Tommy Loughran : Does anyone rate him down for "drawing the color line" ?

I have said constantly since I started posting here that styles make fights and by avoiding all black fighters Loughran avoided an entire class of fighter. I think it's safe to say that in the history of the heavyweight and light heavyweight division the vast, overwhelming majority of the fastest fighters were black, period. Loughran was a boxer and it is a whole other matchup going against the fastest men.

I personally feel the entire eras of color line drawing or manipulation make generations of fighters huge question marks. I'll say it again, in the past sixty years, the post Louis age, with a more level playing field we certainly do not see the white dominance we saw prior and that is 100% because they cannot only fight other white fighters. Of course there were great white fighters and still are. However, let's not duck the numbers, they speak for themselves.

Klompton makes the obvious attempt at a counterpoint but again let's go by the numbers over the past seventy years of a more level playing field. Broken down by percentages, how did that work out?

 

he grant
I think you're wrong, the dominance of white fighters back then must have been largely influenced by the fact that there were far more getting into boxing, rather than just the color line.

Unless of course you feel blacks have always been inherently superior as fighters, and would always rise to the top, regardless of the size of the whole population of fighters.

By the same token, I think the dominance of black Americans in the heavyweight has ended not just because the boxers from the "former Soviet" countries have been allowed to enter the race, but because there just are not the numbers of black Americans getting into the game like there used to be.

 

I'm not sure speed is a style and the many black fighters of Tommy's time had many different styles. However I agree with your general points about the number of top black fighters in any era and feel that Clarke and Norfolk would have joined Siki as l/h champions until the advent of Greb, Tunney and Loughran in a fair and imaginary world.
It is only fair to point out that exceptional white fighters like Maxim, Conn, Marciano. Johansson, etc enjoyed success in the black dominated years.

 

Bare in mind blacks access to gyms and chances of getting promotion and a fair crack of a decision would be severely limited in those times

 

Definitely blacks suffered from less opportunity and injustice - and often to the point of making it impossible for them to rise to where their ring ability warranted.
Boxing is never a level playing field, not then, not now, and blacks were always on the wrong end of the unfair balance back then. Maybe Louis is the exception.

But I dont think that's the only reason there were so many rated white fighters and champions, in comparison to later years.
There was just more white fighters in those days, because of poverty and lack of opportunity and education across the whole population of America (and that can be extended to other countries too).

To reduce it to a cliche : more whites were punching their way out of the slums.

 

Sorry I still disagree.
I dont beleive for one moment that the colour of your skin has any bearing on how fast you are in a boxing ring.

I deplore the fact that Loughran drew the colour line, but that does not mean that by doing so ,he avoided the fastest fighters in the heavyweight and light heavyweight divisions.
On the contrary he fought very fast fighters at both .

Tunney,Carpentier,Slattery,Greb[who was faster than him]? Delaney,Smith , Emanuel. To name but a few.

You mention boxers, which boxers could Loughran have fought that were considered superior to. Delaney,Tunney,Carpentier,Slattery,Smith.?

One way to, perhaps focus on this, is to ask which class black fighters did Loughran avoid?

Would Kid Norfolk be a candidate.?

Norfolk's best work was done before Loughran hit his stride , [at the end of 1925 ],Norfolk lost 5 of his last 8 fights ,3 by ko ,one to middle weight Frank Moody in Sept 1925, he had 3 more fights and lost them all, he would not have been competitive with Loughran at the end of 1925,when Loughran was finding his feet.

It is much more difficult to dismiss Flowers claims however, he was fighting top class opponents still ,in Loughran's prime and beating many of them, but he lost to several opponents that Loughran beat in this time span.

Who else?
By the time Al Gainer was rated at LH, [ he turned pro in 1930] Loughran was in his 30's and campaigning at Hvy.
In other words, if your premise is correct, there must be several black fighters , the names of whom , should come readily to the tongue.

So, who were they?
If Loughran deliberately avoided any fighter, I submit that it was a WHITE boxer.


MAXIE ROSENBLOOM
Their careers overlapped, but Loughran's fans could rebut this by pointing out that Loughran beat Slattery, who beat Rosenbloom 4 times,Lomski,who beat Maxie,and Stribling who beat also Maxie.
To prove your point, I beleive you need to supply names of several class black fighters who were prime during Loughran's hey day.

 

Tommy with one of the guys he wasnt afraid to

This content is protected

fight.MAX BAER

 

Yeah, but Loughran's getting a good look at Baer's skin tone there and he's more than a little perturbed by Baer's curly locks.

He almost called it off until someone explained Baer might be part-Jewish.

 

http://www.in.com/videos/watchvideo-tommy-loughran-vs-sharkey-5290055.html

Loughran with Sharkey. Another easy white guy.

 

Not really there wasn't a quality black fighter he chose not to fight. With Tunney its worse as you have Norfolk and especially Godfrey, and that has to be taken into account when rating him.

 

The idea that the color of your skin equals a "style" of fighting, or speed in general is pretty bogus and damn near racist. In fighting Greb Loughran fought the fastest fighter from welterweight to heavyweight bar none. Greb was regularly compared in speed to bantamweights. To say Tommy didnt fight fast fighters is ridiculous. Loughran was extremely cocky and self assured. I doubt he was "afraid" of anyone. Lets not pretend that the color line being drawn ALWAYS had something to do with fear. A large segment of society genuinely believed that the races should not mix. This idea was more common than not in that era. To lay a blanket claim that Tommy feared a black fighter and as such was somehow inferior is ridiculous. All you can say is that Tommy didnt fight this black fighter, or that black fighter. You can speculate as to why or how he would have fared had he fought them but thats all speculation. As to what he could and couldnt do against a certain type of fighter we have a pretty damn good idea as he fought every style across the board and across several weight divisions.

 

Yep.
Good old-fashioned biological racism.

"******s are quicker than a rattlesnake. But they all got a yella streak. Hit em in the slats - they dont like it there !"

 

Its not much different than saying that because a disproportionate amount of blacks are in prison that they are genetically predisposed to be criminals...

I knew an old time fighter from the late 40s who was Tony Zales sparring partner he used to swear up and down that blacks and mexicans were harder to knockout than whites...

 

Sam Langford's reply to this racist canard was ," Mister no one likes being hit in the stomach".

 

We are in agreement. I am sure H E Grant was not being intentionally racist. But ,having found himself in a hole ,he should have stopped digging:good