The curious case of Jersey Joe Walcott and his prime.

Okay, Thistle, I watched it and found little with which I disagree. Walcott was an interesting and entertaining fighter to watch. He had an arresting style. He was tricky as hell and could punch. He kayoed a couple of great fighters in Charles and Harold Johnson, both natural light heavies. I agree with Rummy he was a very good fighter, maybe even a great fighter, although not a top-10 heavy. I question whether a fighter who may only be a Top-20 or 25 guy deserves to be called an all-time great. The footage avoids showing the manner in which Jersey Joe avoided beating the count in the Marciano rematch. That was probably the worst moment of his career, and the highlights far outweigh the lowlights -- or do they? Seen in a different light, Walcott wasn't great enough to win title fights when he was ahead. His considerable bag of tricks wasn't big enough to keep his two greatest opponents at bay. But he surely did belong in the ring with them, and two of those fights remain true classics. So I guess I have to go partly along with you, with some quibbles.

 

@newurban99

you'll never find MOST GREAT Fighters in Top 20 or 25 guys, because that is where the Flawed thinking & assessing stems from...

because it IS Impossible to list "the Best or Greatest in any divsion with hundreds to choose from... sure history throws up a SRR or a Greb or a Gans or Pep every 10, 15 years and no one would be wrong in citing them and fighters like them as the GOATs.

But as too the dozens & even hundreds who circle championship & contender levels with little between them, it is damn near impossible to separate them. that is why I always say 'among' the greatest or the best, kinda like 'capitalizing' the word...

Elite is kinda on it's own, but 'great' is more like GREAT, Great and great fighters with 'little' between them.

there aren't 10 or 15 tiers persay, more like 4, 5 or 6.

I have never got lost in that kind of Top 20, 30, 50 or 100 Greats think, because it IS Impossible.

plus fighters getting Achievement based ratings are always getting dropped or added in & out when 'supposed' new great comes along.

i.e Calzaghe a great fighter sunndenly is better that say a Freddie Steele or Bhop better than a Hagler, Cerdan, Apostili, or SRL for example. then people will start slotting Fury over the Louis', Ali's, Forman's, Lewis' and Klits, "Oh really, Is He"???

are they?

it NEVER spells accurate, it is more incorrect than plausable and I have always just understood it as nothing more than an 'attempt' of 'trying' to list fighters and nothing more than a 'guide' to look closer, real closer... proper research, digging, mining and archeology, to find as much of the whole scene & story as possible and in a Spor, I mean BUSINESS more Corrupt than Figure Skating, well, it is necessary & hard to get through all that crap first.

Rummy's approach & research is more balanced in that way, because, simply, that is the only way to honestly do it.

 

At the same age Walcott took a dive against Marciano and called it a career, Duran was losing roughly once every 15 times he entered the ring, not once every 3 times. Outside of DeJesus and Laing, every fighter you list beat Duran when he was in his 40's. Outside of DeJesus, every fighter you list beat Duran's above his natural and best weight.

That is what we call arguing in bad faith.

 

Our listings exist mainly as springboards for argument and debate. They're not serious and in no way are they definitive. However, when young people start calling Usyk the best heavyweight ever, better than Louis or Ali, I'm almost at a loss for words. Almost.

 

Ring Magazine in 1999 ranked Walcott 13th all time and Matt McGrain for Boxing dot com in 2014 ranked him 20th. Those are way too high.

I think overall you could put Joe in the top 35 or so, and if you're talking top 35 out of every heavyweight who's ever stepped into the ring since they abandoned bare knuckles for gloves, that qualifies him for the ATG acronym.

I'll say what I usually say about Joe ... at his absolute best, he'd be a tough night at the office for anyone.

But donning Kevlar ... IMO there was something fishy about the rematch with Marciano, to use a line from Teddy Brenner's autobiography "the ring may have been a little wet that night." If anyone wanted to avoid ranking Walcott because of that, I wouldn't debate you,

 

"A little wet that night"? Teddy Brennen wrote that? I bet he knew something.

 

No, no, not about Walcott and Marciano. I just liked that description for someone taking a dive and he used it about other fishy smelling fights.

He did use the line about Ali-Zora Folley, take that as you will.

I lost my copy of that book, “Only the Ring was Square,” I need to try to replace it. Great stories, don’t know what was true and what was embellished LOL.

For example, he told about Lee Savold taking a fight with two days’ notice in 1948 against some hotshot from Italy named Gino Buonvino, whose manager was “connected” which caused the original opponent, Joe Baksi, to drop out claiming a bad ankle to avoid taking a dive. Anyway, Brenner said Savold came out, feinted once and then so completely and totally cold-cocked Buonvino to where he lost control of his bowels and they had to stop the card to clean his s**t off the canvas.

 

Yup. The majority of boxing writers and "historians" are LARPing, donning the figurative (or literal) fedora and cigar, and repeating the same ballyhoo drivel penned by promoters decades ago but now treating it as fact.

I have him in my Top 200 because he was a really nice guy. Sometimes I let sentiment cloud my opinion. I am only human.

 

Remember he was also probably given a bad decision against Louis. He more than likely won the first fight. I like to judge fighters by their five best wins…not the losses. Some fighters avoid the tough fights JJW never did.