I don't see much reason to think it was a robbery. Neither The Seattle Daily Times, nor The Seattle Post Intellgencer gives the impression Charles was even close to winning, let alone deserving the decision. The AP called Matthew's victory over Ezzard Charles "decisive".
I'm referring to the Layne "win ,"over Charles. After Marciano and pre Mathews Charles had 16 fights and lost 8 of them. Mathews beat a relic.
Those are hardly the cards of a blatant hometown decision. Nat Fleischer scored the fight a draw, but said "the decision was a good one". Overall it seems the press generally gave it to Charles, but it was a very close fight. Ogden Standard Examiner- 1952 Aug 09 (page 6) Arguments were plentiful after the fight over the decision. Naturally the Layne boosters figured it was swell but Charles backers didn't feel very good. The United Pres scored the fight four rounds for Charles, three even. The Associated Press gave Charles a slim edge but International News Service had Layne the winner. Eddie Bohn of Colorado, a veteran at the fistic hame, called the fight four for Charles, three for Layne and three even. Carl Webster of one of the Seatle papers figured Layne a wide winner, 6-3-1 The Salt Lake Tribune- 1952 Aug 09 (page 12) Layne, rated as much as a 2-1 underdog in the national experting, took everything the former champion had to offer, and came back to dish out enough punishment to gain the narrow verdict from Referee and sole judge Jack Dempsey. It was a ssavage, hard-fought bout all the way and so close that few ringsiders envied Dempsey the job of picking the winner.
You asked for reports that differed to the one you provided I've provided them. If I gave you another hundred you would disparage and pooh pooh them,I 've never known you to accept your might be wrong its like trying to debate with fanatic .Im out.
at least the Reports are being considered, not so long ago here, they would have been 'blanked' and claims would have been made they don't even exist, or there are no such reports. I don't know a great deal about this fight, only that Layne later disappointed his hopes, or just met better men. what I do know is, Everybody knows Boxing IS Crooked, we ALL Know it, but then, sometimes, when such controversies come up, they get rejected without objectivity, which is in contradiction to Knowing the Sport is a Crooked Business... it's a bit of a head scratcher at times.
Basically this. If Lowry threw the fight he did a poor job of it as many seemed to think he deserved the nod, he himself was vocal about being robbed, and a rematch was eventually necessary to put aside any doubt. If this was a fix, it was the worst of all time. The Rock got hurt many times but showed excellent recovery, he wasn't invincible, especially this early in his career, but the idea he had to be protected from a KO loss is ridiculous. As far as I'm concerned, Lowry was the more experienced fighter and got off to a great start before tiring, Marciano rallied even if sloppy, and as usual in the old days aggression was favored by the judges. As for the uppercut? He could have stopped using it for any number of reasons. Fighters abandon specific punches after early success all the time. Hardly evidence of a fix. I don't doubt many fights have been fixed but this one requires too many stretches as you pointed out.
Up until the 1960s top rated Light Heavyweights we're absolutely thought of as credible opponents to HWs. A win over a top rated LHW could actually launch a HW up the ratings in fact. This happened many times before Marciano/Matthews. And you are correct. RING rarely rated fighters in two divisions unless they cemented themselves as a deserving title contender. Largely because contenders from neighboring divisions fought each other so regularly, it would be unnecessary to rate them twice unless they were actively campaigning for a title shot in said division as Moore did. Anyone arguing otherwise is ignorantly applying modern match making standards and practices to the past without understanding how things actually were.
Mathews win over Murphy never launched him anywhere as far as the heavyweight ratings were concerned ,he never at any time appeared in them! Unlike Maxim and Moore! Mathews never cemented himself as a heavyweight challenger either.Mathews got a match with Marciano because his manager Jack Hurley made such a stink about the I B C and its monopolistic ways it became a cause celebre and a Congressman involved himself in it.Frankie Carbo whose puppet the IBC was then instructed Al Weill, Marciano's manager to take the fight to take the attention and heat off. Pre 60's Conn was the no1 heavyweight contender in 41 , no4 in45.Bettina was no4 in 41 and 46 ,Maxim no7 in47.n05 in48.Harvey no7 in 38 and Rosenbloom no 5 in38 . I'm certainly not perfect, but neither am I ignorant as you have suggested, and in this case I think I know a bit more about the circumstances and background to this fight than you do!
