How does Tony Zale do against the murderers row?

Mills was knocked down 4 times before he was ko'd and he had 10 pounds on Marshall.So the title shot went to-----
Mills!

 

How could there even be debate over all this.

 

Some perspective?

1939-04-20 : Archie Moore 158¾ lbs lost to Teddy Yarosz 163¾ lbs by UD in round 10 of 10

• Location: Municipal Auditorium, Saint Louis, Missouri, USA
• Referee: Walter Heisner 46-54
• Judge: Robert Dana 47-53
• Judge: Al Graff 46-54

Moore was dangerous all the way, and Yarosz was just smart enough to keep his chin in the clear." Moore was the aggressor, except for the last two rounds, when Teddy, feeling that Archie had spent his heaviest fire, took chances with Moore's Sunday punches. Yarosz was simply too clever for Moore at this stage of his career. However, Ray Arcel (Yarosz's trainer) said about Moore: "He'll be a great fighter in a year from now. All he needs is experience.
Yarosz was a ten year pro with 111 fights under his belt and wins over the likes of;
Jeby
Freeman
Pirrone
Hreiger
Brouillard
Overlin x2
Conn
Risko
Dundee x3

 

I am not trying to tell you anything at all. Mills was worth a $280,000 gate to Lesnevich and Charles was only worth $75,000 gate to Lesnevich because when they fought this was the gate receipts. Boxing is a business.

Charles was only 3-1 to beat Lesnevich when they did actually fight.

Charles was by far the greater fighter but there really wasn’t much appeal about him at the time. Comeback Joe Louis was 2-1 favourite to beat Ezzard.

 

Lesnevich ducked Marshall ,Charles,Bivins , and Moore at lhvy= paper champ.

 

1941 Lesnevich won the world title. He then had two non title fights (which was common) before he was drafted.

1942-1946 the title was FROZEN.

This leaves autumn 1946 where Lesnevich could have defended against Charles or Moore, instead Gus took a much bigger fight that was worth a lot more money against Mills who he beat. That year Billy Fox was his number one challenger that year and still #3 in 1947 when Gus defended against him.

So you are saying Gus should be defending against Bivins or Charles during the frozen years? Your timeline is a nonsense. And should Gus turn down a more lucrative international title fight in 1946?

Was a fight with #1 Billy Fox bigger than Freddie Mills? And once Gus fought Freddie Mills was Charles ever a bigger fight than Billy Fox?

Yes. Gus should have fought Charles instead of rematching Mills and Fox and fighting heavyweights but I understand why these fights did not happen.

 

1946
Champ Lesnavich
No1 Billy Fox
No2 Charles
No3 Moore.

 

No you are the one talking nonsense, trying to justify the unjustifiable.
Champ Lesnevich lost to Bivins in a non title fight on March 11th1942,he not only lost he got schooled.
Did he give Bivins a title shot? No! He fought an over the weight bout instead

.Lesnevich was only inactive from Oct 22nd 43 ,until Jan 46 = 2years and 2 months stop fabricating excuses for him!

 

Fox got his ranking from a fixed fight against a middleweight ,who did he beat at 175lbs?

Why didn't Lesnevich give his number 1 contender Bivins a title shot in1942 ,after he had lost clearly to him?
We understand why he didn't too!

 

Good post

 

I second the motion

 

I give Zale more of a pass than Lesnevich ,Tony was good enough to make it .
Lesnevich would not have smelled the title under different circumstances ,neither would Mills.

 

Yes had the it not been wartime ordinarily Lesnevich should have rematched Bivins with the title at steak. Very convenient for Gus that, but that’s how it was. It’s hard to to know if at that moment a bigger title fight could be staged. Jake Lamotta and other champions lost non title fights as champion. Gus is just another one of them. That kind of thing didn’t appear to concern folks much then.

At any rate 1946 was the next time any of the FROZEN TITLES were contested. It just seems rather silly to say he ducked people whilst he was unavailable. After 1946 you have a case before? No way.