Thinking about this again and sure seems that we went through a wood chipper of American heavyweights trying to find 'the next' . Remember Cliff Etienne? Recall him on HBO and Showtime being pushed hard beating Brewster and Clay Bey only to literally be bounced off the canvas 8 times by a young Oquendo. Managed a minor rebuild and was promptly laid flat and left looking at the lights by Tyson. Came from prison, found some fame and money but proved to have a chin made of egg shells, then did some crime and went back to prison for 100 plus years .

What about a Shannon Briggs. Now he gets the marks for top notch self promoter boarder line stalker with Wlad, but when he came up early he was pumped up major league coming out of New York with film and newspaper features done on him and ol Atlas thought he had himself another Mike. I know he "beat" very old Foreman but he really didn't..that was terrible.. other than that who'd he beat? He really did do great keeping himself in the conversation to the very end based largely on huge personality and self promotion over his last decade.