How does Tony Zale do against the murderers row?

Graziano a no brainer over Charley Burley, Holman Williams, Jake Lamotta who were all higher rated than graziano? And much better?

Oh wait, graziano was the “draw”...because the New York ring hyped up their golden boy to the racist American public because he knocked out a few overstuffed lightweights or well past their prime fighters.

But now your logic is doesn’t matter if he wasn’t number 1 rated as long as he was a good draw?

In that case, you can’t criticize Lesnevich for fighting mills instead of Ezzard Charles since mills drew much better

 

I firmly believe Zale and his manager wanted to hold on to his title as long as possible and avoided the best fighters out there so he could hold on to his title. I think like other white champions of the era he specifically fought white fighters because they drew much better and because it was far less risk to fight a white fighter he knew he could beat than Charley Burley who didn’t draw well but was an incredible fighter. Zales manager essentially hid him behind the color line.

I do believe Zale was a great head to head fighter at his best but he had limitations and could be outslicked and outboxed and the top middleweights of the era were mostly ATG counterpunchers. Zale picked and choosed come forward brawlers who were tailor made for him and stayed away from burleys, Moore’s, Charles, and Williams

How great was Zale? We will never know because he never defeated the truly great middleweights of his era. We just don’t know

 

There is no doubt zale proved himself capable of ATG performances. His win against Abrams was legendary material against a very good fighter. Abrams called zale the best body puncher of all time. It’s just a shame zale wasted some title defenses on men like Mamakos, Pryor, when he could have squeezed Burley and H Williams or Charles in there and we really could have seen how great zale was, or at least fought Burley, H Williams or Lamotta in 46 in his comeback. I personally think graziano was a joke, an overhyped New York fighter who built his reputation on set ups and smaller men. Zale in his prime destroys graziano in 1. Lamotta, Burley, Williams easily beat graziano.

Burley vs Zale would have been the ultimate opposite styles clash. The fans missed out.

 

Zale was actually the real deal as far as ability goes...Lesnevich on the other hand, that guy was a paper champion buffoon. His duck of Ezzard Charles was cowardly and shameless. He should have relinquished the title if he knew he couldn’t beat Ezz. Thankfully, Ezz kicked his ass 3 years later and retired him.

Do you know Ezzard Charles fought and won 3 title eliminators to get a shot at Lesnevich including a knockout win over a prime Archie Moore!

Never got a title shot