I don't hold losing efforts against Patterson, Johannson and Muhammed Ali as much comparable to losing efforts against an old Vitali (though this is definitely his best effort), a decent effort against Usyk (moving up from CW), losing to a young Fury, being knocked over numerous times by Joe Parker and being smashed to bits by one David Haye right hand. MTF
Bearing in mind the context of the comparison....they're comparable. You think the 60s were way better than now, I won't argue.
Yes that's true but that's not the stuff of legends. Danny Williams would be bigger legend than Chisorah, for me, and he lost to Chisorah. I'm not denigrating anyone. I'm saying that loss after loss after loss following the same, ploddish "Dogs of War" style of fighting only goes so far with me. He's been highlight stretched on a few occasions too. His biggest win is Sam Sexton. Literally a British level guy
I was kind and gave him Price instead of Sexton as his best win. Price has a glass chin but a good ammy career and made some noise as are level. Not arguing, mind. I almost cited Sexton. MTF
Chisora lost a tight fight against Whyte first time round. Chisora put up a typically brave effort and won a few late rounds big as I recall, but I never thought he won it. He lost the rematch by KO. Hardly 'legendary' stuff. MTF
Its not really semantics per se. Its much more a question of how a very decent career- of, essentially, losing - has been suddenly parlayed into (by very motivated people) something far greater than it really is. I can't really see Chisorah career as being even a case of bad luck or just bad timing. He's literally had the very best chances.... He had a green Fury in front of him. Not the guy who went to war with Wilder. He lost. Did even worse in the rematch. That was at one end. In the middle, he got megabucks paydays vs Vitali and Haye and lost both. The Haye fight was a farce but one he should have been looking to win, it was a huge profile fight and he showed up with the same plod-tastic outlook. Even the 2nd Parker fight is being rewritten like it was some sort of Near-miss with Del fighting back from the brink to nearly snatch it. No. Parker was clueless and Derek lost wildly. He's an infamous character, a "mainstay" of the British heavyweight scene. But he's about as legendary as Bruce the mouse Strauss. At the very end, he had 4 fights to break back into the mainframe and lost them all. Oh... And the man who fought everyone never fought Wlad, Povetkin, Wilder or Joshua.
What's striking is that he had 3 rematches that I can recall. They all went the same way. He made no adjustments. They did. He lost worse everytime.
A lot of people thought he won it, and in the second fight, he was winning handily before getting one punch koed. As for being a legend, he's obviously not among the greats.of the sport, but he's.a guy who fought everyone and usually was a tough outing
No-one is denying that Chisora lost a few tight ones which could have gone either way. I thought he legit lost all of those, close, but lost. I won't argue too much if people want to give him them as some kind of moral victory. He rematched both Whyte and Parker and got dropped and stopped between them. Helenius probably should have gone to Chisora, but it was close and I didn't see any 'robbery'. Let's accept that is his best win. Robert Helanius. Or Takam. Or David Price (I actually think Price is better than Takam, certainly, but there you go). That's the best resume you can make for a man being called 'a boxing legend'. MTF
I don't doubt that. He's a tough, game guy who was fun to watch. I like him. He's nuts, but that's not a negative. The BBC ran an article today calling him 'a legend'. Hence this discussion. MTF
Legend can pretty much means anything. I dont think anybody would call him a legend based on his wins. His willingness to fight anybody and his multiple wars can be described as.legendary though
I think what's going on here is a bit of British media chicanery to try and cod Chisorah into retiring before he dies in the ring or gets hurt.
Do you think that Derek Chisora is a 'really smart fighter' and a 'boxing legend'? Steve Bunce at the BBC does, apparently. MTF
The Takam fight I will give him. But Takam was also a loser himself who was best known for losing to Joshua.
He's not even Jerry Quarry. Quarry pulled out big wins to stay in the top 10 of an ATG division to stay in the top 10 for a few years. Chisorah, the legend, pulled out loss after loss only to be rewarded with more big stadium fights. Its literally unheard of in this era that a guy with 4, 5 losses would go on to have so many more losses of such a lucrative nature.
Takam didn't just 'lose' to Joshua. I described his performance as being 'three chains short of being a heavy bag'. He literally stood, leaden footed, in the middle of the ring and let Joshua repeatedly tee off on him until eventually the ref took pity on him and called it off. He didn't win a second of the entire fight, let alone a round. That's the standout performance of the best guy a legend beat. MTF
And thats all we're saying. Good fighter, hard man, but basically a high profile "opponent" in the Jesse Ferguson sense of the expression.
