Send in your ATG to outbox and/or beat Ezzard Charles at LHW

Me? I think he ko's Charles,I thought we were picking guys who had a shot at outboxing him,.

 

If a 40+year old Hopkins could so thoroughly beat him, then I give Tarver a less than 1% chance of beating a prime Charles.

Roy Jones is definitely the best possible option of modern fighters, though.

 

Ezzard was too good for the lightheavyweight division, which was not really seen as a real division until much much later. Lightheavyweight was really a sub division within a division. It had its ranking and belt but it wasn’t really a real exclusive division yet. Back then, They really were lighter -heavyweights among the actual heavyweights so the lighter heavyweights had this extra crown they could use as a springboard to fight the proper heavyweight champion. Thats why there no was no money in it.

The lightheavyweight champion was Gus Lesnavich who was offered huge money to fight Freddie Mills in London, probably the biggest money fight in the lightheavyweight division up to that time. That fight was the closest money that championship got to making compared to what the heavyweight championship could make. So there was no way Charles was getting in the way of Mills vs Gus.

 

You could say Tommy Burns had already accomplished that when he beat O' Brien since both were inside the lhvy limit.

 

I don't really agree with this.the Light heavyweights ,like any other division have had highs and lows,but many champs have earned fortunes at175lbs
For example;
Paul Berlenbach v Young Stribling 1926 Berlenbach's purse was $78,520!
Berlenbach v Jack Delaney 1926 pulled in a crowd of over 49,000 ! And that was only for the NY version of the title!
Tommy Loughran v Mickey Walker 1929 Loughran received $67,000 for that defense! In the 20's light heavyweight title bouts regularly pulled in over 20,000 at the gate .In contrast Deontay Wilder couldn't fill up the 18,000 capacity Barclays Center!

 

But to put it into context, even in those times, the British heavyweight title fights drew more money on average than World lightheavyweight title fights. A national title being a bigger deal than a World title.

For many years the lightheavyweight championship was just a token thing that might help a small heavyweight move into the heavyweight rankings.

 

I'm referring to the world boxing scene.Let's be honest Freddie Mills was extremely fortunate to get a title shot, he had been wrecked by Lloyd Marshall who was conceding a lot of weight,promoter Jack Solomons effectively bought the title from the fading Lesnevich who wanted no part of title defences against Charles and Moore. fighters like Jack London,,Bruce Woodcock ,meant nothing on the world stage and I'm pretty sure neirher ever pulled in over $78,000 as a purse!

 

The light heavyweight division has received much more attention in the past than it has recently

 

The best possibly greb,tunney, langford, B Hop.

 

As I said, Greb is someone who would look outboxed, unskilled and outsmarted but he would still win the fight. That's how he was, don't expect him to look good based on modern cannons.

 

Champions like Delaney ,and Berlenbach, filled arenas back in the 20's