Who was the better heavyweight Tami Mauriello or Elmer a Ray?

OK, lets say that I am a boxing fan in 1945.

Where would I find out he NBA rankings?

More to the point, where would I find them out today?

 

I can give you my rebuttal. I might a bit off of these stats, but I think they are ballpark:

How many heavyweight contenders had 57-1 runs? How many during a 57-1 run beat two future world champions at or near their best? How many during their 57-1 run had their only loss by close decision to a future champion? How many ever had 74-3 runs with the only losses to the two world champions and a top contender?

How many contenders have wins over two future or past champions at or close to their peaks? Isn't going to be a lot.

How many contenders match Ray on these points? Denver Ed Martin? Firpo? Moran? Miske? Gibbons? Heeney? Farr? Baker? Henry? Machen? Folley? Quarry? Cooney?

I think not many. Almost everyone was more erratic and/or came up shorter against really top men. This sort of record is usually for a champion.

Balancing that is a significant number of easy marks, but a worthy number were more like what the Ring used to consider class A fighters--those not rated but in the top 50 or so and who were capable of giving the top men good fights.

Also there is that very spotty early record, when Elmer Ray doesn't even seem to have had a trainer or manager. Once he got proper training, he started moving, so I can't see dragging his rating down because of his early troubles.

Mauriello? A good fighter and decent contender, but other than staying high in the ratings, and being a prodigy who didn't pan out, I don't see that he is that exceptional on any level. His best wins are over second-tier guys--Savold, Oma, Woodcock, a slipping Nova and Barlund. Nothing that average contenders like Phil Muscato couldn't match. Muscato beat Savold and Oma twice each, beat Barlund, and beat Joey Maxim. I don't question Tami getting a shot in 1946 at Louis, but being considered in the same class as Ray? No.

I saw and see Ray in the top 10 to 15 of the 1930 to 1960 era, while Tami impresses me as more worthy of being in the 40's someplace. Ray beat two of our top five. Mauriello did nothing close to that.

 

Fair enough,

"Mauriello's reasons for not fighting these men, might simply have been geographical issues, or inter management politics."

Yes, but the bottom line is who fights whom and who beats whom. I agree with you about ascribing motives and accusing a fighter of ducking or drawing the color line. It can be unfair. But what level of competition he did defeat matters. WWII might have limited Tami's options, but falling apart while still a young man after the war and fading out quickly weighs against him.

 

In the newspapers, where they were regularly published and which almost every American read unlike Ring magazine.

 

Two consecutively excellent posts!

 

Nailed!

 

Great points objectively put!

 

So it's bad to have boxing fans love you, support you and pay to see you fight?
It's wrong and somehow immoral to overcome physical handicaps to thrive in a difficult sport like boxing?

Son, you've gone WAY off the road with your hate for this guy. Making fun of a man with a club foot smh.

 

You've shown yourself in your true childish colours with your talk of crayons.I want nothing further to do with you ,you overgrown child.Get lost!

 

Excellent post. You are doing a very good job of defending Mauriello.

And you could add that Baksi lost a fight to Savold, although he defeated Savold twice in rematches.

Any gap in rating between Baksi and Mauriello is not wide, that is for certain.

 

"Maybe Elmer Ray was a better heavyweight,"

Well, the question asked for this thread is who was the better heavyweight, Mauriello or Ray.

I think Ray peaked significantly higher, but his big wins over Walcott and Charles came after Mauriello earned his shot and lost to Louis.

An issue of why Ray never got a title shot with Louis is valid, I think, but has nothing really to do with Mauriello earlier getting a shot. We have had that sort of argument with at least one poster concerning Lem Franklin, with posts about why Franklin didn't get a title shot in 1942 when Harry Thomas did in 1938 or Jack Roper in 1939.

But these threads are valuable in learning about what happened with imput from various points of view. I learn a great deal from other posters like you.

 

"but when you take away the crystal ball, I would probably be liking Mauriello's body of work better."

Walcott might have been a former journeyman, but he had wins over Bivins, Oma, and Baksi, all of whom defeated Mauriello, plus top men of the time Murray, Sheppard, and Gomez.

I have no big problem with Mauriello being ranked above Ray going into the Louis fight. He had faced tougher opposition to that point.

But if I were doing the rating only on what was known on January 1, 1947, I would have rated Ray the #1 contender off his KO of Savold and his win over Walcott plus the long winning streak.

The Ring rated Mauriello over him in their end of the year ratings in 1946, which is not how I would have seen the two at that point.