BoxRec

Boxer's who are less talked about such as the Cocoa Kid, Charley Burley, Lloyd Marshall, Holman Williams, Jack Chase, Eddie Booker, Aaron Wade, and Bert Lytell.


1. Which of these boxers do you like the best?



2. Why do you think that they didn't get the opportunities in boxing such as what the very top boxers got?




3. Had they been given the proper opportunities, do you think that they could they have achieved top status in boxing?



Please explain.

NYDominican wrote: ↑13 Aug 2018, 11:27 Boxer's who are less talked about such as the Cocoa Kid, Charley Burley, Lloyd Marshall, Holman Williams, Jack Chase, Eddie Booker, Aaron Wade, and Bert Lytell.


1. Which of these boxers do you like the best?



2. Why do you think that they didn't get the opportunities in boxing such as what the very top boxers got?




3. Had they been given the proper opportunities, do you think that they could they have achieved top status in boxing?



Please explain.

Burley suffered from really bad timing; at his best (MW 1942-1945) all the titles were on hold for WWII, and in '46 Zale chose Graziano and by the time that trilogy was done (48) Burely was no longer ranked.

He also suffered from poor management; Burley's contract was sold several times over, he never really had anyone financially motivated to protect him. Early on as a welterweight, Burley found himself chasing Zivic for a title shot, who paradoxically owned a percentage of Burley's contract.

APerno wrote: ↑15 Aug 2018, 22:35
Burley suffered from really bad timing; at his best (MW 1942-1945) all the titles were on hold for WWII, and in '46 Zale chose Graziano and by the time that trilogy was done (48) Burely was no longer ranked.

He also suffered from poor management; Burley's contract was sold several times over, he never really had anyone financially motivated to protect him. Early on as a welterweight, Burley found himself chasing Zivic for a title shot, who paradoxically owned a percentage of Burley's contract.

He also wouldn't play ball with the mob and refused to take a dive. Burley was in the 'who needs him club', difficult to beat and difficult to look good against.

I think these guys all had a lot going against them. Besides what has already been mentioned, there were other factors.
Race was an issue. Yes black fighters got title shots, but not as often as white fighters.
There also less weight classes back then and usually only one champion.
So instead of 4 welterwight champions, four junior middle, 4 middle, 4 super middle, 4 light heavy for a total of 20 titles.
Then you had welter, middle, light heavy for a total of 3.

Georges Carpentier

Burley who came out of Pittsburgh, fought often in New Orleans ended up a west coast fighter. I was surprise to discover with 97 fights he has only one recorded appearance in New York City. I suspect not fighting in the east (in the 1930s and 1940s) probably, to some extent, hurt his career.

Just as the war was coming to an end Rocky Graziano was fighting consecutive fights to a packed MSG, while Burley, during the same period (was winning, but) was campaigning almost exclusively in San Diego and San Francisco. To the eastern dominated media Burley may have suffer from some level of 'out of sight, out . . .

Of the men you listed... Lloyd Marshall (imho) was the best or second best on that short list... Look at the win/loss ratio, and who he beaten:

From his debut in '36 to '45, he defeated the likes of Jake LaMotta, Shorty Hogue, Ezzard Charles, Curtis Shepherd, Holman Williams, Charley Burley and Joey Maxim.

However, the end of '45 and onwards was the downwards spiral. Losing to Archie Moore back to back, resulted in losing to Charles (twice) and the likes of Bob Murphy, Oakland Billy Smith, and later on Don Cockell and Harry Kid Matthews.

For that brief period of '40-'45 he was supernatural. If he lost it was controversial, or bad timing; many of his fights against such all-stars were weeks apart so it was difficult to maintain a long win streak (Two streaks of 7 wins, ans well as a streak of 9 wins among other wins between '40-'45).

For instance... In the span of 2 months he fought Holman Williams 2xs as well as Joey Maxim... This kind of schedule was commonplace in boxing, but, to be a Welterweight or Middleweight in the 40s and 50s was pure hell because even journeymen at that time in a lesser era would have been champion.