Charley Burley - Convince Me Of His Genius

Yeah, that Moore story is for ****. Didn't Otty publish, either in the book or on the website, a program for the fight published a few days in advance? I understand that it was short notice, but not as short as was made out.


As to the question at hand, just look at the mans wins. That should sort out any confusion.

Then take a closer look at his losses.

Charles x2. Lost his eleventh outing (from memory) of the year, and then twenty days later fought and beat Holman Williams, possibly better than any active fighter, before losing to Charles for the second time something like a week later - who would name the light-middle favoured to beat Holman Williams and then take on and beat Ezzard Charles a few days later?

Marshall. Very close fight against a bigger ATG and Burley starts with a fractured hand. Who's the light-middle or middleweight who is going to beat Marshall one-handed?

A green Bivins - young, but still one of the greats, and again, a bigger man.

Holman Williams. Williams, who GPater described as possibly the best pure boxer in history the other day (Which I think is reasonable) beat Burley more than once, but it is worth noting that Burley lost at least one of those fights after throwing out his shoulder having knocked Williams down multiple times - in the box seat, Burley didn't win another round after the 9th (or the 10th, I forget). Also note that Burley was winning the NC between the two, though both men were being made to miss in that one.

Fritzie Zivic beat him for 1/3, in a very close, possibly bad decision. That's a greenish version of Burley losing to a prime Zivic, the fighter that Robinson named the smartest he ever faced - before avenging the loss twice.


Plus we have that sliver of film, Burley out-muscling, punching and boxing a ranked LHW contender who was also perhaps the hardest puncher boxing at that time. Burley is one of the best that ever did it.