Burley's history of being boxings most avoided man

How can you say Art Rooney wasnt affiliated with Burley? Thats nonsense.

Kid Gavilan was already well established on the East Coast. His three previous fights to Robinson had been headlining main events at the Garden. His fight with Ike Williams in the Garden the year before drew a gate of nearly $70,000. Burley had not only never headlined a main event on the East Coast but he had never even fought in the Garden. All of his east coast fights had been unimportant fights on undercards. Its absolutely ludicrous to compare his drawing power (or lack thereof) with Gavilans.

Frankly neither you nor I know what was said or done behind closed doors. But why accept a fight based on promises bandied about in newspapers that cant be kept. Thats press agent stuff, not how fights are negotiated. I say again, show me the highest purse Burley ever got, the largest gate he ever drew as a headliner, the largest purse Rooney and McGinley paid out while promoting during Burley's career. When you are negotiating from a position of power as Robinson was you dont need to play childish parlor games like arguing back and forth in the press. Thats what you do when you are trying to get free publicity for a fighter who cant draw flies.

The bottom line here is that there has to be an upside. Nobody is disputing that Burley was good. What is in dispute is whether you choose to believe Robinson was scared of him. I dont. I see Burley as a very poor draw with a lot of risk for no reward. Its one thing for Burley supporters to throw out pie in the sky numbers (that he never in his life was able to do) its entirely another to be able to put that money in Robinson's pocket. Remember we are talking about an era where fighters regularly didnt get paid by promoters whose show went bust. So Pittsburgh promoters and managers trying to hype a Pittsburgh fighter to A. Either attract a gate attraction (Robinson) or B. Hype their fighter knowing they dont have a prayer of selling the fight carries little weight with me. It wouldnt take a genius to do the numbers and realize that Robinson would be doing all of the heavy lifting for the promotion and possibly wouldnt get paid and would still have a hard fight on his hands. Burley's bout with Charles at Forbes Field, a friggin baseball park did just over $30,000. Robinson's bout with Gavilan (who you think wasnt a draw) at an indoor arena did $85,000. So what is the incentive for Robinson to go out of his way to make the fight? He would be doing the work of the promoter, hed be bring the asses to the seats, and hed be fighting a middleweight. Why wouldnt he want a huge chunk of change?

Robinson didnt love the sport? Thats nonsense. See above.

Why is it corrupt? So much hay has been made of this but it happens all the time. Fighters in the same weight class and stable often compete for the same position and invariably one is left out in the cold. Look at Hearns/McCallum among many others. Your comment about the Leto loss totally ignores the general feeling that Burley's career was in limbo at the time (a feeling held by his own hometown sportswriters) due to poor performances.

Debateable at best.



Ive got nothing against Burley. I think he was undeniably a good fighter but hes gotten a ton of mileage out of the claim that he was ducked and avoided when in reality it appears to be more a combination of bad timing, bad performances, and a general lack of interest in him that contributed to his inability to get fights. When you really start examining these claims you realize there are really good reasons, usually why he didnt get the breaks that he deserved.

 

Take a look at the record of Kid Gavilan on BoxRec. Before fighting Robinson twice, Gavilan had a couple of bouts which drew good gates. Gavilan lost a close unanimous decision in a 10-round bout with Ike Williams which had a gate of $67,561. and drew a crowd of 14,907. at Madison Square Garden in New York City on February 27, 1948. He won by a knockout in the first round over Rocco Rossano in a bout had a gate of $28,086. and drew a crowd of 8,294 at Madison Square Garden in New York City on May 28, 1948.

Also before fighting Robinson, Gavilan had a number of bouts in New York City while Burley had only one bout there during his entire career. In that bout at St. Nicholas Arena on April 20, 1942, Burley knocked out Phil McQuillan in the first round.

If Burley's biggest purse was $3,000. during his entire career, it is highly improbable that he fought in the sole main event on a boxing card which had a gate as much as $20,000. Based on that information, what savvy promoter or boxing manager would come up with a solid offer of a purse of $20,000. or more to a fighter such as Robinson to fight Burley, who wasn't that good of a drawing card and fought only once (at a relatively small boxing venue) in New York City? It doesn't make any financial sense.

- Chuck Johnston

 

Steve, I guess I was echoing you somewhat in my last post on this thread.

- Chuck Johnston

 

Klompton, I'm sure you have seen the Burley-Billy Smith tape a few times, what did you see of Charley in it?

 

I like him. Hes real good. Slick, excellent head feints and head movement in general. You can also see why he wasnt a big hit though. He loves to play pitty pat with that jab. He lays taps with it, taps, taps, taps, and waits for the right hand. When the obvious opening isnt there he takes little half steps back to keep creating distance and keep himself out of danger. Hes very smart and what he does he does very well. Kind of reminds me of later Hopkins (or rather Hopkins reminds me of Burley) but while that style is great for winning fights and keeping yourself out of danger its also not going to set the world on fire (I happen to like this style myself, its very interesting). Get in there with a real busy guy who has a good set of whiskers and those guys tend to get ruffled. They like to fight at their own pace. Ive never compared who Burley lost to with their styles but I could see this being a factor for him.

 

Also, likely that Burley was usually more active than he was there, or at least less cautious than he was there (accounts don't paint him as an action fighter regardless of weight, but you get my point). Billy Smith was a big guy.

 

If you want to pretend that Gavilan wasnt an already established headliner when he fought Robinson thats fine but its totally ignoring the facts.

Give me an example. But make sure its not one between two well established headliners because thats not apples to apples. You are talking about a guy who couldnt draw flies and had never headlined a major card anywhere calling out one of the biggest draws in the sport and throwing out numbers that he had never been able to pull down. Thats not negotiations.

Its absolute revisionist history to say Burley was the greatest rival of Robinson's generation. Nobody at the time thought that. Most people barely knew who Burley was. Burley was chasing a fight with ANYONE and thats the point. If a guy who is so great has to go to Minnesota to get fights in the 1940s you have a problem. Obviously New York wasnt calling. In fact very few of even the "feeder" venues which the major venues like MSG drew from hosted Burley. The elephant in the room here is that the only interest in a Burley-Robinson fight came from Burley and his people. IF Robinson ducked Burley, which is unlikely, he wouldnt have been able to had there been interest in it. There wasnt.

The newspapers.

Why would it have to be specific to Rooney? Promoters had been stiffing fighters since the beginning of time. Robinson was a WW and a non champion. His job is to chase the championship. Its not his obligation in any way shape or form to be charitable to a guy who cant draw, go to his hometown, and fight him at every disadvantage. The whys or why nots are silly and frankly, again, we dont even know how serious this offer was. Rooney and McGinley had an interest in building Burley up. Setting him as a rival in print could accomplish this even if they had no realistic expectation of that ever being made.

Which is still 30% more than Burley ever drew and he was doing it while being ducked himself and having to actually promote himself at a venue he was leasing. Again, if you want to believe Burley was equal or better than LaMotta at the gates so be it but history is against you.

Compare how often and favorably LaMotta was written about in trade papers and newspapers and how often his fights were on the radio to Burley. Whether you want to admit, or ignore it as you are doing, LaMotta was a much more well known, well established, popular fighter in the largest city in the country. Now, who do you think is a more attractive opponent? THAT or Burley? Its a no brainer.

Read his biography and tell me he didnt love the sport.

What eliminator? Pittsburgh promoters dont dictate what an eliminator is and what isnt. Just promoting a fight as an eliminator does not make it so. Zivics last fight with Burley prior to challenging for the title was over a year earlier and had nothing to do with who got a title shot. In fact Burley was rated lower than Zivic when the title shot came. You can wont get too much compaint from me if you complain that boxing is partly a popularity contest but that gets back to the point of who was a bigger draw again.

If you want to believe everything is a conspiracy thats fine, just dont go read the newspapers from Burley's hometown. They might shatter your illusions because the reality is they blamed Burley's sub par showings.

I dont subscribe to the notion that simply being black and less well known makes you a better fighter. I'll leave it at that.

There is a big difference here that you are choosing not to face. Most of the guys Jones ducked and the two guys Dempsey ducked were established draws/champions and had a wealth of support behind them. Burley was none of those things.

JD Turner was a professional tomatoe can who lost half of his fights and lost half of those by KO. He was stopped in more brutal fashion by lesser fighters than Burley. That doesnt make them better than Burley. Styles make fights. If the point is that Burley was an action fighter he wasnt.

I would argue that Gavilan was considered much more of an action fighter than Burley. But again, what Gavilan was was an established headliner and a a guy who could draw. Burley wasnt. He was also a WW, which Burley wasnt at this time either.

 

Gavilan was definitely more of an action fighter than Burley. Gavilan often ditched all semblance of gameplan and swung away, the footage shows this.

 

Agree. The Kid would go for broke sometimes...In the only film of Burley, he shows several styles, he leads, counters, front foot, back foot, he showed Smith different looks...Burley looks the part of a complete and great fighter to me. But his way is definitely more of a cerebral approach than a Kid Gavilan...At times anyway.

 

I found much of following information from Charley Burley's record on the BoxRec website:

Burley lost a decision to Bert Lytell in a ten-round bout which took place at the Coliseum in Baltimore, Maryland on April 24, 1947. The bout had a gate of $5,994.00 and an attendance of 3,094. According to an article on Wikipedia, the Coliseum had a capacity of 4,500.

Burley won a decision over Oakland Billy Smith in a ten-round bout which took place in the Auditorium in Oakland, California on April 24, 1946. The gate for the bout was $14,060.

Burley won a decision over Joe Carter in a ten-round bout which to place at the Civic Auditorium in San Francisco, California on March 12, 1945. The gate for the bout was $13,693.65.

- Chuck Johnston

 

Very well said, thanks for the post!