This content is protected 1. Ez was in top form. Bouncy and more aggressive than usual. So ****in' fast and strong. Maxim clinches and gets cornered to death. There was a one-sided exchange near the end, with Maxim rocked just a tad by it. Charles landed a hard left hook after the bell. It was a pretty hard blow evidently, for Maxim to go back to his corner holding his forehead. Charles. 2. More of the same. Charles. 3. Charles. 4. Ez was doing good body work. Something I hadn't seen out of him before, at least not to this degree. This was Maxim's most successful round as of yet, subduing Charles' attacks with rough tactics. Charles was starting to revert back to a defensive posture every now and then. Charles. 5. There was a good, brief exchange early on. Charles leads and dominates for the most part, but gets wild, misses, and Maxim throws back, narrowly missing Charles' head. Charles struggles to hit Maxim often and cleanly, because Maxim blocks and entangles their arms so much. Even. 6. This was the slowest round yet. Even. 7. More of the same. Actually, some in-close hooking occurred between the two. Charles scored well before the bell. Charles. 8. There was a good exchange of hooks on the inside. It was a surprisingly fast-paced round actually. Charles hurt Maxim a couple of times; Maxim looking ready for home. Charles. 9. Maxim actually hitting Charles with hard left-rights. Maxim. 10. Charles got a fast start like he did in the early rounds. Once again, a round that seemed to be shaping up to be a decent round. It ended a grueling, hard-fought, competitive, and quite close. Even. 11. Charles. 12. Charles opened fast. Pretty furiously contested round. Charles. 13. Charles rocked Maxim with a left hook, and a good flurry followed. Charles. 14. Charles. 15. Not shown. Final score (incomplete): 10-1-2 for Charles. Verdict: My personal affinity might get in the way here. As you guys know, I don't have a problem watching guys like Carlos Monzon, Eddie Machen, Zora Folley, and Emile Griffith. If you have problems with those guys, you wouldn't like this fight. I admit it was not stellar, but it was not terrible. It was an actively fought fight with a decent overall work rate. I enjoyed it for the excellent film quality and Charles. Charles was a in top form. Watch it if you like those things. Otherwise, you would probably not appreciate it.
Yeah, I don't know what the hell's up with him changing his last name to Maxim, cuz his jab was like a maxim gun?
I It would be like Byrd changing his name to Chris Cannon or somethin. I kind of get the name in relation to his jab.
His manager once said that "he threw punches quicker than a Maxim gum". Then the name stuck. Dunno if I'm getting my wires crossed here, but I'm also pretty sure he was a military police officer and boxed in the army so it could've come from those lads as well.
Anyway, I like this fight. I thought Charles looked good - not great - and Maxim was underwhelming. I was absolutely impressed by Charles' power in this one, though. It takes a real dig to hurt Maxim, and Charles had one and it's often underrated. Joey often gets a little overrated IMO, because I've seen people on here try and make out that he's an all-time great of sorts, which he wasn't. He was a very good fighter, who picked up the title at HW, and beat some absolutely brilliant wins; Bivins, Robinson, Patterson, Walcott, etc. He was a beastly unit at the weight. Absolutely massive, hard as nails, fast handed and very strong. His weaknesses bore a lot of similarities with De La Hoya. Both too left-handed centric, both too tense, both comparatively (to their era) weak on the inside and both working with primarily low outputs (although Maxim's stamina was far better than Oscar's). Some fighters would've killed to have the physical aspects that Maxim did, and would've resented the fact that he largely underused them. Charles was a higher class of fighter and it showed here repeatedly.
I think this fight to a degree illustrates why Ezzard wasn’t appreciated as much in his time. He impresses but doesn’t overwhelm. No one ever walked away from a Charles fight in his day wowed the way, say, a Roy Jones Jr would impress with speed or a Bob Foster would with power. He was a guy who got the job done but he looks better in hindsight in aggregate when you add it all together than he really did in any particular fight that you can point to and say, ‘How could anyone beat this man?’
Agreed, funny that he sheared off 2 of Mills front teeth , and beat up and stopped the fairly rugged Freddie !!
I think it is the nature of the beast. If you want to fight often and successfully you will need to be a thinking man. Of course there are outliners but I think that a lot of the oldies with LONG careers where very safety first.
Reading this I should clarify my own position on Charles. I thought Charles was in top form in terms of what you and I at least would expect out of Charles. He was in great physical condition, and his speed, combinations, mobility, and punching power were razor sharp. I wasn't impressed with Charles in the way he won this fight. It was all but glamorous.
Safety first describes Maxim. He makes his opponent miss and miss and miss, at least to the head. Slowing the film down to super slow motion one sees Charles, and also Robinson in their fight, never really hitting him as much as they appear to. He slips and rolls or bounces away, always seems to be either too far away or too close and tying up, or ducking. But Maxim doesn't make his opponents pay for missing. He is content to kill the other guy's offense, and very rarely counterpunches. His offense for the most part is restricted to pumping out what appears to be a fairly nondescript jab. It was odd that the very few times Maxim went on the offense, I thought he did surprisingly well, but getting into a slugfest was not what he wanted to do. He seemed content to survive without any great harm being done to anyone and both men staying champions in their divisions. Charles won the fight on aggression and left hooks to the body, but really didn't seem to get to Maxim very effectively. As for Maxim's all time rating, I think he would do very well against the older boxers in the light-heavy division. Gibbons and Loughran are shorter men who might not have enough offensive firepower to do anything but get into a jabbing contest with a man who is taller and rangier. I think they would probably lose it. Against skilled boxer-punchers such as Charles or Moore, Maxim didn't have enough offense to win rather than just put up a good showing.
Gibbons had 2 handed firepower and loughran would negate that reach of maxims, I mean Baer had a longer and got handled.
