Charles-Walcott, Schmeling-Sharkey, Folley-Machen...

My point is that Sharkey lost to Rojas,Gorman,Levinsky and Carnera, fights he should have won,imo .Loughran and Weinert were clever boxers so I cut him slack for them

 

Schmeling's better than Sharkey by a fair bit.

 

"Folley inarguabldy became less than he was at his best between Liston and Jones."

It is not inarguable.

I have not seen a film of the Liston fight. Is there one? So it is hard to judge how good he looked that night, at least for me.

What I did do last night is watch what is available on youtube of Folley prior to Liston, which is quite limited. A few rounds of the first Cooper fight in 1958 and the fifth round of one of the Wayne Bethea fights in 1957.

I then watched the Jones fight in 1962, and the Bonavena fight in 1964.

Folley always looked about the same. He was a solid boxer with a good jab and a strong right, but he fought flat-footed and had little mobility even in 1957 or 1958. Cooper was taller, and much faster of hand and foot. It is impossible to judge the fight because of the limited rounds, but what was shown showed Cooper couldn't miss Folley with a jab and was easily outjabbing him. The round with Bethea showed Bethea simply rushing in past Folley's jab and the two getting into a mauling contest. The same basically with Jones.

Hard to tell about his relative ability to take a punch, but he was clearly always slow of foot with limited head and torso movement. It is hard to see how he could deal with a bigger and more powerful fighter like Liston at any time. Just doesn't have the tools. Somewhat the same with a tall jabber, like Terrell. He chance of victory rides on getting a knockout as he did in the rematch with Cooper. He did have a good, if not awesome right.

Bottom line--I didn't notice much evidence of deterioration. His limitations were obvious in the late 1950's.

 

No problem with disagreeing. That is why we have the board. You might be right and I might be wrong. But I have to go with what I see. I emphasize that I could only watch limited film of Folley prior to 1960, but his getting into a mauling contest with the much less talented Bethea in 1957 prefigures his performance against Jones in 1962.

Bottom line with Folley--a technically solid fighter whose solid grounding allowed him to consistently beat second-tier fighters, but whose limitations cost him against the more talented top men. He fought to his level which was not a championship level.

*just on prime. I don't find the term useful, although I suppose I fall into the habit of using it myself now and then. The real issue is how difficult a fighter is to defeat at any given time. Wlad being "past prime" if he is doesn't seem to mean there is anyone out there to beat him. My point was only that the film doesn't show any evidence of Folley going downhill all that much from his mid-twenties into his early thirties. Punch resistance is impossible to judge on the limited film.