BoxRec

The great Jimmy Bivins is dead. If you are a boxing fan and you're not familiar with Bivins, please go to YouTube and check him out. You are in for a treat.

To think of the damage he would have done in today's middle and light heavy divisions. An old school Genius of the ring.

http://www.cleveland.com/obituaries/ind ... um=twitter

loaded_gloves wrote:The great Jimmy Bivins is dead. If you are a boxing fan and you're not familiar with Bivins, please go to YouTube and check him out. You are in for a treat.

To think of the damage he would have done in today's middle and light heavy divisions. An old school Genius of the ring.

http://www.cleveland.com/obituaries/ind ... um=twitter

RIP

Bivins is often overlooked because he peaked during WWII when each of the eight world titles was frozen. Between 1942 and 1945, Jimmy, who was not drafted, went on the most incredible winning run as he hammered the likes of Archie Moore (by KO), Ezzard Charles, Joey Maxim, Gus Lesnevich, Billy Soose, Anton Christoforidis, Melio Bettina, Tami Mauriello, Bob Pastor, Curtis Sheppard, Lloyd Marshall and Lee Savold. He was ranked No. 1 at light-heavyweight and heavyweight.
Sadly, by the time Jimmy secured a showdown with Joe Louis in 1951 both he and Louis were over the hill and Louis jabbed his way to a 10-round decision.

Bennie - you are the man !
A walking encyclopedia.

There are so many overlooked boxers during this era, and Bivins has to be near the top of that list. His record is littered with top names that he beat.

"The champs of today, they couldn't lick their own lips when I was fighting," Bivins said in recent years. "I'm not bragging. It's the truth."

R.I.P

I think that's a terrific obit by Grant Segall of the Cleveland Plain Dealer. Bivins was a great talent who didn't have his chance because of the war, because perhaps he was never in the right place at the right time and because, maybe, when he was good he was too good. Mike Jacobs didn't exactly rush to let Joe Louis defend against black challengers. Of Louis' 25 challengers only John Henry Lewis, whom they knew had no chance because he had seriously bad eyesight, and right at the end Jersey Joe Walcott, were black. No black guys got into the bum of the month club in 1940 and 1941. Then again, Bivins wasn't ready until 1943-45, when Louis was off on war duty, and losing three decisions in a row in 1946 put him back in the queue. Ezzard Charles and Archie Moore both stopped him in 1947. The truth is, though, that a whole host of far worse fighters than Bivins did get their chance.

A cursory glance at the guys he beat makes your eyes water. Great obituary, too.

RIP.

A superbly written, informative obituary of a man who is obviously an unsung hero.

In Joe Louis's defence, he didn't take on black challengers due to a reverse colour line situation. The general thinking was that the public wouldn't buy two black guys fighting each other. The John Henry Lewis fight was more a gift for a friend, Louis giving his buddy a pension payday (albeit a brutal one).

Although Louis and Bivin's were both waning when they finally did fight, it speaks volumes of Bivins freakish toughness that a natural middleweight went 10 and lost an SD to Louis despite suffering a broken rib during the match. Can you imagine Jimmy Bivins peeling his boot off and crying about a broken little toe...?

Stretching it a bit to call Bivins a middleweight - he was really fighting at light-heavy from about 1941 as I remember it, and was usually somewhere around 13st by 1945, but yes, maybe he could have boiled himself down in today's world. I agree, the lack of opportunities for black heavyweight challengers wasn't Louis' doing - it was a commercial decision from Mike Jacobs, who as promoter called the shots. Louis did (mostly) what he was told. Can't remember the split decision in the Bivins-Louis fight. You may be right, but are you sure? Without checking I thought Louis won it clearly on the cards at least... anyway, whatever nit-picking we might indulge ourselves in, we agree Bivins should never be forgotten.

In the Louis fight ref scored it 7-3 and the 2 other judges had it 6-3-1

Bivins when beating Charles in 1943 outweighed his opponent by 9lbs. Bivins was 174 and Charles 165, Seems incredible that Charles would go on to be heavyweight champion, especially as he was knocked down 7 times in this fight.