the title just days after the death of his mother has no heart???.
If Buster Douglas has no heart then what heart has Tyson got???.... Douglas never bit anyones ears off as far as I know!.
Also the fact that Leon Spinks went off the rails and burnt out doesn't mean he was a bad fighter... Spinks was actually in a lot of good fights had a lot of heart and an all action style, to say he was a bad fighter is unfair.

I had read that Burns changed his name so that his family would not find out he was boxing, like so many young men of the time and supposedly, Terry McGovern chose the "Burns" after refereeing some bouts in Michigan of which he was very impressed by Burns. I have never known of Burns killing anyone in the ring, or out.

Look you idiots, this is the top 5 worst UNDSIPUTED heavyweight champs of all time, so if u can think of any worse champs than these 5 and say it. perhaps bob fitzimons??? or bingo ingo?? nuster douglas was on his way to victory when tony tucker and mike white knocked him out. and u see him against holyfield???? buster got himself ready for one fight againstr a mentally sad mike tyson who would have kconed buster out if he wasnt so mentally distraught. i didnt know a weak 168lb with no power could be so much liked, well tommy i guess u do have fans. THE GUY IS A LIGHT HEAVYWEIGHT NOT A HEAVYWEIGHT. HE WASNT SDTRONG ENOUGH LIEK MARCIANO TO HANDLE HEAVYWEIGHTS.

But Burns may have been a small Heavyweight, but Heavyweights in general were much smaller in those days.

Surely you can only really judge a fighters ability within the era he boxed in.

BrocktonBlockbuster49 wrote:Look you idiots, this is the top 5 worst UNDSIPUTED heavyweight champs of all time, so if u can think of any worse champs than these 5 and say it. perhaps bob fitzimons??? or bingo ingo?? nuster douglas was on his way to victory when tony tucker and mike white knocked him out. and u see him against holyfield???? buster got himself ready for one fight againstr a mentally sad mike tyson who would have kconed buster out if he wasnt so mentally distraught. i didnt know a weak 168lb with no power could be so much liked, well tommy i guess u do have fans. THE GUY IS A LIGHT HEAVYWEIGHT NOT A HEAVYWEIGHT. HE WASNT SDTRONG ENOUGH LIEK MARCIANO TO HANDLE HEAVYWEIGHTS.

But Burns was strong, the very fact that he was able to beat heavyweights despite his lack of size shows that he was a strong fighter... he also had good speed. You shouldn't dismiss Burns just because he was outclassed by Johnson who was truly imo one of the top 3 heavyweights of all time.
Remember also that Burns made 12 defences of the title, twice as many as Marcinano.... whom he probably would have given a good fight.

Please go out to the bookstore and by a book on rocky marciano or go to his website and read about him. U obviusely have a lack of liking to him and lu obvisely dont rate him high and think hes overated for some odd reason. why ?? cause hes not flashy like ali??? or not a big slow swarmer with big bombs ?? cause hes not a master boxer ??
the fact is hes just as powerful as any of those punchers and has more heart guts than anyone plus hes tough and has a warriors mentality as well as a good chin.
tommy burns wouldnt last 2 rounds with the rock. tommy burns is strong pound for pound but not strong enough to take on heavyweights like rock did, rocky was a lot bigger than 185. and the rocky knocked out a bunch of guys weighing over 200 and being over 6'0 tall.
A lot of experts say Johnson is so defensive that he might get outpointed in todays era cause hes not aggresive enough.

BrocktonBlockbuster49 wrote:Please go out to the bookstore and by a book on rocky marciano or go to his website and read about him. U obviusely have a lack of liking to him and lu obvisely dont rate him high and think hes overated for some odd reason. why ?? cause hes not flashy like ali??? or not a big slow swarmer with big bombs ?? cause hes not a master boxer ??
the fact is hes just as powerful as any of those punchers and has more heart guts than anyone plus hes tough and has a warriors mentality as well as a good chin.
tommy burns wouldnt last 2 rounds with the rock. tommy burns is strong pound for pound but not strong enough to take on heavyweights like rock did, rocky was a lot bigger than 185. and the rocky knocked out a bunch of guys weighing over 200 and being over 6'0 tall.
A lot of experts say Johnson is so defensive that he might get outpointed in todays era cause hes not aggresive enough.

I've probably read more books on boxing than you've had hot dinners but I'm not going to bitch about childish stuff like that. I say what I say because that is what I belive, to claim that I am biased against Marciano is childish crap, how many of his fights have you got???.
How much have you read about Johnson and Burns?... not much by what you have said about them. Burns fought and beat good fighters of about the size of Marcianos opponents and he went 20 rounds several times... he was also stopped just twice, by Johnson and in his last fight by Joe Beckett (then the British champion) when he was 40 years old. Burns was a very durable man, which is one reason why Johnson didn't ko him.
You should really read up on Burns and indeed Jim Jeffries as both these men were very good fighters and are very underrated, Jeffries ceratinly would have beaten Marciano I think.

BB--You talk about Burns being small, hell Marciano was small, in fact he had the samllest reach of any heavyweight champion...including Burns. Before you come on to a forum and pretend to be an expert, I would strongly suggest that you study the history for several more years and I'm not talking about books. Hell most books that you will ever read are so biased toward the fighter that the writer is writing about that fiction is often placed in front of fact...so if you want to be a real expert on Marciano...go back to newspapers, magazines and other publications of the late 40s and 50s and read all that you can, but just by read a couple of books on a fighter does not make you an expert, and it certainly does not give you the type of information to argue about fighters that you know nothing about except their size and probably their record!

Syntax Error wrote:1) Leon Spinks
2) Frank Bruno
3) Marvin Hart
4) Hasim Rahman
5) Buster Douglas

That's a good list, except that Frank Bruno was not a legitimate heavyweight champion.

Marciano Frazier wrote:

Syntax Error wrote:1) Leon Spinks
2) Frank Bruno
3) Marvin Hart
4) Hasim Rahman
5) Buster Douglas

That's a good list, except that Frank Bruno was not a legitimate heavyweight champion.

Fair enough.

There's so many belts now it's difficult to say who really is champ, but I take your point.

I think that the reason Marvin Hart is sometimes ranked so low as a Heavyweight Champion is that many feel that he should not have been fighting for that title in the first place. The way I understand the story, Heavyweight Champion James Jeffries retired and then named the 2 fighters who would fight for his vacated title. Jeffries named Hart and Jack Root, who had been the Lightheavyweight Champion, as the 2 fighters that would fight for his title, and then was referee for the match, which Hart won.

I think that the problem was not so much that Hart was a terrible fighter, or anything like that, but the fact that Jeffries had named the fighters to fight for his title, and did not pick the best fighters.