humez ,langloise,villemain,jean stock were all good middles during the post war period with cerdan being an elite class welter.
All good mentions. The French have produced many good middleweights over the years. Not recently however. Of course Marcel Thil in the 1930s and in the seventies Jean Claude Bouttier and Gratien Tonna.
I believe this post is a good example of underrating Cerdan. When he beat Holman Williams he was injured and Holman had beaten Charley Burley and Archie Moore in the past 12 months. Also his win over Zale came just a couple of months after Zale looked awesome in the third Graziano fight. Rarely mentioned is his win over another very underrated middleweight named Georgie Abrams. Abrams beat a tremendous array of top middles in the 1940s, including a draw with Charley Burley, and Cerdan gave him a whipping.
It was WW2 and France's capitulation that screwed him more than anything. It prevented him from getting any fights at the world class level during the whole of his prime years. It would've been great to see how he would've fared had he gotten those fights, but in the end we'll never know.
That's basically the bulk of his career achievements right there, and yet I don't really think that's a relatively lot for a fighter who had more than 100 fights over 15 years. Consider also that the Williams and Abrams fights were very close and possibly could've gone either way, and that LaMotta was himself injured (a broken left hand) when he beat Cerdan. I don't think he can be called "underrated" because he simply didn't prove enough to be rated higher than he generally is. If anything, he's probably overrated for that reason.
I never heard that. I'd always read it was a close and competitive fight, and Abrams actually surprised a lot of people by giving Cerdan as good a fight as he did, as Abrams was considered clearly past his peak and hadn't looked good since coming out of the service.
Do me a fav and don't assume they Burley/Abrams draw was a draw. Burley clearly won, gave up poundage, and got a draw!
Surprised nobody's mentioned Anton Raddick giving Marcel life and death. Recall Ring Mag dream fights, early 90s, Cerdan vs Burley with one of the pollsters being non other than Eddie Futch, who of course favored Burley. I'll try and find it.
Well Adams hadnt had a good win in about 4years and wouldnt score another quality win again. And Williams was still on the downside of his career 170fights in at 34.
After Abrams lost to Cerdan he lost a split decision to Ray Robinson. A fight the ringside press scored for Abrams, as follows. Unofficial UP scorecard - 6-4 Abrams Unofficial AP scorecard - 6-3-1 Abrams So Abrams was far from washed up when he fought Cerdan.
Definitely... Speak to boxing people from his era and they speak very highly of him. Ezzard Charles thought he was the world's best fighter when he saw him fighting in North Africa. Robinson was the fight he needed.