This content is protected 1. Davey started throwing his typical noneffective jabs. Rocky tried unsuccessfully to bob and weave his way in, presumably to get in some body work. Davey. 2. Davey continued to pepper Rocky with his jabs. Rocky was warned for holding and hitting (Go Rocky!). Rocky landed a good overhand right midway through the round. And another right discouraged Davey who was on the retreat from then on. Graziano. 3-4. Rocky frustrated with his inability to penetrate Pitter Patter Davey. Both rounds for Davey. 5. Graziano landed assorted punches, mostly solid, but none too damaging. All of this occurring early, Rocky tired in the final minute, but still landed the better punches. Davey. 6. An early flurry by Davey deepened a cut on Graziano, who backed off. Rocky was just too exhausted to accomplish much from that point. He stayed crouched and moving in to keep from getting cut more badly. Also, Rocky was breathing with his mouth open, which would explain the mouthpiece that the ref scooted off the floor. Davey. 7. Davey. 8. Slap slap slap slap slap slap slap. All Davey ever does. Jesus Christ man. Put something into those punches. Graziano losing steam. Graziano. 9. Davey. 10. Graziano stumbling backwards. A testimony to his street fighting days that he still found the ability to stun Davey with a right hook. That completely turned the direction of the round to Rocky's favor. Davey was now on full retreat, and the bum that he is, afraid of being knocked out, shoved Rocky to the floor to knock some time off the clock. Davey came back to fight in earlier form. Davey. Final score: 8-2 for Davey. Verdict: No mystery to me. No fine line to walk. While Rocky's late semi-rally was refreshing, it was ultimately no better than expected. And trust me, being this is a Davey fight, not much was expected. Everything about the fight that was good was all because of Rocky. A less than average fight that you should scratch off your list of fights to see.
William, this fight came under a lot of scrutiny back in its day. The talk was Rocky tanked this fight. I will say there are moments there where Rocky looks like he is sleep-walking through the fight with no effort made, which probably fed into the whole rumor. Davey was referred to for years as a manufactured by TV-type fighter and was totally exposed when he was dismantled by Gavilan. The funny thing is, if you're going to create a fighter, you might want to make him a bit...oh, let's say exciting. I tell ya, a couple of months ago I sat down to watch Davey in his second fight with Basilio and switched to something else after one round. I said, 'life is too short for this.'
A couple of months ago I asked William, if he was planning to do this fight. The reason for this, was that I wanted to hear, if I'm the only one who believe this was a tank job! I can recall few fights, where a boxer was so obviously pulling his punches (at least that's how it looks to me), as in this one. With his herky-jerky, chin-in-the-air, amateur style, the feather-fisted Davey looks like someone Rocky would have blasted out of there in a couple of rounds - if he had actually tried. Why this didn't happen... well, one can only speculate!
How was Chuck Davey so popular if he had such a boring fighting style? It may have been because he was the fair-haired boy and appealed to many people who were casual fans at best. - Chuck Johnston
Chuck, to me, this is one of the many mysteries of the world. Perhaps it's just in the eye of the beholder. I'm very broad in my tastes of fighters who just tick all the boxes with me and Davey isn't one of them. I'm sure we all have a fighter in our head that does absolutely nothing for us.
I had not even thought of this one being a tank job up to this point, but now that I think about it, it seems plausible. There were moments were Rocky locked hurt when he wasn't, and he just seemed to lack the killer instinct. And somehow he failed to put Davey away when he had him bad off in one of the last rounds.
Just speculation, but perhaps Davey was just another attempt at the white community to use him to dethrone black fighters, but it just didn't turn out. He was not a great fighter and certainly not an exciting one, but he was a southpaw. Now, Gavilan had never fought a southpaw before, so maybe a lot of people thought that Davey could dethrone Gavilan. So whether he liked it or not, perhaps Davey was a sort of white hope. Total speculation, perhaps absurd, but brainstorming is not meant to be practical.
The world welterweight title bout between Kid Gavilan and Chuck Davey had a gate of $274,451., which was huge at the time. - Chuck Johnston
Could you imagine Chuck fighting Ton Zale. Rocky made more money in losing to Chuck. He could have knocked out this bum in 2rds and that's being generous. Mickey Rooney would have knocked out this guy.
Watching Davey is like buying an action movie out of a $3 drop box and watching for two hours only to find out the producers planned a sequel and so the scumbag villain gets away at the end. Frustrating. I just wanted to see one of these guys, Basilio or Graziano, catch up with him with a big punch. I must say Basilio did better. As for this fight, Graziano was 33 I think, not 30 as mentioned. Davey's wins over Williams, Basilio, and Graziano look impressive on paper, but Williams was losing to most everyone, and Basilio hadn't hit his stride yet. Graziano? I have seen him quoted as saying this fight was his "introduction to show business." My first memory of Graziano is as the love interest in Martha Raye's TV show. I go back that far. Was this one a fix? Hard to say. Davey was fast and kept that jab pumping. Graziano, like Basilio, was made to order. A shorter and come forward plodder allowing Davey to jab him all night and bounce out of range. The taller and quicker Gavilan will be a different test for a one track fighter like Davey. In fairness to Davey, one thing he sure had was stamina. And judges on his side. Davey won this one but I thought it was a bit closer than the scores. Can't wait to see Davey get his from Gavilan. Thanks for posting.
you take a college kid that has had some success in amateur boxing - slap fighting, back when there was a difference between amateur and pro- and you build him up. It happened before Chuck Davey and it has happened continuously ever since. In those days you built him up and paid name guys to lose, but eventually he would hit the wrong guy and lose. Now, you can build them that way and, at the end, they hit another guy that was built that way.
