Good morning ( well in the UK ) buddy, nicely put together counter against Charles greatness, if I may, their might be some anomalies along the way, which I believe need to be taken into account before the final conclusion they being.... In no particular order, you are correct in your assertion that he was beaten by Overlin, worth noting that Ken was still a force at that stage posting wins over Hostack, and drawing with Apostoli, also that year he beat Yarosz considded by a lot of authorities as a very , very, good technician, so all things thrown in, not too shabby, wouldn't you agree. Up to the 7rd KO he suffered only 5 fighters claimed wins, the Marshall win was somewhat tainted , because it was rumoured that Charles had gone into the fight with a hip injury , Bivins and Ray also beat him, Jimmy a world class LHW come HW, who was somewhat avoided in his prime , and Ray had a 20lb pull in the weights, and again was seen as a fighter to avoid, not so a young Charles, as you will know ( you have a good history of our sport ) Ezzard reversed both losses, and by way of retribution both were by the KO route. There could be an argument that beating Moore 3 out 3 ( last by KO ) and posting 2 wins over Burley, should on their own cement his greatness, throw in Maxim, Lesnevich, both champs, and a host of good LHW and you have a pretty good resume, I would have thought. Like many a fighter before and after him, he fought on much to long as to dent his overall career, by the time he fought over here, the Charles of old was long gone. For me he was a great fighter, prob as a HW maybe not so much, as we know the Baroudi incident weighed heavily on his mind, and somewhat altered his style, he seemed to fight with less spite, and he could appear a tad pedestrian, and he also lacked " colour " in the fighting sense of the word, but all in all, how bad. stay safe buddy, chat soon.
this analysis is exactly the way ALL Fighters should be viewed - there ARE ALWAYS Factors, just sheer busyness for one, lends to the odd lesser performance, then there are losses in the early years of careers, as well as losses in the later years... questionable decisions, robberies, blatant corruption and stepping up in weight... these are all FACTS, especially in Era's and times when these realities were all present in 100 & 200 fight careers... It is not only honest & objective, it is Recorded History. How can we view any fighter, athlete or even normal everyday life accurately if we don't account for all such facts. Mind you there are a few self professed experts on these sites that do exactly that, or are very selective when acknowledging such facts or not. Charles was a Great fighter, I think most people except that, he did get uneventful coverage at times, but so too did JJW and Lloyd Marshall, but it is quite clear they too are Great Fighters. as I say, there are Thousands of Great Fighters in a 150 Years of Boxing History, most get very little ink after their long, successful and commendable careers.
Yeah, although Greb has his resume mixed within two divisions. No disagreement with that from my part though, Greb is probably my choice for P4P GOAT.
First off how are you rating him, as a all time light heavyweight or an all time great ? What light heavyweight defeated more great fighters ? There are some very incomplete points being made such as he didn't beat Overlin but leaves out that Ken had over 130 fights at the time of their match ups and a very young Charles had less than twenty I think .. Marshall was a terrific member of Murder's Row who when given the rare opportunity to fight white fighters completely outclassed Jake LaMotta. Bivins was another great fighter .. Charles learned from defeats to comeback and establish his superiority over them .. Moore and Burley, all time great fighters .. to go all the way up to heavyweight and winning the title is a hell of an accomplishment for a guy basically starting at 160 .. It's interesting that Greb gets deserved credit for fighting some terrific black fighters, most notably Norfolk and Flowers and they happened to be some of the most challenging opponents of his career .... well Charles fought all the toughest fighters in three divisions his entire career .. as far as his losses, I'd really break his career down to before and after he was heavyweight titleholder .. twenty of his twenty five losses came after he lost his title ..not only past his prime but still competing as a heavyweight and still managed to give another all time great, Marciano, the toughest fight of his career .. do you rate Ray Robinson by his nineteen or so losses ? So who was greater at 175 if we establish that as Charles prime weight ? There can only be in my opinion a handful of possible options .. Maybe Sam Langford, Harry Greb, Bob Foster and Michael Spinks ? Maybe Gene Tunney ? All amazing fighters but I think without question Charles fought the best opposition by far with the only possible debate at all in Langford and Greb .. I guess no matter what he should be in the very top handful at 175 and when you consider his level of opposition and accomplishments in the top half dozen at least P4P ..
I have read that Charles was in the army in 1943 and did not train for Marshall or Bivins. If true, this puts this two fights in a much different light.
You are mistaken. The color line was at Heavyweight before Charles even turned pro. Battling Siki was the Light Heavyweight champ in the 1920s. John Henry Lewis was champ in the 30s. Moore was champ in the 50s. Harold Johnson came after him. In the 1940s, there was this problem called World War 2. All the titles were frozen for essentially the first half of the decade. Most defenses didn't resume until 1946. Charles left the division in 1948.
Great post, and All FACTS like I said, Like I ALWAYS Say, FACTS not excuses... the only thing I would stress, and I forgot too mention on my own post is, though it is mentioned in the analysis of an Individual Fighters here spoken of. We FORGET and all too often, forget to credit, mention... Losses, yeah losses to Other TOP Great and/or Noted Fighters. we forget too quickly that TOP Fighters can and do beat Better Fighters and there is NO Shame in such losses, especially with all of the Facts, FACTORED In.
Here is where all this stuff with Charles goes off the rails. Charles was considered a top light heavyweight contender for a couple years in the late 40s. Then he moved up to become a heavyweight champ. All fine and good. But people then, and during his lifetime, didn't really think a whole helluva lot about it. Because they were actually around then and remembered when it was all going on. People today throw out names like he "fought Burley." Have you looked up where Charley Burley was rated when Charley Burley actually fought? He was a top five contender at WELTERWEIGHT. Later, he was briefly a top five contender at middleweight in the late 40s. That's it for Charley Burley. I know Moore said Burley was one of the toughest guys he ever fought. And people NOW go on and on (and freaking ON) about Charley Burley. But I have magazines from the late 70s and early 80s where old guys (at the time) like Archie were being interviewed about their fights and when Moore said Burley ... everyone went scrambling to go find out who that was. Because, at the time, he was just considered another guy. Not the greatest anything. And it's not like some treasure trove of footage was uncovered that lift the lid off anything. Everyone knew who he fought back then. He had a good reputation. Now, fans act like he was among the greatest who ever walked the earth. It wasn't like Ezzard Charles beating Charley Burley MEANT ANYTHING back then other than "Unrated Middleweight Charles beats #5-rated Welterweight Burley over 10 rounds." Today, it's like "a win no man who ever held a light heavyweight title could possibly dupilicate -- those two wins over that top five welterweight contender in 1942." It's ludicrous. Ezzard Charles was a top light heavyweight contender for about a year and half and made the decision to move up when Joe Louis called it a career (the first time). Charles beat some top guys at light heavyweight (like Moore) who would YEARS LATER become light heavyweight champ and was considered a great one. Charles also beat and LOST to a lot of people who never won anything. It wasn't the greatest resume in light heavyweight history. It wasn't even considered anything special back then. Because it wasn't at the time. It's only became a "hipster" argument about a half-century after the fact ... when every guy Charles fought who was black apparently was "the greatest fighter ever -- even if they never won anything." People ignore the fact that at the time most of these "greatest fighters ever" Charles fought either were just contenders or weren't even rated at all. And many of the bad fighters he lost to were never anything at all. It gets maddening because people act like they can just toss out a name like "Burley" and everyone is supposed to bow down. It's all a reimagining of what was actually happening at the time. It drives me nuts sometimes. So I'm going to go enjoy my day. Have a good one.
There were three LOGICAL contenders listed in the National Boxing Association ratings at light heavyweight at the start of 1948 - Billy Fox, Archie Moore and Ezzard Charles. All were black. Fox was mobbed up. Moore and Charles weren't. So Fox got the title shot and lost. So then Charles got mobbed up with the IBC and Carbo, too. And he got a vacant title shot with Walcott and another DOZEN heavyweight title fights ... to the point that by Walcott-Charles 4 people were like "can someone else fight for the title" ... including a couple title shots against Marciano where Charles got precedence over more deserving contenders like Harold Johnson and Nino Valdes who had beaten his ass. Moore didn't get mobbed up right away, and had to wait for years. That's not a color line. Sorry.