Did Tony Zale avoid Ezzard Charles?

as most fights were competed at Catchweights, I don't think too mny people thought of Charles as a Middleweight, even Charles. it was just a division he merely passed through as a younger fighter... he was too big/heavy and I think when weighing eitherside of 175 for most catchweight contests the thought would barely be entertained.

a few folk might have proposed it, but I don't think it was a consideration for most.

I could be wrong, but I have never read too much about Middleweight & Charles' tie too it.

 

Highly doubt it.. Zale was an honorable man, a decent fella & a warrior.. fought Conn, Apostoli, Cerdan, Graziano, Hostak etc.. i don't think he actively would avoid Charles himself.. God Zale was good tho.. was something of a late bloomer who had an early spotty record but between the time he turned 25 and the middle fight with Graziano, only the much larger Billy Soose and Billy Conn were able to beat him.. he may have been the greatest body puncher who ever lived & his first match with Graziano may have been the greatest war in boxing history. He was an excellent defensive fighter too, although there's not a great deal of film showing his skill in this area but no less an authority than Billy Conn praised his ability on defense. His boxing legacy is diluted somewhat for his having served during WW II, effectively freezing out the black murderers row of MW contenders from having a chance to challenge Zale for his mothballed title. But i wouldn't dismiss his chances against any of them. A true MW great.

 

In reality, 1941 was the only time when this matchup was a reality (especially with Ezz as a top guy and thus someone who might be avoided) as Charles’ first big middleweight win was over an end-of-career Teddy Yarosz in late 1940.

And Zale unified the title with Georgie Abrams in the latter part of ‘41, so fighting the NYSAC champ to unify was the bigger bout. Zale won that fight in November, stepped up to light heavy for a non-title loss to Billy Conn in February of 1942 and was off to WWII in the Navy.

So while it didn’t happen, I can’t see how fighting the other champ, Abrams, is ducking Charles — if Zale had fought Ezz, we’d be asking if he ducked Abrams, and holding a version of the belt meant Abrams was the bigger fish. The Ring had Zale as champ, Abrams ranked 1 and Ezz ranked 2 in its end-of-year 1941 ratings … even after Abrams’ close loss to Zale.

Unless we’re going to say serving his country in World War II was a duck, I can’t see how Zale gets labeled a ducker.

Charles moved up to light heavy in 1942 rather than pursue the middleweight crown further, so that’s that.

 

Charles was avoided all the way until he got to heavyweight, it’s one of the reasons he had to move up to heavyweight.

 

Charles wasn’t a middleweight long enough for Zale to have ducked him. Not to mention Zale was tied up with military service, so he couldn’t have defended against Charles even if he wanted to.

 

No. World War 2 was on and the title was frozen.

 

And there was no duration title either until 1944 much later then HW and LHW.