Best Rematch fighters in history!

Some fighters may lose the first fight but give them a rematch and they're getting revenge on your ass.

List your top Rematch fighters, in order. Here's my list:

1. Sugar Ray Robinson
2. Lennox Lewis
3. Muhammad Ali
4. Joe Louis
5. Marvelous Marvin Hagler


Destruction and Mayhem has Spoken!!

 

Wladimir Klitschko has won all his rematches: including a 1st round KO of the man he beat for the Olympic Gold medal in 1996, Paea Wolfgramm

Monroe
Byrd
Brewster
Peter

Lewis also won all the rematches he had, defeating McCall and Rahman and Holyfield.


Riddick Bowe, in a spurious kind of way, has no fewer than 3 rematch victories over Holyfield and Golota.

Holyfield did OK in the rematches, beating Tyson in a re, he beat Bowe in the re, got a draw with Ruiz in one of their re's, beat Moorer in a re, beat Qawi in a re, lost to Lewis in a re, lost to Bowe in a re.

 

Lewis over Louis in rematches!?

Louis was 10-0 to Lewis' 3-0, & against better competition to boot.

 

Gene Tunney should rate a definite mention. Possibly above someone on Sly's list?

 

Ezzard Charles gave Burley 1 rematch, Oakland Smith 1 rematch, Archie Moore 2 rematches, Joey Maxim 4 rematches & won them all. He also beat Jimmy Bivins in 4 consecutive rematches after dropping a decision in their first fight, beat Elmer Ray in their rematch & avenged a (strange) early KO loss to Llyod Marshals by KO.

Greatest fighter ever.

 

A top-5 all-time resume, taking his whole career into account. An absolute elite-level CV --- you could count on one hand the men who have done more.

 

Perhaps if you lost all your fingers in an industrial accident ;)

 

Louis was the first I thought of. Schmeling was the most famous one but there were also Conn, Baer, Godoy, Walcott, etc. He KOed everyone he rematched. I can't see Ali ranked ahead

 

Good shout.

As a rule - lower output, more reactive/thoughtful fighters like Louis will tend to do better in rematches, I think. They have to figure out your patterns and sometimes that takes time but once they have it's curtains.

 

SRR

 

Lewis' rep comes solely on his having beaten every fighter he's ever faced as a pro. While a remarkable achievement, he honestly had no business losing to McCall and Rahman to begin with.

Also, I'll say that he didn't look all that spectacular against McCall, and thought he looked better in the first Holy fight than the rematch.

Had he rematched and beaten Vitali, I'd accept the argument that he belongs somewhere in the mix when discussing the best for this category. But based on the rematches he had, I don't believe he rates.

I co-sign with those who cite Joe Louis as being the first that springs to mind. Also props to Hut-Hut on his bringing Ezzard Charles into the equation as well. Both rank miles ahead of Lennox in this category.

 

azumah nelson comes to mind.

 

Marciano knocked out Walcott and Charles and La Starza in rematches.

First Charles fight went 15, second went barely 8. La Starza fooled with him in their first fight, Marciano broke his arms in the rematch. Walcott had him down and bleeding in their first fight, went 12, 13 rounds, Marciano destroyed him in the rematch in 1 round.

I guess Rocky was The Truth when it came to thinking-fighting. How did Rocky achieve this? Well- he achieved this through Illusive Fighting- underrated defensive skills coupled with the now-extinct medium of black and white film and the commentary of Don Dunphy. It is a rare blend- but it is explosive and unstoppable.

Enjoy.

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Lewis

 

You have Louis spelled wrong.

If Lewis had taken on and defeated Vitali and Mercer again, then, maybe.

 

Lewis would have defeated Vitali again.

 

I'm not convinced of that.

Lewis' retirement was perhaps the best timed retirement in the history of the game. He was slipping and left while on top.

Great (and SMART) fighter. :bears:

 

Anyway...your points are well noted and I concede that at least a couple fighters deserve to be in front of Lennox for reasons given.

My criteria is this.

Lennox lost twice, by KO, and avenged his only defeats by KO/Stoppage twice. although only 2 fights, that a 100% revenge-of-KO-by-KO statistic. It's a bias of mine: I have DEEP respect for fighters that can avenge a KO loss by a KO victory. Hasn't happened often in history...and Lewis achieved it two out of two times.

 

What your trying to communicate eludes me, mate. Yup Marciano was fantastic. And i said lower output more reactive fighters 'tend' to do better in rematches. Tendency, not a cast iron law.

 

not sure if lewis would've defeated klitschko at that point in his career. he definitely under-trained for the first fight since he was originally slated face kirk johnson. he would've had to intensified his training for the rematch and probably didn't have it in him to go through another tough camp followed by what would've been another physical fight. i thought it was a smart move on his end to go out the way he did.

 

Off topic, but Klitschkos next three performances were very impressive, all straight legitimate hidings. Lewis was slipping, both physically and in terms of motivation. Klitschko, au contraire, was on the rise, both in terms of his desire and his experience.

As Slystaff has alluded to, Lewis exit was one of the smarter things he did in his career. He had to some greater or lesser extent gotten a fortuitous but fully earned victory over a fighter who would be the best Heavyweight the division has since entertained.

Lewis rematch performances (of his defeats) both came against men he should never have lost to, and to men who, oddly, showed up for both rematches in terrible psychological states. McCall was clearly a few teeth short of a bite and Rahman seemed desperately at odds with his new found status as Champion and Favourite. Rahmans performance in the rematch was as bereft of composure and cohesion as his title-winning performance was replete with those same characteristics.

 

It's very harsh to judge Lewis' place on his last pro fight ever. If he'd gone on to face other challenges rather than rematch Klit I'd agree but that wasn't the case.

He was in the worst shape ever and clearly had no interest in the sport anymore. Fairly harsh to judge him based on retiring when he should have. Better that then have another Holy/Roy Jones type guy hanging around.

 

I think Marciano has him there to.

 

He doesn't belong on an all-time list but of the present day guys, Antonio Tarver had a pretty good record in rematches against guys he lost to until very recently.

 

::

Not bad...

 

I get the angle you're approaching this from. I place a bit of weight in that myself --- but his record is a paltry 3-0, & looking at the circumstances, it's hardly very impressive. McCall was a complete gimme for him, no contest. Rahman was an awful, awful fighter, & Holyfield was well past his best years, yet Lewis actually did much worse in their rematch (I still had him winning, but he definitely went backward, & big, from the first fight).

He only improved in two of his three rematches, & only one of those was against a fighter who was even there to win in the first place. Did I mention what a mediocre fighter that chap was?

 

Yup. A 245lb focused Lewis would have taken care of business in decent style.

 

Hitting the ropes to distract joe louis...::

 

Hut mentioned Ezzard Charles (top ten p4p all time, fuck anyone who says otherwise)

here's a few I havent seen mentioned who were particularly good in returns

Azumah Nelson
Jose Napoles
Emile Griffith

 

definitely