Larry Holmes vs Jersey Joe Walcott

Yeah Joe was robbed against Joe Louis once and was maybe slightly ahead when he got KO’d by a very old and creaky Louis in the rematch … that was part of Walcott’s charm, being ahead before getting KO’d. He repeated that act vs. Marciano.

As for Ezzard, nothing controversial there. Ezz ‘edged’ him by 10, 17 and 18 points on the scorecard in the fight he lost before getting a near-immediate rematch and Charles’ other win wasn’t close either. Joe did finally catch up to him after his mob connections kept getting him rematches.

This 1945-47 Walcott I see cited here is a complete fabrication. He was fighting 6- and 8-rounders … preliminary fights … throughout 1945. Among those was a loss to an 11-15 guy.

In 1946 he was pretty good but he also swapped wins and losses back and forth with light heavyweight Joey Maxim and 20-loss Elmer Ray. Both were decent heavyweights but no, I don’t think they stack up as better than most of Larry’s title challengers … at least those guys were heavyweights, unlike Joey. And Ray was good but horribly inconsistent.

Walcott had skills but ran hot and cold. If you’re touting Ten Hutt or whatever his name was as a big win, well, that says a lot. Rex Layne beat him and they just pretended it didn’t happen.

 

I can't tell you about that. I base my estimate of his prime years on his record and on the available footage we have on him.
He was quite simply way too accomplished in 1945-1947 compare to his other years.
Knowing that he was properly financed and under new management in 1944, it makes sense to me that he would be better than he was previously when he had to juggle part time jobs with boxing to feed his family.
After 1947 he was admittedly too old to be considered prime anymore and even by the second Louis fight he looks slower than he was in the first fight against Louis the year before.

 

i posted what i thought 7 years ago.

one guy is bigger and better.

no disrespect to walcott, any man who makes his bread from boxing has my utmost and walcoltt is in the top 1%

 

I don't tell lies.

Ducks-in-a-Row: a look at Felix Bocchicchio and boxing. (charlie-allison.com)

The Gangster, Jersey Joe & The Bo-Bet • Historic Camden, NJ (camdenhistory.com)

Camden People - FELIX BOCCHICCHIO (dvrbs.com)

The Philadelphia Crime Family circa 1954-1966 - GangsterBB.NET Forums for Mafia Movies & More

 

His Manager being a part of the mob is very well substantiated.

H\ve you seen the complete Louis v Walcott first fight?
Because ,if you haven't ,you are not in a position to say with any authority that Walcott was robbed,That late and fine poster Djanders saw it live and he was over 80 when he died.
As far as I am aware no complete version of the fight is in the public domain.
I totally agree with the rest of your post.

 

A 'minor member' in the words of one your articles. I doubt that he would have had that much influence.
Good info, something to consider. But not exactly incriminating.

 

Walcott and Louis were the same age.
Walcott was only able to focus his energies on his boxing career after WWII.
He won 8 out of 9 fights in '45, was 2-1 against Maxim, and was 2-1 against Elmer Ray who he had previously KO'd. 5 out of the 9 fights he fought were 10 rounders. Elmer Ray had a 89-19 record. I think Walcott from '48-'52 is every bit as good as '45-'47.
Charles v Walcott - First Meeting:

• Referee: Davy Miller 77-73
• Judge: Franklin Spike McAdams 78-72
• Judge: Harold Marovitz 78-72

The scorecard of the second meeting was outrageous and many fans booed the decision. If a journalist at ringside scored the fight 8-5-2 for Charles, and the fans reacted negatively against it then the margin of that scorecard is a little suspect no? There are partial highlights of the fight and I don't get the impression that Walcott was getting dominated like the scorecards suggested.
The mob claims are unsubstantiated.
Yes, he did lose to your aforementioned 11-15 in his 2nd fight after a 4-year hiatus from fighting against a guy who had been fighting. Of course it still doesn't look good.
We have to bring up Larry's shortcomings too right: Why did Larry feel the need to pick on inexperienced fighters like Bonecrusher, Marvis, Bey, Williams, Ocasio and L.Spinks to pad his record? Why did Holmes have trouble with 19-8 Weaver? Why did Holmes duck Pinklon Thomas?
But if we're gonna obsess over records then here's a few for you:
Joe Baksi 46-4
Steve Dudas 66-23
Jimmy Bivins 52-5
Lee Oma 52-26
Tommy Gomez 54-4
Harold Johnson 28-1
Omelio Agramonte 39-7

Walcott regularly fought guys with a experience. How many guys did Holmes fight (outside of Norton, Shavers and Ali) with more than 30 total fights on their record when they fought.
I never denied that Walcott ran 'hot and cold'.
I only mentioned Hoff because the kid said that Walcott never fought a fighter with an 84' reach. I don't know anything about him, it was simply a matter record.
Layne should've got a title shot after beating him, I agree.
At the end of the day, this is a question of Holmes' style v Walcott's on their best night and I see Walcott getting the victory. He was more elusive and more powerful than Holmes, better defensively, better footwork, and better timing (at his best).

 

I offered it as a possible explanation as to why he got 5 shots the title ,I never stated it was the definitive reason.
Walcott was never a fans favourite, nor a big box office draw,if you have a reasonable alternative explanation that's fine.
Fans saw the Charles v Walcott series as decidedly underwhelming,neither were regarded in their own time anywhere as highly as they are today.

 

I knocked up this thread to explain why Walcott's physical prime and peak as a fighter aren't really the same. It's quite self explanatory.

https://www.boxingforum24.com/threads/the-curious-case-of-jersey-joe-walcott-and-his-prime.643117/

There's seems to be a serious lack of information and understanding (and plenty of misinformation) as to when Joe's prime actually was and why. I've dug up one of my old posts that was long lost on a late thread page. I think it's worth a thread of it's own especially given the tripe we see dished up on a daily basis.

Ok i've gone and done some research as to why Walcott seemingly primed up latter than the norm and wasn't at his best at an age when he was expected to be in his physical prime. Scartissue and god forbid choklab were on the right track for sure.

To keep it simple, and it is actually very simple -

Walcott was destitute and struggling to put food on the table in his first career all the way to his 1940 "retirement". When he did get a bit of money e.g. $375 from beating Roxie Allen the money would be gone instantly to pay the grocery store, milkman, landlord and various other people as he was forever living in debt.

This went on all the way to 1940. Throughout this first career he had little time to train let alone train properly and also struggled to feed himself. Obviously this stunted him severely and led to the guy underperforming by a long way. He was talented but in continual poor shape and not being brought along.

The Pearl Harbour attack led to him getting a bit better wartime job. He was still living tough tho things were going a bit better.

He took two fights in 44 as he needed some extra cash.

The turning point of both his life and his boxing career came in late 44 when he was introduced to Felix Bocchicchio, a store owner, local promoter and president of an athletic club among other less savory things.

Felix brought in a manager for Walcott, had his license re-instated and took care of he and his families financial burdens and set them up better.

He then hooked him up with trainer Nick Florio who was experienced and held in high regard.

Florio got him straight into a regular training and eating routine which would obviously make one helluva difference given his previous circumstances. Three square meals a day with lots of meat, vegetables and roadwork were a big part of the new regime.

At this point Walcott was 30 and about to start realizing what true potential he had left.

They gelled well and over the next few years worked on feinting and hand movements among other things and developed Walcott's shuffle and "walkaway". Walcott's only other world class training had been 12 months with Blackburn in his first career.

So now he could concentrate on getting into good fighting condition on a semi-permanent basis. He still held his job but was able to do shorter weeks and put a lot more time into boxing.

From here on it was mostly up and up for Walcott and all this comfortably explains why he peaked late in life, later than countless others had.

Regarding the 46 losses - Post fight X-rays showed Walcott broke a bone in his left hand and injured knuckles on his right against Maxim. The decision was also controversial and the AP scored the fight for Walcott.

The Ray verdict was fair but quite close.

It's far from impossible Walcott was still improving a little.

Walcott came back to beat both Maxim and Ray straight away in his next two fights. The Maxim rematch was also close.

The Louis fight was next and I'd say Walcott due to the various factors outlined was now definitely prime from about 1946 with age slowly starting to collide with the career and lifestyle turnaround. It's fair to say Walcott stayed well above the level e he had been pre 1944 for multiple years.

Walcott was actually very consistent from 46 onwards. The only loss he had a solid favorite would have been to Rex Layne.

 

In the post war decade the talent in the heavy ranks was seriously depleted. Blame it on the war exhausting that pool of the talent or people that size too in demand in more rewarding fields, it was true. That said,

Walcott beat a Ray who had just beaten him and who himself carried 25% of his fights as losses.

Maxim was a powderpuff lightheavy, who like other lightheavies was reaching farther than his grasp in the heavies.

Satterfield was a wild swinging lightheavy.

I don't see this great run in the post war years that others see.

 

Very interesting. Thanks.

 

Anytime. I hope it clarifies a few things.

 

I happened to recently read what the amazing Ed Schuyler said about this bout when Holmes was peak. The rumour in the boxing world was that Ed had a crystal ball tucked away somewhere such was his penchant for not only picking the winner of big fights, but usually describing how the action was going to go. He was seldom wrong which is otherworldly when you think about it. He correctly picked Spinks outboxing Qawi when the rest of the world were picking a brawl that wouldn't go the distance. This was just one of many. He got Hagler - Hearns wrong from memory but the experts were flat out batting 50% on upcoming fights so he was miles ahead of them, and then some.

 

Excellent and interesting post John, thanks.

 

Cheers Greg. Walcott's career is quite complex but a deeper dive uncovers enough to understand it a lot more, i think.