Prime James Scott vs Archie Moore and Ezzard Charles @ LHW

Scott was very good and would have had his moments against both. But in the end, each will have beaten him.

 

Loses to both.

 

It's funny but I forget which famous trainer of the time but one of them, maybe Gil Clancy said that the Scott that beat Mustafa Muhammad was on that one afternoon the best light heavyweight they have ever seen. That aside, Scott was a very strong, tough guy with pretty decent skills but I cannot see him doing two well against two of the best that ever laced up gloves at 175 .. the experience chasm alone would be enormous ..

 

Moore stops him
Charles gives him the boxing lesson of his life.

 

The James Scott who fought EMM, Lopez, etc. would have been competitive with anybody. He was in a unique situation. He was in a place where he could work on his conditioning and boxing without a lot of distractions. At the time, he was also motivated, thinking that he might get out of jail. Scott had great conditioning, good fundamentals, nobody would beat him easily. Scott kept his elbows close to his body, his chin down, threw short punches, used good head movement, and kept the pressure on.

Qawi and Martin, two strong, well conditioned fighters did eventually beat him, but Scott might not have been as motivated at that time as he was when he fought EMM and Lopez. As Scott was for EMM, he'd have a chance of beating anybody at 175. If he wasn't in jail and in that particular situation, who knows if he would have had the discipline to become the fighter that he did at Rahway.

 

Both beat him by hard kos .

 

Great thread - thank you for this.

I've got to be honest - I knew nothing about Scott until I came to this post. Now that I've read up about him and his circumstances I'm blown away.

Crazy that all his fights took place inside prison and that some of them were legit title eliminators. And that his last fight was against a former fellow Rahway inmate in Dwight Braxton who then fought Matthew Saad Muhammad for the world title in his very next fight!

Beating EMM and Yaqui Lopez too - he was the real deal.

This is why I love this forum!

 

I believe that Scott had some good sparring partners, Qawi (Dwight Braxton) was locked up with him and he boxed at the prison, there was a decent heavyweight named Art Tucker in the prison too who participated in the boxing program and I'm sure there were others. With Scott's conditioning program and sparring with Qawi and Tucker that should have been enough to get him ready.

By the time Tyson went to prison, boxing programs had been abolished in most prison systems, and even free weights had been removed from many prison systems. I believe that the boxing program in the New Jersey prison system was ended sometime in the 90s.

 

Scott was motivated .. he was on a winning streak with televised fights ... this was essentially what he lived for .. Martin didn't just beat him but he kind of beat him up, dropping him twice .. he actually fought a good fight against a prime Qwai, losing a very close decision .. at the time he was 33 so he may have been a bit past it .. either was I don't see a guy with twenty fights beating Moore or Charles, two exceptional fighters ..

 

Scott would need wins over Saad, Galindez, Conteh, Qawi, grade fighters before being considered to be able to take on #1 Charles or #2 Moore. Those 2 fighters were at the very top level LtHvy.

FYI: Scott passed away 5/8/2018
http://www.thesweetscience.com/feature-articles/50146-james-scott-famous-prison-boxer-died
https://www.sbnation.com/longform/2014/3/12/5496096/james-scott-jailhouse-boxer-profile