Best to never win a title

[Controversial]

Anyone here know who Percy Bassett was? For those that don't, he fought in the featherweight and Lightweight divisions in the late 40's and 50's. He won 64 fights (41 by KO) and lost 12 (2 were stoppages, one on cuts and the other from a broken jaw).

From what I read, he could not get a title shot because he had no mob connections.

I guess the obvious question is if this was true how many of his fights were fixed?

[Scypion]

Anyone here know who Percy Bassett was? For those that don't, he fought in the featherweight and Lightweight divisions in the late 40's and 50's. He won 64 fights (41 by KO) and lost 12 (2 were stoppages, one on cuts and the other from a broken jaw).

From what I read, he could not get a title shot because he had no mob connections.

I guess the obvious question is if this was true how many of his fights were fixed?

Bassett did not have mob connections, so he probably was not involved in fixed bouts. He also could not get a title shot, and looking at his record, he should have.

[Controversial]

Anyone here know who Percy Bassett was? For those that don't, he fought in the featherweight and Lightweight divisions in the late 40's and 50's. He won 64 fights (41 by KO) and lost 12 (2 were stoppages, one on cuts and the other from a broken jaw).

From what I read, he could not get a title shot because he had no mob connections.

I guess the obvious question is if this was true how many of his fights were fixed?

Bassett did not have mob connections, so he probably was not involved in fixed bouts. He also could not get a title shot, and looking at his record, he should have.

Apologies I misread your post, I thought you said he had mob connections

[Scypion]

I guess the obvious question is if this was true how many of his fights were fixed?

Bassett did not have mob connections, so he probably was not involved in fixed bouts. He also could not get a title shot, and looking at his record, he should have.

Apologies I misread your post, I thought you said he had mob connections

No problem. I have done the same thing myself.

[bennie]

Kevin Finnegan.

[Scypion]

Maybe Tony Anthony. Anthony was rated number 1 contender in the Light Heavyweight division sometime about 1957 or 1958. He got to fight Archie Moore for the Lt. Heavy title about a year after Moore was KO'd by Floyd Patterson. I thought that age had finally caught up with Archie after KO's by Marciano and Patterson, both for the Heavyweight title.

Anthony was 30 wins and 4 losses (all stoppages or KO's), so I thought that Tony would take the old mongoose, probably by KO, as he could hit(30 KO's in 51 career bouts including losses, 41 wins). How wrong I was. Moore KO'd Anthony in the 7th round to remain champion.

A little while after his Moore fight, Anthony was ranked number 1 and stopped Yvon Durelle in the 7th round. Despite that, it was Durelle that got a shot at Moore's title in a fight where Moore was knocked down 4 times, but came back to win by KO over Durelle.

BTW, Anthony had quite a good amateur record winning the Light Middleweight AAU Championship, the Inter-City Golden Gloves Welterweight Championship, the Golden Gloves Tournament of Champions Welterweight Championship, and was an alternate in the 1952 Olympics.

[jimglen]

defo Lloyd Marshall
and for Britain Jock McAvoy
France, Robert Villemain

there will be dozens of them, especially going through the whole history, singling out strongest Eras first and then strongest Divisions after... that's a 150 Years and literally hundreds of Top fighters who had the goods.

Anyway, Blessings for 2006 to ALL!

[scartissue]

Jesus Pimental
Jose Medal
Halimi Gutierrez
Art Hafey
Pedro Montanez
Freddie Dawson
Willie Joyce
Hector Thompson
Armando Muniz
Spider Webb
Jack Chase
Eddie Booker
Owen Moran
Jimmy Bivins
etc.

[Ruthless-RKO]

It's much easier to 'win' a world title now than it was over 30 years ago.

[scartissue]

It's much easier to 'win' a world title now than it was over 30 years ago.

Absolutely. If you have even the slightest modicum of talent today, you'll be a belt-holder of some sort. But years ago, with one champ, there was a ton of very talented fighters dickering for position to get that title shot. I would say over the last 35 years I could only name Oba Carr, David Tua, Ike Ibeabuchi and Herol Graham as contenders whom I thought were outstanding that did not pick up a belt. How times have changed.

[gilgamesh]

It's much easier to 'win' a world title now than it was over 30 years ago.

Absolutely. If you have even the slightest modicum of talent today, you'll be a belt-holder of some sort. But years ago, with one champ, there was a ton of very talented fighters dickering for position to get that title shot. I would say over the last 35 years I could only name Oba Carr, David Tua, Ike Ibeabuchi and Herol Graham as contenders whom I thought were outstanding that did not pick up a belt. How times have changed.

He's not in the same league as those you just named talent wise, but I don't think anybody got as many cracks at one and kept coming up short as Rocky Juarez did. I could be wrong on that.