Best five wins thread. Lineal / Ring Magazine heavyweight champions.

I will expand upon the fight tomorrow, when I am not in cups, as there are a number of things that need to be said.

Walker probably got the wrong end of the decision, based upon what unfolded in the ring.

There is also credible evidence that Sharkey carried Walker.

 

A bit about Walker's fight with Uzcdun.

The early rounds were tame, and apparently Uzcdun opened up in round five, and took rounds five to eight.

At the end of the eighth round Uzcdun landed a punch after the bell, and as he dropped his hands and stepped away, Walker responded with a right that split Uzcdun's brow open.

The cut seems to have opened an artery, leaving Uzcdun blinded by the blood, so Walker battered him for the rest of the fight.

The fight ended with both men drenched in blood, and Walker got the nod.

 

Correct me if my math is wrong but Schmeling beat 3 #1 contenders. When he squared off for the title with Sharkey, Sharkey was 1 and Max was two correct, I know it was a DQ but it was a win, Joe Louis was 1 when he beat him as well, and of course the Hamas rematch.
Stribling was 2 behind Sharkey as his first defense.
Schmeling really faced top quality. He may have been the first champion to really do so consistently. Shame he didn't get the Sharkey rematch call, and even bigger shame he was denied Braddock fight. I think history beginning to look very favorable on Max.

 

Schmeling did seem to go after men in the top three very consistently.

 

Since people see it as being important, I will say more about the Sharkey Walker fight:

The Chairman of the New York State Athletic Commission Jim Farley, initially refused to sanction the fight, because of the weight disparity. Kearns launched a massive media campaign to get the fight, and they eventually relented.

The New York Daily Mirror wrote:

"If Sharkey doesn't knock out Walker, he should quit the ring."

Nat Fleischer wrote:

"Mickey by his splendid performance in Miami where he whipped Johnny Risko and his more recent triumph over Bearcat Wright, have conclusively proved that pound for pound, he is the best fighter of the age."

"Talk about pitting Walker against Sharkey at this stage is foolish, for in my opinion Walker would be knocked out."

Jack McAuliffe had little respect for the current crop of heavyweights.

"There is one man who could take all these palookas one at a time, and clean them up. It is our Mickey Walker. He could get under the guards of those big slow thinking fellas, and with his right and left rip them up."

From what I can see, the people picking walker tended to be actual fighters, as opposed to columnists.

The terms of the fight were that the winner would bet a shot at the heavyweight title, held my Max Schmeling. This makes me doubt Sharkey's testimony that he carried Walker. The fact that the fight ended in a draw, meant that Schmeling's manager got to choose who got the title shot to. In other words he would have been within his rights to give it to Walker instead of Sharkey!

 

On how the verdict was received:

The crowd booed the decision until both fighters left the ring.

Ring Magazine named it upset of the year.

The New York Commission continued to recognize Sharkey as the American Heavyweight Champion.

Runyon wrote:

"Personally I thought that Walker won with plenty to spare. I thought it was one of the most astonishing decisions rendered in a New York ring."

Paul Galico, who had previously said that Walker did not belong in the ring with Sharkey:

"Sharkey was lucky to get a draw at the end of fifteen rounds. I gave Walker nine rounds, to five for Sharkey, and one even."

Wilbur Wood wrote:

"I this writers opinion Walker won with plenty to spare on the rounds won system of scoring."

Finally the source for the poll of ringside observers requested by Jason Thomas, where 16 out of 21 favored Walker. It was published in the Oakland Tribune, July 23, 1931.

 

Now it is only fair to look at the evidence that Sharkey carried Walker:

Years later Sharkey told Heller:

"I'm hitting him in the shoulder instead of hurting him more. I'm more or less a softie anyway. I wasn't any vicious murderous guy. So it's a good thing that I won all those eight rounds, because when the decision was given they called it a draw."

Kearns wrote in his autobiography

"I arranged a meeting with Sharkey's manager Johnny Buckley. John I told him, both of us know a hundred ways to steal the duke. But let's agree on this one, that nobody tries to snatch anything. Let's have Mick and Sharkey go in even up. Il agree to that Doc, he said."

Fraley claimed that Kearns visited Al Capon before the fight, and asked for his assurance that he would not get the short end of the scorecards.

In 1949 Dave Egran wrote of Sharkey

"He was forced by the late and unlamented Al Capone, to carry Mickey Walker fifteen rounds and then was lucky to escape with a draw."

This story strikes me as being implausible for three reasons.

Firstly Al Capone was based in Chicago, and would not have held much sway in New York, where Owney Madden would have been more influential. To get involved in this way would have brought him into conflict with Madden.

Secondly the story only came out a long time after the event.

Thirdly there was a shot at the heavyweight title on the line, and it seems unlikely that Sharkey would have agreed to carry Walker.

 

Just to pitch in on the press verdicts in Sharkey-Walker:

Wilbur Wood scored it for Walker, 10-4-1, and his poll of other writers produced 16 votes for Walker, 4 for Sharkey, and 1 for a draw.

https://pasteboard.co/Jbx82e9.png

Burt Whitman in the Boston Herald (possibly a little biased towards the Boston fighter) scored it for Sharkey, 10-3-2, but conceded that his own poll also favoured Walker, by 16 votes to 11.

https://pasteboard.co/Jbx8xtQ.png

 

Walker claimed that one of the reasons that the verdict went against him, was because Primo Carnera was likely to be a challenger for the title in the near future.

He claimed that the commission did not want to have to market a title fight between a middleweight, and a man the size of Carnera.

 

And Sharkey himself never claimed it was a fix.

 

He sort of implied it.

 

In This Corner? It sounded to me like he held back a bit because he just didn't want to beat up a little guy.

 

Off-topic question, but what are your 3 best top 5 wins among HW champions until Schmeling? To me Fitz, Jeffries and Schmeling are the best with HM to Dempsey