Trying to make sense of Zale and Cerdan......

Not an ATG one.

 

your point is that no they weren't and ur rite

 

Charles
Moore
Burley
Overlin
Lamotta
Lytell
Wade
Belloise
Garcia
Richards
Marshall
Were at least as good as were they not?
How many of them do you think Graziano beats?

 

Charles
Moore
Burley
Overlin
Lamotta
Lytell
Wade
Belloise
Garcia
Richards
Marshall
Were at least as good as were they not?
How many of them do you think Graziano beats?
Zale fought just one of the Murderers Row, Nate Bolden winning 2 out of 4. Ranked members of that unofficial club whilst he was himself ranked include.
Burley
Lytell
Wade
Chase
Cocoa Kid
Booker
Williams

 

On Zale, he was basically a trial-horse type in the midwest until he upset NBA champion Al Hostak in January 1940 in a non-title fight. He then KO'd Hostak twice in championship fights. He loses to Billy Soose who later beats Overlin for the NYSAC championship, while Zale has good wins over Apostoli, Brown, and Tony Martin. Overlin is beating everyone, including Charles, but can't beat Soose, who beats him for his championship. Soose loses three times to Abrams and then abandons the NBA middle title to move up to light-heavy.

Zale and Abrams are finally matched in a unification bout. Abrams is already in the Coast Guard. Zale's win unifies the championship for the first time since Mickey Walker. Zale loses to Conn and then enters the service. I believe he served in the navy.

What do I think of Zale? He deserves credit for unifying the title but don't see him as being better than contemporaries such as Overlin or Soose. Any chance to improve the depth of his record was put on hold by the war.

Abrams had a very impressive record with wins over Teddy Yarosz, Lou Brouillard, Vic Dellicurti, Billy Soose x 3, Fred Henneberry, Ernie Vigh, Cocoa Kid, Henry Chmielewski, Izzy Jannazzo, and Coley Welch, and a draw with Burley. Abrams was a good win for Zale. Tony Martin is an overlooked contender who was the #2 NBA contender in 1942 behind Abrams for Zale's crown. Martin continued to be highly rated into 1945.

My take on Zale and the other 1940's champions is that a ? is more appropriate than dismissal. WW2 in many cases took their prime years and blew big holes in their careers. Zale did nothing after WW2 but the trilogy with Graziano, which certainly thrilled the fans and produced record gates. Graziano was his #1 contender when he signed to fight him.

So for Zale I give a ?? I don't know how good he was or could have been without the war. He had improved as an older fighter, as others like Overlin did. As is, he has a fairly thin resume. I don't know if he is overrated as I don't know who is rating him that high. He was a legit champion.

As for that long list of fighters Zale didn't meet, LaMotta didn't meet most of them either, and LaMotta was never in the military. Guys who didn't enter the military ended up with deeper resumes, but folks at the time thought the war time competition was second rate, which I guess is the reason WW2 ratings and reputations often didn't carry over into the post war years.

 

Some of this just isn't accurate.

"Jake was only rated #7 because the mob forced him to throw a fight"

First place, the mob can't force anyone to throw a fight. LaMotta could have refused. He elected to throw a fight to get in tight with the mob for future considerations.

His #7 rating in 1949 was not due to his throwing the Fox fight in 1947. He was dropped out of the ratings in early 1948, but by the end of the year was rated #3, back where he was before the Fox fight. He had lost his #1 rating in 1947 when he lost to Hudson, as the NBA ratings show:

September 11, 1947 NBA ratings
Champion--Rocky Graziano
1----Marcel Cerdan
2----Tony Zale
3----Jake LaMotta

His position at the end of 1948 was exactly the same:

December 21, 1948 NBA ratings
Champion--Marcel Cerdan
1----Tony Zale
2----Bert Lytell
3----Jake LaMotta

His drop in the ratings in early 1949 was due to losing to Laurent Dauthuille, plus probably the very controversial decision over Robert Villemain which few seem to have agreed with. It was here that his mob connections paid off as he was given the title shot up in Detroit as the #7 contender.

"fighting an aging Williams" and "fighting an aging Abrams."

Williams was 31 and Cerdan 30 in 1946. Okay, Williams was aging, but LaMotta fought him even later. As for Abrams, he was born on 11/11/1918 to Cerdan's 7/22/1916, which makes him over 2 years younger than Cerdan. Why isn't Cerdan cut any slack for aging. He was 32 when he beat Zale, older than LaMotta was when he was slaughtered by Nardico. He was a month shy of 33 when he defended against LaMotta.

"Does anyone really believe he would have defended against LaMotta if Jake hadn't paid Cerdan's mob handlers nearly $100,000 for the opportunity?"

And where did Jake get that kind of money? $100,000 would be serious money in 1949 when total live gates rarely made that much, let alone one fighter's cut. Where did the idea come from that he paid out that kind of money? Is Jake the source? The only plausible way I can think of for Jake having that kind of money is if he got it as a payoff for the Fox dive, in which case he was simply returning mob money to the mob.

I find Cerdan not receiving his purse from the Zale fight until he fought a designated opponent at a designated site more interesting than you do. I also find it interesting that the opponent selected was #7 rated LaMotta and the site Detroit.

 

Thats one way of looking at it but if you are being frozen out of fights and feel desperate while getting pressure from the mob whose control over the sport is increasing exponentially every day its pretty ridiculous to claim LaMotta made his choices and had other options. He didnt. The list of fighters who rose to the top after they "threw in with the mob" because THEY HAD TO in order to get consideration is a lot longer than those who refused to work with the mob. You might as well argue that a fighter could have made big bucks in the 90s by refusing to fight on HBO or Showtime or PPV. Its remarkable how every time out of the gate you have these blinders on to the context of the events. You are second guessing the decisions 80 years later of a guy who was actually living in those times and experiencing them in real time, not as some kid sitting in his basement reading magazines about them years later. Pretending LaMotto "threw in with the mob" and was somehow their darling is asinine and shows a complete lack of understanding of how his relationship with them was formed and evolved. The mob hated LaMotta and he hated them like poison. Even after LaMotta retired the mob was muscling in on him, forcing the sale of the venue he was promoting fights at to a mob front owner and stealing the fighters he was managing. You did business with these guys or you didnt go anywhere in the sport. And LaMotta's one driving passion, his motivation, was winning the title. He had already climbed all the mountains he set out to prior to that point. So if he wanted to accomplish his ultimate goal he had to do what they said. He was already one of the wealthiest fighters in the sport so it wasnt about money for him.

If you think LaMotta's loss to Fox didnt effect his rating or career trajectory you are nuts. He got bumped from the ratings and had to reclimb back up. His loss to Fox, a LHW who had only lost one fight to the champion and beyond that had an unblemished KO record was not supposed to effect his standing as a MW. He was supposed to get his title shot, which he undeniably deserved, within months of that fight. The resulting controversy and pitfalls set LaMotta back nearly two years when he had been at or near the top for YEARS prior to that. You cant seperate the two merely for the sake of your argument.

Who cares if LaMotta fought him later? What does that have to do with Williams being an aging fighter? LaMotta's career to that point wasnt built solely on the Williams fight. If you are trying to create some comparison between LaMotta's record against top fighters and Cerdans then be my guest, LaMotta's record of wins against contenders and willingness to fight top guys and threats shits all over Cerdans who wouldnt even fight the two best middleweights in France much less some of the killers LaMotta was facing. You seem to really be an apologist for Cerdan and thats fine but if you want to question why Cerdan isnt cut slack for his age just refer back to his weak record. Jake was in a lot of tough fights against a lot of tough fighters. Cerdan, not so much. Cerdan was bush league compared to the guys LaMotta was taking on. Ring wear counts for a lot more than age in boxing and LaMotta had a lot more wear and tear than a guy who had spent the vast majority of his career fighting subpar European competition. Me thinks the lady doth protest too much hence you trying to argue that Zale wasnt totally shot when he fought Cerdan. It makes Cerdan's win look less impressive if you accept that Zale was shot. Well this shouldnt come as a surprise to anyone who knows anything about Zale but he was shot. Draw your own conclusions about what that means for Cerdan's legacy.

This is what I dont get. You are arguing and dont even know what you are arguing about. Are you aware that Jake was one of the wealthiest boxers in the world at the time? Not because of his ring earnings but because he invested those earnings in rental property, parking lots, and two boxing venues that he promoted fights from, one of which had weekly televised fights. Jake gave the mob $50,000 in cash and his entire purse, which was about $20,000. LOL, at the comment that Jake was simply returning the mobs money. What a dumbass comment. The only way Jake made any money on the Cerdan fight was that he bet $10,000 in cash on himself, which should tell you about the confidence he had in beating Cerdan.

You find it interesting because you want to deflect the discussion to something that has nothing to do with it because you have an agenda. Maybe you should research the original contract Cerdan signed with the promotional company that promoted the Zale fight which got bought out afterwards by the IBC, you might find answers to your questions.

 

I take your points, and they are considered and well put,but I wasn't comparing him to Jake who may have been lucky to get the nod against Lytell .Years ago I put Zale in my top ten middles automatically that is not the case now.I would put Lamotta just above him wherever they ranked.

 

I wouldn't put either in a top ten, or very close to one.

Compare for example Teddy Yarosz, whom I suppose very few put in their top ten.

Overall 106 wins, 18 defeats 3 draws

Yarosz fought 11 world champions and defeated 10 of them, going 13-5 against world champions. The one he didn't defeat was Ezzard Charles in his penultimate fight, when he had slipped into opponent status and was losing often.

The ten champions he defeated-- Tommy Freeman, Vince Dundee (3), Ben Jeby, Pete Latzo, Babe Risko, Ken Overlin (2), Solly Krieger, Lou Brouillard, Billy Conn, Archie Moore

Conn beat Yarosz twice on split decisions before Yarosz won their third fight in 1938. Conn would not lose again to anyone except Louis.

Risko also beat Yarosz twice and lost in a third fight.

As for non-champions, the list is equally impressive:

Jimmy Belmont, Eddie Wolf, Lope Tenorio, Paulie Walker, Andy Divoldi, Sammy Slaughter, Paul Pirrone, Jimmy Smith, Tait Littman, Young Terry, George Black, Al Quaill, Ralph DeJohn, Oscar Rankins, Al Gainer, Nate Bolden, Jimmy Reeves, Lloyd Marshall

That list above, according to the Hardline Boxing Talk site on you tube, is of men who appeared in The Ring's yearly rankings. Quite a list to add to the champions.

I haven't done a middle top ten in a while, so I don't know if I would put Yarosz on it, but I think his credentials are much stronger than those of Zale, Graziano, Cerdan, or even LaMotta, and it is not a close pick.

Concerning Zale and Cerdan, I would give them ??. They did not get the opportunity to have the careers they might have had because of the war, so while I can't see putting them near the top of all time middle rankings, I also think trashing them is unfair.

 

Thanks for the discussion. I ask questions to learn things and throw out theories to elicit responses from which I can learn. As for the I suppose well-meaning "maybe you should research" recommendation, at 80 and living where I am, and life is pleasant out here for an old guy, it is impossible. If this contract is on the web, point out how to find it and I'll look it up.

As for this discussion, each of us will look at things differently. The cry me a river bit about LaMotta having to wait a couple of years for a shot he had "earned" falls flat with me. You point out that LaMotta was well off from real estate investments, which was, I assume given his origin, available to him due to his purses during WW2, while Zale, Abrams, and Belloise among many others were in the service. Zale had been in the steel mills since a youngster and when he finally got in a position with the championship to cash in, the war comes. I don't blame Zale one bit for going for the biggest purse available in 1946, and for that matter going for the biggest purse available in 1947. LaMotta was only 24 in 1946. He was only 25 in 1947. Zale was nine years older and near the end of the road. Graziano just happened to be the guy who could draw the gates due to his punch and style. I don't care about him one way or the other, but my real sympathy is with Zale here. As LaMotta had been named the next contender by the NYSAC without having to eliminate the other contenders, it looks like all he had to do is wait a year or so and keep winning. A less self-centered take would have been that he was fortunate to have been dealt such a good hand by fate. A lot of his contemporaries got it a lot worse.

I want to make explicit that why LaMotta didn't serve during WW2 isn't any issue for me. I assume there were valid reasons.

As for the Hudson fight, if he really didn't do his best to "impress" onlookers about not being that good, it is beyond silly. But I don't buy into that explanation at all. Where does it come from? Is it LaMotta's spin? The more likely explanation is that he held Hudson cheap and paid the price.

What it all comes down to is that in 1949 having money allowed him to pay off the mob or Jim Norris for a title shot which probably should have gone to a number of higher ranked contenders.

Belloise's obituary said he was expected to get that shot, being rated well above LaMotta, but Norris selected LaMotta.

Laurent Dauthuille was rated higher after defeating LaMotta, but was bypassed.

Cyrille Delannoit had beaten Dauthuille twice, as well as splitting with Cerdan. A rubber match with Cerdan might have seemed logical, but Delannoit was also bypassed.

As for Cerdan, who are these two French fighters? Dauthuille? Cerdan defended his Euro title against Delannoit for the good reason that Delannoit had beaten Dauthuille twice. Villemain? He was fighting at welter and defending the Euro welter title as late as December, 1947. When he moved up to middle in 1948 he fought an uninspired draw with Mark Hart. Cerdan was 32 and going for the world championship, not worrying about young French rivals coming along. Anyway, why didn't LaMotta fight Burley or Belloise? Names can be picked out of a bag for anyone and these aren't relevant for Cerdan.

Anyway, thanks for the discussion.

 

I have Yarosz at #13.

 

And again, why are you constantly trying to make this a discussion about LaMotta?? Its a discussion about whether or not Zale was shot when he faced Cerdan hence his poor performance and the overinflated opinion of Cerdan based on it. You can have all the sympathy in the world for Zale and Cerdan, which you do, clearly. But dont sit here and try to tell excuse Zale holding the title hostage. Ive already conceded ad naseum that I have no problem with Zale fighting an undeserving fighter like Graziano for the money ONCE. But thats not what Zale did. For two years after the war which had already frozen the title for four years Zale had 13 fights, two of which title defenses against Graziano. Then rewins the title then defends it against Cerdan. You can ignore the circumstances that resulted in Jake getting bumped from the ratings while also somehow ignoring the bizarre circumstances of just how Graziano got bumped ridiculously high in the ratings without ever defeating a rated middleweight. You can wish Belloise had gotten his title shot over LaMotta but ignore that Belloise had lost shortly before to Chuck Hunter who LaMotta knocked out and was stopped by Robinson who LaMotta defended against. You can trumpet Dauthille as a more worthy challenger and ignore that LaMotta actually did defend against him and knocked him out. So really what I see here is you twisting yourself into knots with double standard after double standard, ignoring any facts that diverge from the opinion that Cerdan and Zale were great (despite you fence sitting and saying you have "???" about them). You can believe what you want to about LaMotta. I dont buy into every story about or by him wholesale but I spent years researching his life for a documentary. I have all of his home movies. Hours and hours of interviews with him, Vikki, Joey, and many of the people associated with these events. Ive read the hours and hours and hours of testimony comprising four volumes of the Kefauver hearings. I could go on but you arent going to convince me because you formulated an opinion based on the little Ive shared with you and the little you can search on google that Jake wasnt hard done by the mob and that Graziano wasnt their darling, that Zale wasnt totally shot and protected after the war, and that Cerdan wasnt their puppet. Those are basically irrefutable facts if you actually knew what you were talking about. My opinions based on the man, the facts of his career and life are formed by hard research, not what I read in a Belloise obit or saw in Raging Bull. For instance your assertion that Cerdan couldnt have possibly ducked Villeman because he was fighting at WW etc. Horse****. Try learning French my friend and you will see that Villemain and Cerdan were signed for a fight in Paris before Cerdan came to the United States and Cerdan backed out. Again, you can pretend Cerdan was on to bigger and better things but he never even proved he was the best French middleweight much less the best middleweight in the world.

 

You can decry LaMotta being forced to play ball with the mob in order to get his shot but completely ignore that Cerdan was forced to do so as well while expressing great sympathy for Cerdans situation. More double standards. So Im supposed to believe that because Cerdan dominated a shot Tony Zale that he was great and as a result it wasnt a case of Zale being shot but Cerdan being so great? Get real. Im supposed to buy into the bull**** myth that Cerdan ONLY lost to LaMotta as bad as he did because he injured his shoulder and completely ignore that before he injured his shoulder LaMotta was ROYALLY kicked his ass all over the ring (a fact which almost every first hand observer made note of)? Or that every time Cerdan looked bad and/or lost he had an excuse handy? Raadik, Williams, Dellanoit, LaMotta... Lumbago, a cold, a bad shoulder, the list goes on. Im supposed to watch Cerdan beating up on a bunch of hapless European clubfighters and ooh and ahh at how great he is and ignore that he suddenly looked imminently human when he starts fighting anyone even remotely world class when any boxing fan should know that its a practice as old as the sport to match your fighter soft to make him look better by comparison? You make these ridiculous comments like "LaMotta just had to keep winning and he would have gotten his shot because the NYSAC named him the top contender." or "Belloise should have gotten the shot but Norris selected LaMotta" and dont even understand the actual circumstances on the ground. You read this window dressing in the magazines and newspapers and think you know how things worked. You dont. The NYSAC in the late 1940s on its last gasp. Outside of New York its power was as diminished as it had ever been since the legalization of the sport. The mob now had far more control over boxing in New York even than the NYSAC and in 1948/1949 when the IBC was formed and rapidly took over the sport this allowed the mob primarily via Carbo but not solely to spread their control throughout the country and in some internationally. Carbo controlled the fighters and the IBC through Jim Norris controlled the venues and the television dates. Norris relied on Carbo and hence it was Carbo, not Norris who chose LaMotta and he was chosen because of the deal he made with the devil. Nobody but you denies that. Just like Cerdan rising through the rankings the way he did, because he signed up with the mob. Just like Graziano did. Just like Fox did. Just like Bratton did. I could list these names all day but just go look at who was getting title shots and 95% of the time you will see men who had to do a deal with the mob in order to get there. So when Jake had attained his status BEFORE deal with the mob and resisted them as long as he could, why are you holding him to a higher standard than someone like Graziano who never once earned any of his four title shots? Or Cerdan who was complete Johnny Come Lately to the dance but signed up immediately with the mob and saw his stock skyrocket on a clear title winning trajectory? So yeah, if you understand how the sport was operating with the undercurrent of Mob control then you have to accept that all things being equal Graziano didnt earn his title shot, was completely unqualified actually, and wasnt nearly the threat that history paints him. This means that Zale struggled with a guy he shouldnt have because Zale was shot. He took that fight not just for the money but also because he had zero interest in facing anyone with a pulse. When he finally fought Cerdan and got dominated he was already talking about retirement it and it was lost on no one after the fight that he was a walking corpse. The ONLY reason to come to any other conclusion is that you want to continue the myth of the great Zale-Graziano series as this titanic struggle between two all time greats (it wasnt) and/or that you want to continue the myth that Cerdan had to be incredible for handling Zale the way he did because Zale was still great in 1948 and Cerdan beat him like a drum. None of this true which brings these beloved myths crashing down.

 

You are arguing with yourself as most of the positions you attribute to me are not my positions.

If I had an agenda to trash LaMotta I would jump on your anti-Cerdan bandwagon. After all, Cerdan is the man LaMotta won the title from. It strikes me as being better to win the title from an esteemed champion than from the cheese champion you are making Cerdan out to be.

LaMotta is on film on you tube discussing his opponents and says this:

"The greatest outside of Sugar Ray Robinson is Marcel Cerdan."

and a few sentences later, "The greatest fighter ever to come out of Europe."

I don't actually agree with that second part about the best fighter to come out of Europe, even to that point. I think WW2 delayed his entry on the world stage too long for Cerdan to establish the type of resume which justifies such a rating. Cerdan does look good on film and has a great statistical record, not really losing a fight on anything but disputed DQ's until he was 32 when edged by decision in the opponent's hometown, but immediately reversing it. I think Cerdan was probably well past his best by the time he got a title shot.

I have posted on this thread that LaMotta proved to be a worthy champion, defending against high ranking challengers and finally Robinson. So your point about Dauthuille is worthless, and so is the one about Hunter. These were 1950 fights, long after LaMotta jumped several contenders to get a title shot in 1949.

As for the French newspapers articles about Cerdan and Villemain, provide them. I an no Kuehnelt-Leddihn but I will do the best I can.

I stick to not seeing Villemain as relevant to Cerdan getting a title shot as Villemain was not rated in 1948 and Cerdan was the #1 NBA contender. If we are discussing Cerdan's standing merely as a French champion, then Villemain might be worth discussing.

By the way, as for who was the best French middleweight, Cerdan aside, of this era, I think it was Charles Humez. He and LaMotta shared five common opponents--Mitri, Dauthuille, Hairston, Hayes, and Janiro. Humez went 6-0. LaMotta beat all them, but went 5-2-1 and seems to have struggled a lot more than Humez with this group.

As for Graziano, who seems to be a burr under your saddle, he obviously excited people at the time. I think his getting a high rating probably tells us as much about how the other contenders were viewed as about Graziano.

My own feeling is that 1940's middles on the whole are overrated versus 1930's middles such as Steele, Yarosz, Overlin, etc. As for how good Zale and Cerdan were, I think a ? is more appropriate than extrapolating to extreme conclusions from a lack of evidence. Because of WW2, we will never know.

 

The argument for LaMotta deserving a title shot seems to be based on his popularity and the money involved rather than actual accomplishments.

He never actually proved he was the best middleweight in the world. There always seems to have been at least one or more guys around who were probably capable of beating him and who LaMotta either wasn't willing to face or when he did came up short.