Anyone know much about Billy Graham ? I see on boxrec he beat Basilio among others but lost to Gavilan for the Welterweight Title.
He was never decked or stopped in his career..which speaks volumes as to both his defensive skills as well as his chin.
Whatta sweet boxer. He's the boxer W.C. Heinz based Eddie Brown, the lead character, in his great novel, THE PROFESSIONAL.
Someone (I forget who) once said Graham was "as good as a fighter can be without being truly great." I think that might've been a good assessment of him. In general, there is and always was a lot of diverging opinions on his quality and legacy - some argue that he was a genuine great, others that he was possibly somewhat overhyped/overrated. Here's what I'll say about him and you can take what you will from it. He was a very fast, talented boxer, very physically strong for his weight, great technician, had a good countering right hand (to the body and head), and an iron chin. At one point, his record showed something like 80 or 90 wins and only a handful of losses. However, he lost most of the biggest fights in his career - some on close/controversial decisions, others rather decisively. Against second rate opponents, he fought very aggressively and regularly featured in exciting, fast paced fights; but against higher levels of comp., he fought much more tentatively and often did just enough to fall short. I think much of how anyone rates Graham depends on how you see his first title fight with Gavilan. Many people argued that Graham was blatantly robbed, and that's probably his biggest claim to fame. However, others (like myself) believe Graham gave away too many of the early rounds and didn't open up until it was too late. This fight used to be on Youtube (it has apparently been removed), but you can see this thread where I posted the fight and what other posters' reactions to it were: http://www.eastsideboxing.com/forum/showthread.php?t=115253 Here's brief highlights of his fight with Basilio: [yt]_WpnoiRf_Gg[/yt] At that time, Basilio was considered just a journeyman and it wouldn't be for another couple of years that he began distinguishing himself as the ATG he would become known as. This fight set Graham up for a title fight rematch with Gavilan, but this time Gavilan reportedly outboxed him by a mile and without any controversy whatsoever. In all, Graham was 1-3 in fights with Gavilan, 1-1-1 vs. Basilio, and 1-2 against Joey Giardello. It's hard to properly asses those fights because of so many circumstances around them. Graham's title fight loss to Gavilan was highly controversial, but his own official win over Gavvy was disputed as well. Basilio and Giardello were both only on the way up and somewhat green-ish at the world class level when Graham beat them. Graham trounced Basilio in their first fight, but was beaten and held to a draw in two rematches against an improving Basilio - although Graham himself was past his own peak by then. His loss to Giardello in their first fight was hotly disputed, and some would argue that he was really 2-1 or possibly even 3-0 against him. However, he also had decisive and somewhat embarrassing losses to Tippy Larkin and Paddy DeMarco right when he was considered in his prime.
great stuff my2cents He had a non title ten round loss to keed gavilan that some nyc paps thought he was robbed also.