Ezzard Charles was as good as Ray Robinson

Hey, I just did a thread about this. Where were all these good insights then?

Anyway, there can always be a case for Charles. But if he was a natural WW would he beat LaMotta 5/6? I don't think so myself. Robinson was probably the more versatile of them, even though Charles proved himself against more true ATGs.

 

:huh

 

Yeah, that's one tall order.

 

no he wasn't.

 

Ezzard Charles was as good as Ray Robinson :think

From what Ive personally seen of both men on film, Robinson looked the clearly better fighter but Ive seen a lot more of Robinson than Charles so my opinion probably means close to jack **** in this thread.

I will be interested to see the replies from other classic posters tho on this one.

 

I have Charles at #1 light-heavy but for me Sugar Ray is the greatest p4p of all time.

 

Anyone who doesn't have the Cincinnati Cobra within the top 10, p4p, all time should be forced to wear a spit bucket on his head for a week.

Discussion of Ezzard's greatness begins with the the Burley fight... which was the first hint that he was something special -remember, he was 19 years old and in his 28th fight. He was a teenager! Burley was 25 years old and in about his 56th fight. Burley was also on a 20 some-odd win streak since the loss to Bivins two years earlier.

What's more is that Charles was a last minute stand-in for Ken Overlin and outslugged and outboxed Burley throughout the match. Then he did it again in their next meeting. Burley beat Holman Williams in bouts surrounding his fights with Charles. In fact, after Charles beat him in the return, Burley handed Holman his first stoppage and last stoppage until Moore got him.

Burley's number was had by two fighters -Bivins and Charles. Both were bigger, but that didn't often make a difference with CB. Charles wasn't even near prime yet as a lanky middleweight.

That being said, you make an important assertion about Charles and Robinson. I've always considered Ezzard to be a larger version of Robinson to some degree, less dynamic (less athleticism in terms of speed and p4p power, perhaps less "will" because Sugar was off the charts) but a bit more technically sound. He had less fights than Ray but his quality of competition is better than Robinson's without a doubt...

I'd argue that part of the reason that Robinson gets the nod is because of romance. Charles didn't have that incredible 128-1 run that Sugar had, and he was stopped a bunch of times. When laymen see Ezz, they see him face down at Walcott's feet or smashed down by the Rock, but at LHW he's number one in my book. And he really was too small to be mixing it up with those guys but still came damn close to beating Marciano the first time, which is incredible. Marciano said that he was the toughest of them all.

...I'm thinking that it's time to move him up a bit. I think a helluva argument can be made that he can be placed over Armstrong.

 

Great post Stonehands...Ezz sits comfortably in my top 5 all time.


Charles recorded wins over ATG fighters from middle-heavy

 

As big a fan of Napoles as I am, I could easily see this.

 

So how is Napoles going to beat him? Stand in range, outbox him, out-slug him? Unless Ray just had a three-some with two beautiful women and Jose's mother died pre-fight, I can't see Napoles beating him. Terrible matchup for Mantequilla.

 

Robinson was naturally the larger man, not just taller. We're talking a natural LW fighting as a small Welter vs a big Welter, who also happened to be one of the most successful MW's of all time. I don't think just any fighter is getting the better of Robinson in the inside exchanges, either. I think Robinson's in-fighting gets severely underrated and undersold on here as a weakness, when in reality only the best pressure fighters and swarmers could deter him in there. Most of the footage I've seen has shown the Sugar man display very good, even excellent in-fighting skills. He shoe-laces to the body like no one I've ever seen in clinches. Patterson himself said that no one ever hit as hard as Robinson did with as little room to unleash his barrages. The footage backs this up to the point that I'm no longer buying what seems to be becoming the consensus about his infighting. He may have been physically weaker than some of the larger fighters and swarmers he fought at MW, or some of the rougher LW's and WW's when he himself was just a lanky young man, but I believe his offensive tools were good enough to cope with just about any of them. I can't see the smaller Napoles bettering the bigger, faster, more powerful Sugar in there.

I don't think Napoles was a real pressure fighter unless the situation called for it, either, and this is a situation I can't see him resolving. He showed against Monzon (to little avail, though that was more due to Monzon than his own strategy, I thought he fought as well as he could've) that he was capable of applying pretty substantial pressure to a larger man, and he more than likely would have his moments over a 15 round fight with Robinson. I just don't think he'd be able to handle Robinson's return fire down the stretch, much the way he couldn't handle Monzon's. I do not see it being a similar fight, mind you, as Monzon was even worse stylistically for a man of Napoles's size than Robinson. However, I think Robinson's size advantage and fire-power see's him get the better of the smaller Napoles down the stretch basically whenever they match up at WW.