How does Tony Zale do against the murderers row?

I agree with this.

 

Louis, Ali (first reign) and Tyson definitely cleaned out among the best challengers. Hopkins, SRR, SRL (as WW champ), Monzon, Hagler, Duran (as LW weight champ)...

 

I haven't compared Graziano to Mills as a challenger. Haven't even mentioned Lesnevich.

Graziano had two losses to a WW and then racked up a series of wins in 45-46 to get the shot. The problem is that only one of these was a MW, the rest were WWs. Not even blown up, just WWs. And then he got a rematch on the strength of losing! Without a defence in between. I can see the logic in terms of audience and gate, but he wasn't the best contender out there.

Compare this with for example Holman Williams who not only beat MW contenders like Burley and Lytell but also LHWs like Moore. Yes, he lost to Lytell in april 1946, but he had done enough so secure a title shot by then.

 

How did that work out for Wills, would you say?

And with your logic you can avoid the best challengers, let them lose to each other and then not give them a shot since they all has lost. Which is what happened to Burley and Williams, more or less.

At the same time the champion of the world is not proving he's the best by facing the best.

 

You don't have to be quaking in your boots about facing a fighter, only do the math that a lesser challenger is better in terms of risk/reward.

How much the fighter or the manager makes this decisions in every single case is impossible to know. But a champion has a responsibility to do what for example Floyd did when Cus wanted him to stay clear of Liston. I'm not saying Zale ducked any challenger with the standing of Liston, just that a champion has a choice.

 

8 in how many champs throughout history? Like I said not on a consistent basis

 

Well, I listed mostly long reigning champs (and didn't mean to say that those were the only long reigning champs who conducted themselves well). There have of course been many champs with one or two defenses, but it's harder to say something useful about such short reigns.

EDIT: I do think that flawed reigns are way too common, though. The lineal MW reign, for example, has been weak under Martinez, Cotto and Canelo. Hopefully it will pick up after the GGG-Canelo rematch.

The HW division has been in a bit of disarray since Fury went off the rails, but hopefully it will sort itself out next year.

 

What other champions avoided Burley on purpose? Didn't Robinson come out and say hes not fighting Burley point blank. I dont see him getting mentioned here. Didn't Zivic buy a piece of his contract so he wouldn't have to defend against him? Zale made no such claims as these two yet hes the one on trial here and convicted by people who weren't even born yet let alone worked in the boxing business and had insider proof. Has anyone here spoke with Mr. Zale before he passed and asked him these questions? If so please step forward otherwise all your doing is jumping to your own conclusion and trying to smear a man's name who also served our country in time of war voluntarily if not mistsken. Some of you guys come off so smug its disgusting

 

Wills retired a rich man. He might not have got his title shot but the guy was a success.

He deserved his shot though. Wills deserved a crack at Willard and he deserved a crack at Dempsey. I guess he had Jack Johnson to blame for not getting one. Mind, I was disappointed with Wills when film of his fight with Firpo showed up, he didn’t look as exciting as I expected.

You can’t knock Dempsey for excitement. He got the publicity and the fans got value from his fights. Maybe that is a big part of things?

By my logic the fans get the most exciting fights because the promoters and governing bodies get more money making the fights that make the most money.

If that’s tough on more worthy fighters not getting title fights then That is down to the governing bodies to strip a champ for not meeting outstanding contenders. Don’t blame fighters.

It’s publicity, hype, investment and matchmaking that makes great fighters. I’ve always said that Joe Louis might have turned out as “Jersey Joe Louis” if his management team invested in Wallcot, like they almost did, rather than Mr Barrow.

 

This is strange post to me, and I will not try not to stoop to it's level.

This is a forum about historical boxing and we're largely discussing people who are dead. Discussing them from a standpoint how they did professionally, and who they faced and didn't is a large part of that. If we can't do this in a candid way then there's no use for the forum whatsoever.

This doesn't mean that one have to be disrespectful and call a fighter names and make innuendos about him as a person etc. Something that is rife in General. But nothing of the sort has been done here, so I really can't see what you get upset about or how anyone has been "smug". You saying that is the only thing that has come close to name calling and I think you should apologize for it.

 

Yes, the sanctioning bodies should take their responsibility. As can the champ himself, like Floyd did.

But at the end of the day, what we're doing here is looking back at fighters and discussing their careers, reigns etc. Having an opinion about a champion not facing the best contenders is a natural part of that discussion. I personally won't alter reality as I see it on basis of someone being exciting or not.

 

Sanity!

 

I have no idea what your talking about. I never said YOU were smug ..go back over the posts and you will see what I'm talking about. Zale is being treated like garbage here. Read between the lines man. It's unfair to him. Other fighters who were quoted saying they wouldn't fight Burley (Robinson) get a pass here while its insinuated that Zale was afraid to fight black men. Well that kind of crap does get under my skin. So again I dont know what your talking about.

 

What fighter did I call names???? What are you even talking about

 

You quoted my post, so it felt pretty natural to think that you took exception to what I was saying.

I don't have any deeper knowledge about Zale, but I see no reason to believe that he was scared of any fighters as such. If he had been scared, he wouldn't have given Graziano a rematch seeing how tough the first one was. And Cerdan certainly wasn't an easy pick for opponent after the Graziano trilogy.

Lesnevich seems to have gone out of his way to keep away from Bivins and Charles, but I don't see anything quite like that in regards to Zale and Williams/Burley. I do think at least one of them deserved a shot at the title, though.