What if the color line lasts until 1980? How does the boxing landscape change?

Don't forget though, Mr. Chuvalo was around at the time, and does have a W over Quarry. Chuvalo almost certainly would have been Champion for awhile around that time.

 

Quarry is not the best white HW in this period IMO its Bugner. Whose saying Quarry beats Wepner?

The "colored title" as you described it never existed. The system worked more to cull the number of top black fighters then to exclude the singular best one. Quarry pretending hes champion while an Ali, Frazier or Foreman went undefeated with no recognition wouldn't happen. Someone like Ken Norton would be screwed over the worst. The HWs who'd benefit the most are white guys ranked below Bugner, Quarry, Wepner and Evangelista who'd have a greatly inflated historical profile.

Louis fought during the "colored title" era he ignored it and pursued the real title. Part of why Louis has the best pre title resume ever is he needed to be undeniable to get a title shot and after him no ones needed to compile that sort of resume to get their foot in the door ever again.

 

I forgot about Chuvalo and his win over Quarry.

 

Good call. Forgot about him somehow. He probably would have had a long reign in the 70s.

 

Mildenburger earlier on also might foil him.


For those bringing up Chuvalo Cleroux won his trilogy against him but never quite could earn a title shot.

 

Most of the best Heavyweights were black so, who knows? Richard Dunn, Joe Bugner

 

The reality is that Cooney would likely get stopped by someone he shouldn’t.

 

Imagine if Ali was the first one, haha.

 

It's a question that requires quite a bit of thought but the whole history of the division wold have been rewritten from 1908 through 1980

 

Color line would still be there today if a young Ali was the first black HW champ (and we are keeping him in his own era).

 

It would raise questions of the legitimacy of the white champs though. How are you going to call yourself the champ when you won't fight a prime Joe Louis or a prime Ali? How could Henry Cooper call himself a champ if the public had just watched Ali fight Williams? You'd need a time machine to go grab a young Usyk, Fury, or Wlad to get someone believable, other than Marciano.

 

Tyson reestablished the color line by beating Spinks in 88, after Spinks beat Cooney, and it held until Foreman’s gift against Schultz in 95.

 

One of the bad things about the color line for the white fighters would be that they would always have an asterisk next to their names. Like if Henry Cooper was champion in 1967, after seeing Muhammad Ali fight, it would be hard for him to claim legitimacy unless he fought and beat Ali.

 

The more I ponder it, it seems like it would have bordered on absurdity to keep a color line if the idea is to establish the best fighters in the world in a particular weight class. In the absence of say Joe Louis, I could see Max Schmeling being champion, but could he claim to be the best heavyweight on earth with a prime Joe Louis roaming about the "colored" heavyweight division? Or in the early 60s, could Johansson consider himself the best in the world with Floyd Patterson and Sonny Liston in the background sticking out like sore thumbs?

 

Look, again this is a deep discussion based on details but Peter Jackson would have likely demolished Sullivan by 1886 and not been forced to fight Corbett on conditions dictated by Corbett .. I'd have to dig in more for the window between Fitz and Johnson but Jack may have been champ much sooner ... oddly Jeffries may have benefitted if he were forced to fight Johnson on 05 or 06 opposed to the 1910 disaster ... Wills may have defeated Willard in 1916 and Dempsey would have had to go through him in his own prime .. Tunney too ... You have Larry Gaines and many other tough guys that were shut out ... who knows ? It would have definitely changed the landscape ..