do you give Joey Maxim credit for stopping Ray Robinson

Why would he have been worried, given that temperatures had been recorded at seasonal norms, up until the originally scheduled day of the fight, and only began to rise the day after that, when it had been postponed for 48-hours?

 

I think most would agree that Robinson misjudged the situation and poured on too much, early on.

 

Anybody else thinks Maxim is underrated generally? Layne and Ray are well considered by some based on their fights with Walcott and Charles but Joe rarely gets a mention as a heavyweight. Sheppard, Tangberg, Patterson, Bivens, Lesnevich, etc are a good backup bunch and he rarely got hammered.

 

I think it's inevitable that Maxim rarely gets a mention as a heavyweight because he won the World Title at Light Heavyweight .

 

He said that he was worried as he got to the arena and that when he got in the ring he thought his feet would blister. He describes having what we would call a panic attack because he had had those heat strokes as a child.

 

Very cagey guy, not spectacular, but effective and with a great chin.

 

I'm not sure how much stock I place on the words of Maxim, regarding this fight. After all, we're led to believe, by him and his camp, that to lose almost every round against Robinson on the way to knowing he would retire was the way they had planned it all along.

 

I'm not sure he is underrated. Maxim, as a far as I can tell is seen as having been above average. But I do get the impression that he was promoted heavily and favored in the media. I do think he was good; just not extraordinary.

 

None of the guys who didn't stop Robinson were nearly as big as Maxim.

That should be more taken into account than most seem to on this thread.

Also, all the guys Robinson KO'd were also not nearly as big as Maxim, and most probably weren't even p4p as durable.

 

I give Maxim credit.
I've argued this subject dozens of times and can't be bothered to get into it again deeply.

Simply, if you're still in the fight and the other guy (for whatever reason) can't fight his fight for the schediuled distance in the same conditions as you, you deserve credit for staying in there and outlasting the other guy.

Robinson wasn't equipped to change his tactics to conserve energy to go the full 15 and win.
Maxim was equipped to go 15 rounds and had no quit in him.
He won fair and square.

 

"chances are the hot conditions wouldn't have mattered if he was fighting Fusari, Graziano"

Maxim was probably about 20 lbs. or more heavier than Graziano, and probably more than 30 lbs. heavier than Fusari. That is a huge gap compared to middles and welters.

I like this post, but being hot isn't subtle. I live in an area which is very hot in the summer, often well over 100, and there is no way of not knowing about how hot it is immediately when you go out into the heat. I don't find it credible that that Robinson in any way could have been taken by surprise by the heat

"he fought the least smart fight of his career. He was moving twice as much as Maxim."

Like others, your bottom line premise seems to be that Robinson elected to fight this way, rather than he had no real choice against such a big man but to keep moving. He couldn't stand and exchange with Maxim and he couldn't out jab him.

It is like a wolf fighting a bear. Yeah, the wolf is going to be running all about going in and out and keeping moving, but the wolf has no real option as the bear is too big go head to head with.

 

I will step out of the debate to just say this is a very interesting fight as there is such a wide reaction to what we are seeing. (someone posted he has Robinson winning the 13th!)

I just recommend that if you watch the full fight, turn down the sound and watch it silent w/o the commentator telling you what you are seeing. I noticed it even effects me if I listen to him. I think humans tend to look for what they are told to look for, so a guy saying relentlessly how dominant Robinson was causes you to accept that rather than what is actually before you.

So watch in silence and judge for yourself what you see. Just a recommendation. For this, or actually any fight.

In one of the late rounds the commentator remarks that it is difficult to understand how Maxim could have stood up to such a beating and such punishment. Well, I have no trouble understanding it. Maxim did not take much punishment. He was hit by relatively few clean punches to the head, and the body punches from a man 50 lbs lighter than many he was used to fighting didn't bother him. Maxim ended the fight unmarked.

 

"he would have been better advised to restrict his movements to conserve energy whilst still outboxing him."

This assumes he could outbox Maxim w/o relying mainly on mobility. I don't think that was in the cards.

Over the last half of the fight, Robinson spends a lot of time circling and trying to jab Maxim to the torso. Why? Why not jab to the head? Well, Maxim was winning the jabbing contest so this wasn't a viable option. There was no value in throwing jabs at Maxim's high guard and getting them blocked while taking a jab in return.

 

Who posted that?