Which Fighter over came the Worst start to his career to become Champion?

[BennyST]

The Armstrong choice is great from Scott. I think he got knocked out in one or two of those fights as well?

There were a bunch of guys from the nineties who had bad starts to become solid champs. Freddie Pendelton, Sammy Fuentes etc.

Pendelton lost 50% of his first twenty five fights before having a big one against Frankie Randall and losing by KO. He had beaten Tyrone Trice by KO in one though in a massive shocker before that.

[Scott9945]

Mike Weaver. His career started off very unimpressive. He even lost to Duane Bobick's less talented brother Rodney.

Good choice. I once saw Weaver fight on an undercard but didn't realize it until years later when I looked at the program. He really did come from nowhere to be a heavyweight titlest.

[titanium]

Weaver improved alot.

Arguello started bad and Buster Drayton turned his career around too.

[BigStereotype]

What about Margarito? Didn't he go something like 4-5 in his first 9 fights? I know he's not a popular guy, but that's not an easy thing to come back from.

[Red Devil]

Manny Pacquiao too had couple of early loses in his career

[BennyST]

Benny Leonard, a top ten ATG, overcame a pretty terrible start. Stopped in his first fight, then stopped in his next loss only five months later after facing a few no record guys, then got stopped again about a month later. Over the next year and a half, all against guys with less then ten fights and usually their pro debut, he had 1 No Contest, 2 draws and 8 losses in about 20 fights all up.

Now that's a terrible start to your career against that type of opposition and compared to what would come after that.

Over the next 17 years and about 200 fights, he would only lose that many times again all up. More or less only to the greats of that era too.

So to summarise, over the first two years of his career, he got knocked out three times, had about five No Contests and about eleven or twelve losses along with about four/five draws. Then over the next seventeen years, he lost about eight times all up in nearly 200 fights! One of those in his last fight after coming back from retirement against prime HOF beater Jimmy McLarnin and also a DQ loss in a WW title match when he was winning easily but hit 147 champ Jack Britton when he down in the last round, or nearly the last I think.

[JAB5239]

Billy Conn was 8-7 in his first 15 fights.