What if there was no Charles or Walcott?

In that scenario, Joe Louis's last fight would have been against either Elmer Ray or Lee Oma, and they would probably have been matched for the vacant title.

Don't expect either to hold it for long.

Lee Savold would have been well and truly in the mix, and Joe Louis might well have regained the title in his comeback.

You might have seem Maxim, Henry, or Baker hold the title at some point.

Probably just as well that they were born!

 

Bruce Woodcock and Joe Baksi might be there about too.

 

It was only Walcott and Charles that really kept Baksi from being a major threat. Without those two I think Baksi could have been significant.

Depending on the order they all met each other in another scenario, Woodcock could have been viable because he beat both Oma and Savold in back to back fights in 1947.

 

Woodcock wouldn't have been a factor imo His fight with Oma was a fix and there is speculation about the 1st Savold fight too.

 

Archie Moore would haven't been 0 - 3 with his greatest rival and would have been the first man to win both light heavy and heavyweight titles maybe both at the same time. Probably would have made him a p4p top 5 certainly would have moved him up a few places.

 

well that never stopped other fighters landing a vacant title fight.
Woodcocks win over Gus Lesnevich was legitimately impressive since Gus went on to become Ring Magazine fighter of the year off the back of that crushing loss.

 

Woodcock just wasn't very good.

 

If you take Louis, Charles and Walcott out of the post war scene Woodcock is no further from anyone else really is he? Who you got after that? Maxim, Baksi, Savold, Oma? Woodcock beat two of those.

 

Archie was not viable until about 1953.

 

Elmer Ray was the first fighter I thought of in response to this question. However, upon closer scrutiny, Ray was done and retired before the first Charles - Walcott fight for the vacant title. There were emerging fighters around this time such as Rex Layne and Bob Baker, both of whom broke into the ratings in '50. But I think one fighter knocking about at this time who would have had a great shot at the vacant crown was Jimmy Bivins. A great injustice was done to Jimmy with returning champions after the war years. He held the interim heavyweight and light heavyweight titles, yet no title shot for Jimmy.

 

That's a good point. Bivins got a shot at Louis on his comeback when there was no title at stake. In another era Louis might have been awarded something like the WBA title for beating Savold since he had a partial claim to the championship at the time.