The Best Boxers to NEVER Become Heavyweight Champion

The ultimate prize in all of sports: the heavyweight championship. Professional boxing’s highly coveted mark of greatness is so grand a conquest that, today at least, winning even a portion of it is enough to secure the career of a fighter. Once upon a time, the concept of “alphabet soup” didn’t exist.

Thus, history is kinder to the warriors of the past. Warriors like Floyd Patterson won the undisputed form of the title twice, as opposed to portions of it. Thus, Patterson’s contemporaries who failed to capture the title (ducking or not) benefit from the era.

Fighters like Eddie Machen, Zora Folley, Cleveland Williams, and almost Sonny Liston didn’t have other options to pursue, so if the champion didn’t give them a shot, it was too bad, so sad. The likes of Machen and Williams would get their shots later, but they weren’t in their primes.

Today’s subject finds the spotlight on boxing’s marquee warriors who *never* captured the big one. Immediately, the likes of David Tua may come to mind, but there are many (MANY) more to go over. Some of the best to grace the ring just never managed to win the title, undisputed or not. This may have come down to poor timing, mismanagement, unfortunate injuries, or even racial barriers; whatever the case, do you believe the likes of the Tuamantor were robbed of the crown or just weren’t good enough?

For the record, we’re talking about the big kahuna here. So this is for the heavyweights who never captured any combination of the lineage, RING magazine, WBA, WBC, IBF, and WBO titles. That means the likes of Joe Bugner (who won the WBF title in 1998) could still make this list. This list is also open to the warriors from the deep past who, though they may have won the contemporary “World Colored Heavyweight Championship”, never received a chance to fight for the world heavyweight title.

So, who are the BEST heavyweights to NEVER win the heavyweight championship? Derek Chisora? David Tua? Ike Ibeabuchi? Razor Ruddock? Carl Williams? Jerry Quarry? Eddie Machen? Zora Folley? I’d love to see your list. For my list, the video is here, and I’m sure there’s some you won’t see coming. Enjoy.

This documentary was written, narrated, edited, and produced by TheCharlesJackson, author of the Boxing Encyclopedia.

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