Harry Kid Matthews vs the following men

Mine is the 1976 Ring Record Book, page 117. I consider this a good source.

For Don C, he has the longest odds of anyone who fought Marciano for the title at 7-1, but the odds aren't that much longer than Moore at 4-1, so it indicates that Don C did have some credibility as a contender in 1955.

The Ring Magazine of August, 1955 (covering to June 22) discussed Bob Baker as Marciano's next opponent and speculated that his odds would be 6-1.

I also find the Patterson odds interesting. Jackson's odds were 5-1 in 1957. Harris went in at 4-1 in 1958. London though was a much longer shot at 10-1. Johansson was 4-1. Indicates Harris had credibility as a challenger. Why Jackson at longer odds than Harris? He had already lost to Patterson. He also had two defeats to Slade, and one to Whitehurst, while Harris was coming in undefeated.

It is interesting to compare the odds of Don C against Marciano to Walcott against Louis. The Ring Record Book has Don C fighting at shorter odds. Even if we accept your 10-1 odds, that is the same as Walcott had. Joe's spotty early record and losses to Maxim and Ray probably explain this. We have to remember that Maxim wasn't a champion yet either. No one knew what would happen in the future, so that loss was probably viewed more negatively than we would today.

By the way, I would guess that if Machen had been given a shot at Patterson in 1958 without an elimination, the odds would have been fairly close, something like 7-5. Just my guess, though.

As it might be brought up, why is there such a difference between Machen and Valdes? Machen was undefeated in 24 fights. Valdes was 11-4 in his last 15 fights.

 

"rocky would have been stripped"

Of course. That is why we always have a flock of "champions" these days.

Makes a joke of things.

But I thought the champion had one year between facing the #1 contender. As Rocky had fought the #1 ranked Charles in September of 1954, didn't he have until September of 1955 to face his next #1. Or is the time span now shorter. I can never keep up with what the politicians are doing.

The weakness of Valdes' case was he that had lost to the other contenders, Moore and Baker. Moore had beaten them both. Once Moore began to lobby for a title shot, he couldn't fairly be denied except by the really strange argument that what happened in the ring was less important than the NBA's paper ratings, or politics trumping results.

 

While I think this thread should die, I can't let this pass.

"Harry Wills all over again"

There is no comparison between Wills and Valdes. Wills had been the top contender or a top contender for a decade. None of the other contenders had beaten him or anyone who had beaten him.

Valdes had lost to Moore, and had lost to Johnson and Baker who had also lost to Moore, and Valdes had never reversed any of them.

To be in a similar position, Wills would have had to lose in 1923 and 1924 to Tunney, Gibbons, and Risko, and failed to reverse any of them, while supposedly being the #1 contender over Tunney.

"Does it seem to you that the number one 'most logical contender' doesn't get a direct title shot."

That would be Moore, who had beaten Valdes. Why was this paper "most logical contender" a 2-1 underdog to Moore in the 1955 fight?

"Roadblocks were put in Valdes' path"

As they should have been. Why should he just jump into a title fight over Moore. Moore had beaten him and beaten other guys who had beaten Valdes. If Valdes beat Moore, he would have proven his rating was justified.

"There was no rationale for the champ's camp to insist the light-heavyweight champ fight the number one contender."

Are you sure they did? They just chose to fight the #2 contender. The Moore-Valdes fight was a heavyweight title fight sanctioned by Nevada. I don't know if it was any kind of official elimination.

"Valdes was knocking guys out in tune-ups."

Journeymen at best. Why wasn't Valdes eliminating Moore and Baker rather than fighting the likes of Jack Flood? Valdes was obviously trying to sit on his rating and hoping for a title shot w/o taking unnecessary chances. I suppose I can't blame his management, but it is not the way to move ahead of Moore in the eyes of the public.

"Don Co-kell"

I could argue against him. He was #2 to Valdes and I think Valdes somewhat the better contender in 1955. Hindsight allows us to see Valdes was much the better contender off what happened later, but that might not have been so clear in 1955.

But I could question a lot of challengers. Why did Walcott get two shots in 1951 after losing to Rex Layne while Layne had to fight roadblocks like Satterfield and Marciano? Layne would seem on the face of it to have a better case over Walcott than Valdes had over Don C, let alone Moore.

"Something illogical took place."

Not to me. Moore was the obvious top contender, and he got his shot at Marciano.

 

A lot of dubious arguments here.

"The IBC was a dirty organization."

Sure, but according to Jack Kearns, the IBC had nothing to do with this fight.

"fights on national television four nights a week"

I lived through the era, and I don't recall any more than two weekly national fights, one on Wednesday and one on Friday. But this doesn't mean that all the big fights were on TV by any means, at least in my area. The Folley-Machen fight in 1960 and the Liston-Folley fight in 1960 were not televised in the upper midwest. I would have known. I don't think the networks were really willing to pay all that much, so the live gate was still more important.

"minor league ballpark"

Still bigger than most indoor stadiums. And the Patterson-Harris and Patterson-Rademacher championship fights were in minor league ballparks. Anything west of St. Louis or south of the Mason-Dixon line had to be minor league back then.

The actual attendance was 10,800 and the gate $102,000. That was very good. The Charles-Valdes fight drew 3500. What was the attendance for Valdes-Jackson? And this fight was probably subsidized by the casinos to draw in the high rollers.

"all Vegas had were a few hotels"

Well, somehow they got 10,800 to attend. Vegas was a gambling and fun center outside of the California blue laws. When I worked there briefly (actually at Henderson) in the 1960's, tons of folks came by bus or train from LA and San Diego to gamble. There were always big weekend crowds.

"No major fights before that"

Yeah, Vegas was coming out of nowhere. But some fight had to be the first. Whatever you say, a city where Sinatra, Elvis, Garland, Horne, etc., were entertaining is not exactly just the desert.

As for the fight itself,

Moore entered a 2-1 favorite.

Referee Braddock scored it 8-5-2
UPI scored it 8-6-1
I don't want to assume too much with the AP, but they said Moore pulled it out with the last round, so it sounds like something like 8-7.

No reason to second guess Braddock.

"Braddock disliked Valdes."

Did he before the fight or just afterward when the Valdes camp covered their loss by attacking Braddock, as you are by insinuation. I think Braddock was pretty well off, and respected. Why would he take part in a fix?

Valdes off the descriptions went nuts in the ring after the verdict was announced.

Moore was quoted by the Australian AP--"I feel great. I won the fights, but I got my lumps." Moore commented that Valdes went "dramatic" to get sympathy from the $2 bettors.

Jack Kearns stated that the IBC had nothing to do with the fight, which was advertised and promoted as being for the "Heavyweight Championship of the World" as recognized in Nevada.

Truman Gibson of the IBC was at ringside, which is no surprise as this was an important fight, and commented afterward that Marciano would now have to fight Moore.

Frankly, Valdes was 13-10 between 1952 and 1956. Claiming a fix on no evidence is not necessary to explain why Archie Moore defeated him.

 

Peter Wilson covered Valdes vs Moore in Las Vegas whilst he was in America for the Marciano Cokkell fight.

In his book “more ringside seats” he describes Las Vegas as it was then. The fight took place in the open air in a disused baseball park surrounded by desert.

“There was a crowd of 11,000 who had paid over £35,000. And really the crowd was something like the extras in a movie of a ghost town.

Out on the white stone seats were old silver miners and prospectors with their jeans and grey beards. In the medium priced seats there were the slick gamblers and at ringside there were the high priced entertainers, imported from New York and California by the gambling’s bosses who will pay any sort of money just to attract the big Money gamblers to their own particular hotels.”

Of the fight itself Wilson wrote that it was a rough tough fight from the word go. Moore was ahead until he got tired in the late rounds but that he still hurt Nino to the body and closed his eye in the 13th. He thought that Moore might stop him in the 14th.

“In the 14th I thought Moore might finish it off, as he so often does late in a fight, but he had taken so much on the ropes earlier on and he was so much over his best fighting weight that he couldn’t quite pull it off”

 

SuzyQ

You talk about the different groups of fighters (west coast vs East coast).

Is there any chance that you could confirm which fighters were from which group (for argument sake the top top 10 or 15 from each group). I would be interested to compare the results of cross over fights. Team West vs Team East, so to speak.

 

Rocky was hoping Valdez beat Satterfield in 55 so that would set up a 50th fight for Rocky but the 6"3 Nino was beaten pretty badly by the 5"10 Bob Satterfield and dropped hard in the last round making Nino pretty much unmarketable. Nino may have been a tougher fight than Don CKLE (who fought his heart out) but Nino lost his first shot losing the 2nd time to Moore and then to Bob Satterfield (who already lost to Charles KO2 and Archie. Judging from the Satterfield fight I think 50-0 for Marciano would have been inevitable but at that point a Valdes fight wasnt marketable.