both were somewhat "unlucky" to lose to kid gavilan for the title. still, both were top of the line welters as you all know. both beat kid gavilan, jean walzack and joey giardello. and many top ranked others. one thing that might be significant, graham was 5´7. dykes 6´0. that hight advantage would do it for me. i think dykes jab would have kept graham at bay enough to win on points.
I saw both Billy Graham and Bobby Dykes fight and it would be a tough fight to pick. Graham the perfect text book fighter with an iron chin and the tall straight up gangly Bobby Dykes who gave a prime WW Ray Robinson a competitive fight in 1950 in Chicago. And the mention of Bobby Dykes has caused me some sleepless nights. Pick em !
Graham was the more textbook fighter as burt said, but he sometimes was "too textbook" - by that, I mean he sometimes didn't step out and let his hands go enough to win his big fights. Consequently, he fell short on a number of close, disputed decisions. I wouldn't rule out the possibility that Dykes is just busy enough to squeeze out a similarly close, disputed decision. Remember, Dykes clearly outboxed Joey Giambra, who was probably somewhat comparable to MW version of Graham.
Rex T ,Gilly Braham who I saw many times was a helluva boxer with a granite chin. Whitey Bimstein his great trainer claimed Braham was never staggered in all his fights...But one day I saw with my dad another master boxer Tippy Larkin win almost every round by outboxing Braham. Alas Tippy Larkin, a great boxer-puncher had a crystal chin ...P.S. Rex Tickard meet Gilly Braham.:happy:happy:happy
Tippy Larkin would rule welters today. He was a master boxer, expierenced,boxer/puncer,he wasvastly underated!!!
