BoxRec

Ambling Alp wrote:

dempseyfire wrote:

Ambling Alp wrote:It made a significant difference. And he eventually put on more than 7 pounds, which itself is significant. He knew he would be more effective if he weighed and that is why he fought at it. He was stronger, and had a little more punching power, which was important when fighting bigger men. He did it gradually and naturally. He was up to 186 when he beat Walcott the 2nd time, and more than 196 when he fought Walcott for the 4th time.

He also beat Walcott weighing 181.

There is no evidence to suggest his punching power increased by any means. He actually had to cut down on his training to weigh in the 180s.

Main point is, it wasn't a significant difference. Charles maybe had a edge in strength in terms of being in the clinches. That's pretty much it. For someone who while boxing amateur swayed from 165 to the high 170s, I can tell you that 6-8 lbs give or take really doesn't matter very much in the end. Charles was a large light HW/very small HW fighter. That was his frame/body. Whether he weighed 175 or 183 really wasn't going to change any outcome of a fight.

dempseyfire-A couple of your points actually support what my position, not your own.
Charles was 181 when beat beat Walcott (the first time). Well, 181 is more than 175.
Charles maybe would be better in clinches? Well thats an advantage.

The extra weight would also naturally help him absorb the harder punches that he had to take against heavyweights.

There is no evidence that he hit harder? Well, he still showed the ability to hurt and knockout heavyweights.

When a welterweight challenges someone at a higher weight, he usually doesn't only weigh 147 himself when he fights the larger opponent. Likewise, when a lightheavyweight fights someone of a higher weight, he usually isn't going to weigh only 175.

I agree that after a certain point, extra weight stops being helpful, and at certain point hurts your chances. However, adding a reasonable amount of extra pounds can be very helpful against a bigger man.

I guess you can speculate that Charles would have been as effective against heavyweights at 175 as was heavier. However that's all it is, speculation. And there really doesn't seem to be much reasoning behind it. The bottomline is that Charles himself thought he needed to weigh more. He was a smart fighter and knew his own body. He added the extra few pounds and was successful.

I agree, if you're going to consistenly fight Heavyweights, it's smart to put on those lbs.

However, picking out the Elmer Ray fight and saying it should be held against him simply b/c Charles was 175 and not 182, I believe is faulty logic. It's one fight. Those few lbs less on Charles don't suddenly give Ray some notable advantage.

The rub about Ray is this, while some act and acknowledge how 'great' he was, that Louis and others were afraid of him and the like; what people forget is that this "King of The Battle Royales" and who seemingly had all the tools and fought and defeated some real legit fighters and HOF's, people forget that of his 15 losses, 11 were by knockout and mostly around three rounds.

He had a weak chin, and could be taken out. Had Louis went in at him with bad intentions, there's no doubt in my mind that he would have done so against Elmer Ray; did he deserve a title shot? Sure, but so did Turkey Thompson, yet I dont hear many make the case for him.

Keep in mind, also, that Light Heavyweight champion John Henry Lewis, who near the end of his career being all but blind in one eye, was able to starch Elmer Ray in the 12th round...eight months later, Lewis would be knocked out inside the first round against Joe Louis...and that fight (Ray-Lewis) in 1938, and Ray was in his prime, while the 175 pound champ was nearly gone.

I love hearing about the value of John Henry Lewis, who was/is an all-time great and it's because of fights with J H Lewis and other greats that some Brits & European fighter's true value is measured! I always stated that though the Americans were typically Kings of the Big Boys, the TOP Brits and European fighters abillities were/are better than often passed over for...certainly the elite of them.

Jock McAvoy the middleweight's performance against J H Lewis is more than enough proof of McAvoy's status among the world's greatest fighters and certainly middleweights, then there's Len Harvey now a HOFamer, Ernie Roderick and dozens more.

Another great fighter proving just how good the Brit & Euro TOP men really were is Robert Villermain. Villermain competed with great success with some of the 'recognized' greatest fighters of all-time, yet one of his toughest fights was against the WELL Past his Prime British lightweight King Eric Boon.

Do you really think McAvoy, Gilroy, Cerdan, Turpin and other TOP Brit & Euro middles would have had any 'problem' with the smaller Boon, but the same prime Villermain who conquered and beat some of America's and boxings finest middleweights did!

it's fights and fighters like these that give rise to the True Value of Brit & Euro TOP men and in fairness to Boxing, Boxing History, and All-time greats some of these men and others should be (are in reality), in the mix!

Jim.

jimglen wrote:I love hearing about the value of John Henry Lewis, who was/is an all-time great and it's because of fights with J H Lewis and other greats that some Brits & European fighter's true value is measured! I always stated that though the Americans were typically Kings of the Big Boys, the TOP Brits and European fighters abillities were/are better than often passed over for...certainly the elite of them.

Jock McAvoy the middleweight's performance against J H Lewis is more than enough proof of McAvoy's status among the world's greatest fighters and certainly middleweights, then there's Len Harvey now a HOFamer, Ernie Roderick and dozens more.

Another great fighter proving just how good the Brit & Euro TOP men really were is Robert Villermain. Villermain competed with great success with some of the 'recognized' greatest fighters of all-time, yet one of his toughest fights was against the WELL Past his Prime British lightweight King Eric Boon.

Do you really think McAvoy, Gilroy, Cerdan, Turpin and other TOP Brit & Euro middles would have had any 'problem' with the smaller Boon, but the same prime Villermain who conquered and beat some of America's and boxings finest middleweights did!

it's fights and fighters like these that give rise to the True Value of Brit & Euro TOP men and in fairness to Boxing, Boxing History, and All-time greats some of these men and others should be (are in reality), in the mix!

Jim.

Thanks for calling Jock McAvoy to my attention.

89 KO's in his 133 wins.

He was really a middleweight, but fought dangerous puncher John Henry Lewis for the lightheavyweight title

and forced Lewis, out of concern for McAvoy's punching power, to fight a very careful fight to keep his lightheavyweight title on a decision.

Wow, it's great to see my posts being cited with favor on other forums! Some of you may remember I used to be a semi-regular poster on this forum as well, though the Eastside Classic Section has always been the prime computerized focal point of my boxing geekiness. So, to pipe in on this discussion:

I don't know what's happened to Ray. I haven't been able to find any obituary for him, no old-timer I've discussed him with has been aware of his dying, boxrec lists no date of death for him, and wikipedia has him down as a "possibly living person." The only reference to Ray's continued existence post-1949 that I've ever seen was in Leon Forrest's 2001 book the Bloodsworth Orphans, in a little passage about getting back to Florida, back to his home, and "back to my friend, the aged warrior, Elmer 'Violent' Ray.'" And as this is a work of fiction (and I'm not sure when it's set, either), I'm not sure it provides any reliable historical information. I've occasionally thought of someday going down to Florida and trying to track down people who knew Ray and could tell me what became of him after his career.
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In response to Homicide Henry's post- first on Ray's durability: though your general point has merit, I'd like to add and correct some information here for the sake of balance and a complete picture. According to boxrec (I have heard that Ray may have had numerous unrecorded fights, but their content is unknowable), Ray had 12 losses, with seven by stoppage, out of 95 total fights. This is about one stoppage loss for every 13-and-a-half fights, which is not a great ratio by any means, but it is better than many historic contenders.

Now, let's break these down individually; four of the seven stoppages came within Ray's first 10 recorded fights, with one being his very first pro fight and the other three being to formidable foes who were far more experienced than himself. If the younger age for Ray is the accurate one, then he was only about 19-21 years of age at this time as well. The newspaper accounts I've seen of Ray's fight with John Henry Lewis (in which the young, inexperienced and obscure Ray was brought in as a cannonfodder tune-up opponent for the reigning light heavyweight champion, who was gunning for a shot at the heavyweight title) praise Ray's durability and gameness and indicate that Lewis ground him down into the stoppage- this, again, being inside Ray's first 10 recorded fights.

After that stretch, either Ray's durability increased, his boxing skill improved, or both, as he had only three stoppage losses in his remaining 85 fights. One was to Turkey Thompson, who was a very fast starter and possibly the biggest puncher of that era aside from Louis himself (note that Ray smeared Thompson throughout their first fight before evidently being caught cold in the rematch), one was to Ezzard Charles, who packed a pretty good punch himself, and that was largely due to attrition according to the newspaper accounts I have read (Ray was said to have been declining at that point and to have tired badly in the last couple rounds before the knockout), and one was in his final pro fight to the hard-hitting young contender John Holman. In his absolute peak, Ray had a run of 58 straight fights without any stoppage losses (and a 57-1 record, too!).

All of this taken into consideration, then, while Ray certainly didn't have a granite jaw by any stretch, neither do I think he was a particularly weak-chinned fighter.

On your other statements with regards to the John Henry Lewis fight and a comparison between Ray and Turkey Thompson, I disagree pretty emphatically here. Ray was definitely not in his prime for the John Henry Lewis match; he had taken up boxing less than three years ago, had only seven recorded fights with a record of 3-4, and was an obscure journeyman with absolutely no name on a world-class level. This is a far cry from the Ray of eight years later who was a top five heavyweight in the world on a 50-fight winning streak and was beating and going down-to-the-wire against world champions.

As for Turkey Thompson's status as "also deserving a title shot... but I don't hear many make a case for him," I think their situations are quite decidedly different. Nearly all of Thompson's upper-tier success came in 1940-1943, while Louis was on military hiatus, and at around the same time Louis came back (1944), Thompson had a losing streak and then went on a two-and-a-half-year layoff, meaning there was really no good, opportune time when both Louis and Thompson were active and on top in which to say that a fight between the two "should" have taken place.

Moreover, though he was unquestionably a quality contender, Thompson was just plain never as high a level of fighter as Ray was. He had more than a couple losses, draws and close calls against mediocre opponents during his prime years. Aside from Ray (who was beating Thompson badly in their first fight before being screwed over and was caught early in the rematch), the three best fighters he faced were Bivins, Pastor and Murray, and they all beat him badly (though he did nearly take Pastor out early in their first fight and later beat an over-the-hill Murray in the late '40s). Thompson was a "puncher's-chance" guy against real elite fighters.

On the other hand, Ray was a genuine elite-level fighter in his prime years. He utterly dominated journeymen and fringe contenders, including ones who Thompson struggled with or lost to (see, for example, Perk Daniels, who Ray pitched a shut-out over and knocked out in a rematch, while Thompson lost to him the first time and eeked out a split decision in their rematch), having not a single loss, draw or even mildly close match against a non-elite fighter anywhere in his peak run, and he was more than able to fight in a consistently competitive fashion with the very best fighters in the world (wins over Walcott and Charles, close loss to Walcott in early '47, decisive-but-hard-fought loss to Charles in '48 while he was on the slide). Thompson was a pretty good contender who had a puncher's chance against top guys; Ray was a top guy.