SHOULDN'T have been world champions.

I think that Primo Carnera deserved his title shot to be honest.

He beat King Levinsky, Art Lasky and Earnie Schaff, all of who were ranked in the top 5 around that period.

 

Hi Unforgiven. Below are the Ring mw rankings from 1944-1947. It shows where things stood in the years before Rocky first cracked the ratings and up to his winning the title. Look at those names. Other than Zale and Janiro(a welterweight[Graziano's favorite meat] whom Rocky fought years later), there is not a single one of them that appears on his resume. He circumvented them all.

Judging by this it's hard not to come to the conclusion that Graziano's career is a masterpiece of careful matchmaking.

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Wish I knew how :?

It's on VHS tape and I have no idea how to post VHS to comp. I'm quite developmentally disabled when it comes to that sorta thing.

 

What Original post????

 

Paddy DeMarco was a billygoat..
Aside...As a kid I used to box with a kid that lost a split dec. with DeMarco, in the Golden Gloves semi-final.. DeMarco than turned pro...

 

Graziano got the shot for the title in 1946, not because he was the best contender,but simply he was the greatest gate attraction at that time..
Rocky's sensational kayo of the 10-1 favorite Billy Arnold at MSG in 1945
Which I saw,and his demolition job on Welterweight Marty Servo, made
him the most sought after fighter by boxings promoters, which led to his bout with the past prime 33 year old Tony Zale...Zale pre WW2 would
have ruined Graziano...But was he EXCITING to watch !!!

 

I have the most complete version of the Siki-McTigue film which includes extent outtakes from the theatrical highlites. Siki was clearly robbed in that fight. McTigue ran, covered up, and when he did punch it was a feeble jab that was intended to keep Siki at arms length and nothing more. The film shows clearly that McTigue was simply trying to make it to the final bell which is exactly how he fought the majority of his contests.

Furthermore, Siki was not the terror you suggest. Yes he was being talked of for a match with Dempsey but that had more to do with his championship than his skill level. Tex Rickard offered him three career high purses (higher than he ever made in his career before or after) to face Greb and three times Siki declined. Remember, going into his fight with Carpentier Siki was a huge underdog who hadnt fought anyone we would consider a world rated contender and, while having a winning record against those guys, wasnt exactly the most impressive fighter in so doing (despite what Peter Benson's book implies). In fact when Siki beat Carpentier the few American press reporters who wired their impressions of Siki back home were pretty unanimous in the opinion that while strong and athletic Siki was little more than a crude slugger who would get picked apart by the best America had to offer. Thats exactly what happened. After losing that awful, criminal decision to McTigue (who should have never gotten the shot) he came to the USA and lost every meaningful fight he had and several that werent even close to meaningful. Against Norfolk and Berlenbach (Arguably the two best fighters he faced in the USA) he took savage beatings. This is the guy that McTigue had to win a championship from on a fixed fight. Ive got every scrap of film footage that exists on Mike McTigue and he simply wasnt that good. He got better (or more exciting) after his prime but you could argue that this was because he couldnt move away as fast as he used to and he was fighting guys who were younger and stronger so they were able to force the fight better than some of the guys he had faced while still young. Irregardless his reign is in my opinion one of the most embarrassing and uninspiring reigns in the history of the division if not the sport entirely.

 

Well, he leapfrogged them in the queue, but i wouldn't say he circumvented them.
THE RING ranked Graziano, he was the biggest box office attraction and Zale chose to fight him. There was just no reason for Graziano to fight those other guys.

As I said, he was thrown in as a massive underdog against Billy Arnold in 1945. He was coming off two losses to Harold Green at the time too.
That's NOT particularly careful matchmaking.
Arnold was an up-and-comer and Graziano was figured to be just another fighter going nowhere.
Graziano KO'd him in 3 and, as burt bienstock confirmed in his post, that catapulted Graziano into being the main box office attraction.
And Rocky ended up getting a shot at the title. The rest is history.

Graziano may have been lucky to have caught the public's attention without any demand for him to face the top contenders, but I dont think his career was "a masterpiece in careful matchmaking".

He had to KO a 6-1 favourite and excite the crowd to break through, so I dont there was any clever master plan in his matchmaking.

I see what you're getting at, but I just view it slightly differently. Graziano was lucky, and was rewarded for his exciting style. When it comes to the crunch that's what the fans want to see.
But Graziano did the business against Zale, and proved himself worthy of sharing a ring with the champion, so he retained that popularity with the crowd.

 

This is a pretty modern approach to boxing where the dollar dictates who deserves a shot. No reason to fight those guys? How about proving you deserve to be in the ring with the champion. Otherwise you might as well do away with ring ratings and simply select contenders based on gate reciepts. Thats a sadly jaded view the perpetuation of which only hurts the sport.

 

Arnold may have been a favorite but he wasnt exactly championship material himself. The toughest fight he had been in was against Zivic who he lost to in his previous fight. In the end Arnold never amounted to anything. His career was basically a blip on the radar and the highlite was his shootout with Graziano. I dont know if thats a whole lot to boast of. Furthermore Arnold was a welterweight, not a middleweight. One of my friends once said "Rocky Graziano was the best middleweight fighting in the welterweight division" and that about sums it up. Another fight he used to get a title shot was his unneeded rubber match with Harold Green which Ive seen. Very strange fight which was alleged to have been fixed. So basically Graziano gets a title shot at MW by beating Arnold, Cochrane, Davis, Servo, and Green. All welterweights. No one else sees a problem with this? If thats not a masterpiece of careful matchmaking I dont know what is.

 

Thanks for the insight. I have not seen the footage. Reports mention that McTique had Siki out on his feet late in fight (in the 17th, which I believe is missing from the filmed footage). That, and the obviously partisan reviews of the Irish Times and NYT, led me think it must have been at least close. And what then are your thoughts of Carpentier (who I always thought overrated)?

And was McTigue really worse than my Luis Santana? or... Marcel Thil?

 

I have heard it said that graziano was the best midleweight in the welterweight division. that said rocky knocked out two guys who many think realy beat a peak ray robinson at the time. Ray was also a welter who floated between both weight classes as they often did to stay busy. marty servo lost a sd that was bood by the fans against sugar ray yet graziano ruined him. harry brimm got a draw against ray robinson and graziano took him apart also. im not saying this excuses graziano not fighting more middlweight contenders but brim and servo are good scalps when you look at what robinson acheved at middle.

 

Yes but don't forget that Servo was at the end of his career when Graziano beat him. Not so when SRR fought him.

And when Brimm fought Rocky remember that it was the 3rd fight of a 7 bout losing streak for Brimm. Rocky kinda caught him on the way downhill. Brimm managed a draw with SRR but also lost to him, and I can't imagine Ray was overly focused or took Brimm's challenge too seriously considering his sparring partner, Artie Towne, kept knocking Brimm out.

 

Rocky Graziano,who I first saw when he was AWOL from Fort Dix was
really a jr .middleweight. About 154 at his best weight...I saw him at his best before the Zale fights, and he was to me the most exciting fighter I ever saw...As I have posted before,his early bouts were like witnessing a street brawl...Yessir...

 

I think Marcel Thil was probably the best fighter France ever produced. In my opinion he was better (based on his competition) than Cerdan, who he helped train on at least one occasion, and definately better than Carpentier. Thil was a heck of a fighter who got trashed by the press in the USA.

Yes I think Carpentier is vastly overrated. He lost to the best guys he faced, had several fixed fights go in his favor, and really wasnt that good IMO. That being said Carpentier was so immensely popular in Europe that his effect on the sport cannot be minimized. He definately deserves to be in the hall of fame but not because of his record, more so because he nearly single handedly helped to popularize and spread boxing across the european continent both before and after WW1.


Yes, Santana was pretty pathetic.