When you think of boxing, people like Muhammed Ali, Mike Tyson and Joe Calzaghe come to mind as the best boxers in the world, however who have the worst boxing records ever? Boxing is one of the hardest sports to be somewhat good at. An average boxer trains up to 5 times a week or even 7 times a week to get in shape, also typically train for more than 5 months for a fight. If you look at boxing champions that did well, you can see they had 6 to 7 months before there next fight… not these 2! One of them decided to have a fight 8 days after losing a fight on points! These two fighters fought near enough every week trying to win a fight but failing! These two fighters are; Donnie Penelton and Reggie Strickland! Both fights have had over 100 fights and managed to lose more than half of them! If they had more time to train, they might over have a chance to win more fights, or better, been given an opportunity atone of the titles!
Donnie Penelton was born on the 4th July 1964 in Webb, Mississippi, USA. He started his boxing debut in 1990 with an Orthodox stance! Donnie Penelton started off with a points victory over Jordan Keepers, who at the time had never won a fight, he had 22 fights before fighting Donnie, lost 21 and drew 1! He ended up winning two other fights against Tom Timmerman and Jim Wisniewski by TKO, so at the start of his career he was the next big thing. Winning 3 out of 3, what could go wrong for him… everything! At the end of his 19-year boxing career he managed to have 185 fights and only winning a total of 13! His full record was 13 wins, 166 loses and 6 draws. Most of his fights were lost on points, with 33 of them via KO. Donnie didn’t box as much as Reggie Strickland, but he managed to get one of the worst boxing records ever!
Reggie Strickland was born on the 4th September 1968 in Cincinnati, Ohio, USA. He started his professional boxing debut in 1987, three years before Donnie Penelton! Unfortunately for Reggie, he didn’t have the best of starts on his debut. Fighting Ellery Thomas and lost on points! This fight didn’t stop him from fighting again though. He managed to win his second game against Thomas Burton by TKO. From his first 2 fights, he’s won 1 and lost 1 which isn’t the best of starts but it’s not too bad, however this all went downhill as he started to lose more and more fights. His record suggests that he fought nearly every month and sometimes twice in one month! Reggie didn’t really have a break from boxing until he stopped in 2005! Even his last two fights were 8 days apart!
Both of these fighters have the worst records in boxing, however, if these two were to fight… who would win? On the 28th November 1998 and on the 3rd October 2000, these two decided to fight! The first fight took place in the Zorah Shrine Temple, Terre Haute, as the second fight took place in the Farm Bureau Building Indianapolis! Both fights were won by Donnie Penelton! 28th November fight was won by Split decision, meaning one judge went for Reggie Strickland as the other 2 went for Donnie Penelton, as the second fight was a unanimous decision! So, if we needed to know who is better, we can say Donnie Penelton is better due to him beating Reggie Strickland twice in the space of 3 years! Who knows, if these two fought at the start of there careers, would Reggie of won?
