Tyson Fury and the 5 Worst Heavyweight Champions in Boxing History

After a decade of the Klitschko family's stolid and steady reign atop the heavyweight division, the boxing world was ready for a change.

For years fans had wondered "who will be the next big thing in heavyweight boxing?" The answer, after a huge upset win over Wladimir Klitschko Saturday, was Tyson Fury, an Englishman who is part-warrior and part-clown.

Fury charmed much of the audience with his off-key rendition of Aerosmith's "I Don't Want to Miss a Thing" after winning the heavyweight boxing crown. But inside the ring, he did little to impress the millions around the globe who watched his tepid performance against the division's longtime kingpin.

In the Ring Magazine, the venerable Doug Fischer minced no words, calling the fight what it plainly was—bad:

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As far as heavyweight championship bouts go, Klitschko-Fury was the exact opposite of Ali-Frazier, Holmes-Ken Norton and Evander Holyfield-Riddick Bowe. There was no sustained offense from either fighter. There was no ebb and flow in the action. There was very little action, period. 

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Even Fury's countrymen, like the Telegraph's Alan Tyers, could muster little in the way of enthusiasm:

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Good for Tyson, no fun to watch, and would not buy again. Perhaps they could make it pay-per-punch.

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While hot takes come quickly, legacies are created over time and not in the moment. Fury will have his opportunity to steamroll his way into boxing lore. Challengers like Deontay Wilder and Anthony Joshua are on the horizon and a rematch with Klitschko looms.

The Fury story has yet to be written. But if he's to be the "worst champion ever," as the Times' Matt Dickinson proclaimed, it will take some doing.

The heavyweight division, despite rose-colored remembrances and revisionism, has not always been bathed in glory. Among those who have held the undisputed championship, the lineal title passed from man to man, are plenty of forgettable fighters.

What follows is a list of the competition. Each managed, somehow, to become the best in the world. None did much to impress while they held the scepter and wore the crown. Will Fury join this list of infamy? Let us know what you think in the comments.

5. Jess Willard

Associated Press

Name

Jess Willard

Championship Reign

Height: 6'6.5" Weight: 245 Reach: 83"

Record

22-5-1 (20KO)

Analysis

Lumbering and slow, Willard was a giant in his day, attracting fans who gawked at his unusual size even if his fisticuffs failed to impress. His strategy was fairly simple—Big Jess intended to use his size advantage to wear opponents down, plodding forward and eating punches in order to deliver a haymaker of his own.

He assumed that the other guy would fall down before he did. He was often right, although he did little to help the case that boxing was a science at all, let alone a sweet one.

Willard's crowning moment, a 1915 win over all-time great Jack Johnson, is shrouded in controversy. In the 26th round of a 45-round fight, Willard knocked Johnson out with a mighty blow to the stomach. Few believed it—fewer still when a photograph emerged showing Johnson laying on the mat and shading his eyes from the bright Havana sun when supposedly down for the count.

If his title win was ignoble, his reign was even worse. Willard didn't enjoy boxing and defended his title only once in the four years he was champion, a bout against Frank Moran in which he could only lose the title if he was knocked out.

Instead of fighting, he toured the country with a circus group, spent time on Broadway, "fought" in exhibitions and generally basked in glory after winning the championship back for "the white race." Finally, in Toledo, Ohio, on a blazing hot Fourth of July, Jack Dempsey ended Willalrd's farcical reign with a brutal three-round beating.

It wasn't all bad news for Willard, however. His $100,000 purse was the biggest in boxing history to that point.

4. James 'Buster' Douglas

SADAYUKI MIKAMI/Associated Press

Name

James "Buster" Douglas

Championship Reign

Height: 6'3.5" Weight: 231  Reach: 83"

Record

38-6-1 (25 KO)

Analysis

Mike Tyson was thought to be invincible. Sure, somewhere deep down, boxing fans knew any man could be beaten on the right day. But with Tyson, the visceral overpowered the intellectual. It just didn't seem possible.

Still just 23 years old, he hadn't just cut a path right through the heavyweight division—he had demolished everyone in sight, including great fighters like Larry Holmes and Michael Spinks. 

On February 11, 1990, no one believed Tyson could lose. Certainly not to the likes of Buster Douglas. Buster who? Even after rumors spread that Tyson had spent his time in Tokyo leading up to the fight partying rather than training, even as his personal life descended into chaos, Tyson remained a 42-1 favorite. 

Mike Tyson could not lose.

And then he did.

An uppercut in the 10th round was the crowning moment and it was no lucky shot. Douglas had dominated the fight throughout. On Douglas' best day, inspired by the recent death of his mother, he managed to beat Tyson on his worst. No one can ever take that away from him.

His first defense, however, was a better indicator of who Douglas was as a fighter. He showed up at the weigh-in 14 pounds heavier than he'd been against Tyson, prompting bettors in Las Vegas to flood the sportsbooks with last-minute wagers on the challenger, the great Evander Holyfield, according to BoxRec. 

Douglas lasted just three dreadful rounds, retiring after the fight to enjoy the spoils of battle. Like Willard, Douglas had received the biggest check in boxing history in defeat. But times had changed quite a bit in the 81 years between those two title bouts.

While Willard made $100,000, Douglas walked away with $24,075,000. Not bad for a one-hit wonder.

3. Ingemar Johansson

Anonymous/Associated Press

Name

Ingemar Johansson

Championship Reign

Height: 6'0.5" Weight: 231  Reach: 72"

Record

26-2 (17 KO)

Analysis

Floyd Patterson, the predecessor to a generation of larger-than-life fighters like Muhammad Ali, Joe Frazier and George Foreman, was never beloved. Introspective to the point of being boring, he didn't click with the press. It was no better with the public, who felt he was ducking the top contenders of the time, including Sonny Liston, Cleveland Williams and Eddie Machen.

When Machen was upset by an unheralded Swede named Ingemar Johansson, Patterson's trainer Cus D'Amato must of thought it was a second Christmas. He immediately booked the European champion for a title fight, assuming an easy victory.

The champion entered their 1959 title fight a four-to-one betting favorite, and 63 of 69 members of the boxing press predicted he'd walk away with the gold, according to the Associated Press. But after Patterson went down for the seventh and final time, the world learned there was a reason Johnansson's right hand had not one but three different nicknames.

Whether you called it "Toonder and Lightning," "Ingo's Bingo" or the "Hammer of Thor," one thing was clear—the Swede could hit.

Like many of the champions on this list, Johansson enjoyed the spoils of victory more than the grind. He recorded a hit record in Sweden and enjoyed favorable write-ups in the press, happy—as historian Bert Sugar explained—to see a champion with a hint of personality:

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The new heavyweight champion of the world was an impishly handsome Romeo, who enjoyed night clubs more than fight clubs. The media loved him. "Ingo," as he was called familiarly— and he was called frequently—lived up to his new title and lived up to the hilt; he was wined and dined at the most fashionable watering holes on two continents.

However, the toast of the boxing world had a date with destiny, as well as one with Patterson.

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Patterson knocked Johansson out in both the rematch and a rubber match. "In each, Johansson appeared as if he had trained by the poolside," the Ring's Nigel Collins wrote. "Which, for the most part, he had."

Still just 27 when he lost the title, the world waited anxiously for a Johansson comeback. It wasn't to be. His singular title win would be his last shining moment. He was knocked to the mat by journeyman Wim Smoek in a 1961 fight that should have been a showcase.

Just two years later, he was saved by the bell against an average Brian London. His decision win was greeted by boos from his countrymen who had come out in force to support him. Reading the tea leaves, the 31-year-old Johansson called it quits. The Hammer of Thor, it seemed, had a limited warranty.

2. Primo Carnera

Uncredited/Associated Press

Name

Primo Carnera

Championship Reign

Height: 6'6" Weight: 260  Reach: 85"

Record

88-14 (71 KO)

Analysis

It's hard to know exactly what to make of Primo Carnera, the former circus strongman who eventually found a home on the pro wrestling circuit. Critics looked at his awkward manner and glacially slow feet and speculated the fix was in.

Even the stately Time Magazine weighed in on Carnera's merits as a fighter in a 1931 cover story:

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Since his arrival in the U. S., backed by a group of prosperous but shady entrepreneurs, Carnera's career has been less glorious than fantastic. His first opponents—Big Boy Peterson, Elzear Rioux, Cowboy Owens—were known to be incompetent but their feeble opposition to Carnera suggested that they had been bribed to lose. Suspicion concerning the Monster's abilities became almost universal when another adversary, Bombo Chevalier, stated that one of his own seconds had threatened to kill him unless he lost to Carnera.

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Former manager Leon See would later confirm some of these allegations. Whatever his merits as a fighter, Carnera was an attraction, helping keep boxing alive during the Great Depression and providing the downtrodden public with the kind of spectacle they craved.

Along the way, bit by bit, he learned to fight a little bit too. By the time he fought Jack Sharkey for the heavyweight title in 1933, Carnera would need very little help to beat all but the best boxers.

Working by then behind a stiff jab, Carnera's fists packed every bit the punch of a promoter's illicit pay day. Key to his success was an ability to take a punch, knowing eventually his superior power would win the day.

Fans and the boxing press, perhaps rightfully so, were still skeptical. But the enormous Italian had real power in both hands, a fact Ring of Hate author Patrick Myler writes was proved tragically in a fight with Ernie Schaaf that February:

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Schaaf died five days after being knocked out by Carnera...The crowd had jeered the American for his apparent lack of effort and the way he collapsed under seemingly innocuous punches. Only when he was carried from the ring on a stretcher did they realize the truth.

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To his own death, Sharkey maintained his title loss to Carnera had been on the up and up. Few people, he told the Ring's Bob Waters, believed him.

"I'll never live it down," he said. "People don't remember me as being the world heavyweight champion for a year. They think of me as being the champion who took a dive. I didn't! I swear on my grave I didn't. The big bastard hit me and that's the end of the story.

"But I couldn't convince a couple of hundred people. I couldn't even convince my manager. He wanted to know if I bet my purse on Carnera." 

After a brief reign, including a title defense in Rome in front of Pope Pius, Italian Premier Benito Mussolini and 70,000 rabid fans, Carnera was destroyed by German Max Baer in New York.

More than 50,000 fans saw the big man dropped 11 times in all before the referee finally intervened to stop the match. Carnera, at the end, remained on his feet, beaten but not bowed. 

1. Leon Spinks

Rene Maestri/Associated Press

Name

Leon Spinks

Championship Reign

Height: 6'1" Weight: 197  Reach: 76"

Record

26-17-3 (14 KO)

Analysis

"Who is Leon Spinks?"

That was the question of the day on February 16, 1978, according to the Ring's Randy Gordon, who claimed Spinks' victory over the already legendary Muhammad Ali was as shocking as the death of a world leader. Overnight Spinks, an Olympian with just seven professional fights, had become one of the most famous athletes in the world:

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His beaming, gap-toothed face covered the front and back page of virtually every newspaper in the world. Two of the three most uttered words in the world wer "Leon Spinks" and the third was "unbelievable."

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Ali, though just a shade of his former self, fought courageously until the end, finding the strength for a final flurry in the 15th round that forced Spinks to exert every bit of his considerable will just to survive. Pat Putnam, covering the fight for Sports Illustrated, suspected Spinks might be more than a flash-in-the-pan, admiring the ease with which he carried his new title:

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He wore it as if it had been there all his life. And as if he planned never to take it off.

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Exactly seven months later, Spinks looked all too happy to hand the title back to the rightful champion. His short reign was plagued by controversy. He was busted with drugs in April and, just two days before the fight, was seen partying late unto the night with his bodyguard, Mr. T. Gordon reported seeing a tell-tale white powder around both nostrils.  

"He was drunk every night he was here," promoter Bob Arum told Sports Illustrated. "Leon went to places our people didn't dare go. I'm surprised he didn't wind up with a knife in him."

None of that dampered public interest. With an estimated 90 million people watching live on ABC, the most for any sporting event in history to that point, Ali outlasted the young champion in an ugly fight that saw more holding than hitting.

Spinks had peaked as a fighter. Though he was carefully maneuvered into another heavyweight title shot against Larry Holmes in 1981 and a bout for the cruiserweight championship against Dwight Muhammad Qawi in 1986, for the most part his story had already been written.

He was just 25 years old.