When was Jersey Joe Walcott's Prime?

Roy Lazer was barely a second rater.

If you think that Lazer beat a prime Walcott, or a very good version of Walcott, then the implication would be that Walcott and Charles were not worthy to carry Max Baer or Lou Nova's spit buckets!

 

I wouldn't say that.

 

You would probably have to go further, and say that he was lucky that there were not guys like Tony Musto around when he was champion!

 

Nonsense.

 

More accurately, as well as it being a weaker era, Walcott was lucky to even be champion when he was.
He was 0-2 in his previous two fights going in to his title-winning effort against Charles. He was coming off a second loss to Charles and a loss to Layne.
... and no one can tell me Rex Layne would have stood above the pack of "Bum of Month Club" members of Louis's 1940-'41 campaign.

 

Would this be the first time you've heard somebody claim they were in great shape, and then post fight disclose they had an injury they kept under wraps. They didn't want to ruin the promotion of the fight or thought they could win anyways, but this is a all too common occurrence that I'm not the least bit swayed but much pre fight talk or post fight talk.

 

So now Tony Galento and Abe Simon are Walcott level fighters. That's a cool story.

 

Of course.
We just don't know.
But I think it is safe to say it wasn't a case of Walcott being pulled off the docks or dole queue at the last minute and thrown in as the 'opponent' to make up the numbers, as some people seem to portray his 1930s career. That Walcott featured prominently in a pre-fight article for an 8 round fight, suggests he was a normal professional fighter of the day, and not some exceptional case of under-preparation.

 

Abe Simon beat him.

 

I would say Rex Layne would stand out over Jack Roper, Paychek, Ancient Al McCoy, Red Burman, Guz Dorazio, Tony Musto

 

Condition of a fighter matters right? Are you saying that version of Walcott was peak or even a good version of Walcott? Lawler beat Roberto Duran....Choynski beat Jack Johnson.... We could go on an on.

 

We don't know, but I'm not using pre fight talk as proof of anything, so I think that is the telling different here. Further, you don't have to be working on the docks or a part time fighter in order to take somebody lightly or underprepare. We see full time fighters do this very thing, be smack dab in the middle of the prime and underestimate somebody. Doesn't mean that is the best version of that fighter, even if they are a full time fighter right?

 

Yes, Walcott was in his prime. He was 26 years old.
His rise to the higher reaches of the division happened because the heavyweight ranks were depleted by the war-time hiatus and he hooked up with a connected manager.

Abe Simon gave Joe Louis a very tough fight when they first met in March 1941 and that was a far better Louis than Walcott met in December 1947.
Walcott seems to get a ton of credit for getting (perhaps) robbed against a 1947 Louis.
But guys like Tommy Farr, Arturo Godoy and Abe Simon gave a PRIME Louis a tough fight and would be expected to do much better if they were facing a 1947 Louis.

 

Of course.
It might have been a very poor version of Roy Lazer who beat Walcott too, by that reckoning.

The point is, Walcott was probably in his prime around that time, in his mid-20s, and not in his mid-to-late 30s as some claim.
Walcott's greatness was in his longevity, physical and mental.
He became champion through sheer perseverence, to his credit.

 

Ok i've gone and done some research as to why Walcott seemingly primed up latter than the norm and wasn't at his best at an age when he was expected to be in his physical prime. Scartissue and god forbid choklab were on the right track for sure.

To keep it simple, and it is actually very simple -

Walcott really was destitute and struggling to put food on the table in his first career all the way to his 1940 "retirement". When he did get a bit of money e.g. $375 from beating Roxie Allen the money would be gone instantly to the grocery store, milkman, landlord and various other people as he was forever living in debt.

This went on all the way to 1940. Throughout this first career he had little time to train let alone train properly and also struggled to feed himself. Obviously this stunted him severely and led to the guy underperforming by a long way. He was talented but in continual poor shape and not being brought along.

The Pearl Harbour attack led to him getting a bit better wartime job. He was still living tough tho going a bit better.

He took two fights in 44 as he needed some extra cash.

The turning point of both his life and his boxing career came in late 44 when he was introduced to Felix Bocchicchio, a store owner, local promoter and president of an athletic club among other less savory things.

Felix brought in a manager for Walcott, had his license re-instated and took care of he and his families financial burdens and set them up better.

He then set him up with trainer Nick Florio who was experienced and held in high regard.

Florio got him straight into a regular training and eating routine which would obviously make one helluva difference given his previous circumstances. Three square meals a day with lots of meat, vegetables and roadwork were a big part of the new regime.

At this point Walcott was 30 and about to start realizing what true potential he had left.

They gelled well and over the next few years worked on feinting and hand movements among other things and developed Walcott's shuffle and "walkaway". Walcott's only other world class trainng had been 12 months with Blackburn in his first career.

So now he could concentrate on getting into good fighting condition on a semi-permanent basis. He still held his job but now was able to do shorter weeks and put a lot more time into boxing.

From here on it was mostly up and up for Walcott and all this comfortably explains why he peaked late in life imo, later than countless others had.

Regarding the 46 losses - Post fight X-rays showed Walcott broke a bone in his left hand and injured knuckles on his right against Maxim. The decision was also controversial and the AP scored the fight for Walcott.

The Ray verdict was fair but quite close.

It's far from impossible Walcott was still improving a little.

Walcott came back to beat both straight away in his next two fights. The Maxim rematch was also close.

The Louis fight was next and I'd say Walcott due to the various factors outlined was now definitely prime from about 1946 with age slowly starting to collide with the career and lifestyle turnaround. It's fair to say Walcott stayed well above where he had been pre 1944 for multiple years imo.