Boxing Illustrated All-time Pfp rankings (1995)...

Burley fought like an octopus when he was in with 175lb men and big middles. Burley walked around at around 153 and really wasn't big enough for those guys. He evolved a winning strategy.

At WW he really didn't fight like that, and even against bigger men, he didn't fight like that if he felt he had that mans number. He battered Archie Moore unrecognisable for exaample.

You think Robinson surely would win. I would make him a tiny favourite. You say Robinson was quicker. He certainly had quicker hands - but I don't think he had quicker reacitions. You think he had better powrer. Now we know you don't know anything about Burley. Burley had a 50% stoppage rate. He was often in with bigger men. He took on guys that Robinson avtively ducked, the BEST fighters of that generation, not the whitest. He retired a huge number of men on their stools, including Turner who was the HW champ of Texas, I think, outweighed Burley by 80lbs I think.

He lasted 5 rounds with Burley's power.

 

History probably has overcompensated in terms of his rating - that is to say, he is regarded as highly as he would have been had be been allowed to fight for the titles he was barred from fighting for.

Is that so terribley wrong?

As for actually compensation, I hardly think a few guys gabbing about how good he was makes up for or compensates for a guy who might have been one of the best being totally barred from proving it.

 

Do you want a list of fighters who were fighting in his era and at or around his weight that were better than most of the guys he fought? That list would be pretty long.

Or the list of guys he actively ducked? That would be pretty short. Burley would be at the very top though.

 

Yeah, well said. This was the other side of that coin. I am quite hard on Sugar because the fighters he DIDN'T fight are better than the ones he did. But Sugar was the first black man to price himself out of tough matches. In terms of the bigger picture, this was a huge step forward in terms of race and black power in the boxing world. Just a pisser for an absolute reem of top top black fighters.

White fighters had been protecting their title for years, this was much harder for black fighters, is my point.