I wouldn't say worst boxing film, because I enjoy them. But a movie reviewer that posted on imdb made some good points. Which made me think about why Rocky was so good. The movie reviewer thought this was a vanity film, since Kent Moran wrote, directed and starred in it. Nothing new. Sylvester Stallone wrote and starred in Rocky. He did use a different director but went on to direct other Rocky movies.
The good points the review made was that the film lacked in development of the characters, so you don't relate as much to the boxers. In Rocky, you see him on the down and out, working a crappy job, a Ham and Egger boxer as he described himself, boxing to barely survive with no dreams of glory. But we see his gigantic heart (a thug who won't beat up the people he is collecting from). We already know a lot about him before he is offered the chance to go in the ring with the champ. Apollo Creed was shown just as well. We already knew he was an incredible boxer, albeit a vain one, who in Rocky I was not concerned about the fighter at all, who was a complete unknown.
In The Challenger, we see a bit about Jaden's life. I found it highly unlikely he would have ended up with a black mother, as white babies, even abandoned ones, are at a premium, and the most desired race of baby in America. So he should have found a home in some yuppie family no problem. But let's put aside the real world that no way the adoption agency would have put a white baby in the home of a poor, single black woman living in the slums of the Bronx. Here is Jaden. We get that he is an honest, hard working down on his luck guy who loves his mom and is trying to take care of her. Too much of that is learned too far into the movie. The mom who is against him fighting does a 180 when he gets a chance to go toe to toe with the champ (played by Justin Hartley, who outside of the fact he looks like Jaden's older brother, little is known about to make us care about the fight between the two boxers. We get only that Justin's character, I have a hard time remembering his name in the film, that's how unimportant a character they made him). When Rocky came out, we knew the name of Apollo Creed just as well.
Rocky was excellent at getting us behind him. When he finally ran up those steps in Philadelphia without being winded, had trained as best he could, we ran up those steps too and jumped and cheered. And people are still doing that to this day...almost 40 years later.
I have no problem with this movie having Rocky type elements. What I do mind is that it brings nothing original. As you stated, it is highly unlikely he would have risen to the ranks he did in the time frame he did. Rocky at least made that believable by making him win a chance to fight the champ by being selected randomly by Apollo Creed who needed a fast last minute replacement and decided to make the fight a gimmick by selecting a complete unknown to box. And while Rocky fought hard and trained hard, what got him as far as it did was also his heart. And he didn't win that fight in the end, yet we were not disappointed.
So in my opinion, The Challenger could have used more development: of the fight scenes, of Jaden's rise in the ranks over more time as you mentioned, character development of the key people: Jaden, the Champ (Justin Hartley), Jaden's trainer (minus the silly plot line there), and Jaden's mother, who was instrumental in him fighting. Things should have meshed.
I think this movie was released because of the movie Creed that came out. It had obviously sat on the shelves for a few years. I think they felt it had some Rockyish features and would have made some money back if people were once again into seeing fighting movies.
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