Charley Burley - Convince Me Of His Genius

Also add in the fact that the film we have of Billy Smith, shows that he was no mug and very dangerous.

 

he is for me.could even be top 5

 

Burley was certainly one of the greats. But am I right in thinking he wasn't much of a draw ?

Burley v Zale would have been interesting, around 1941.
It's a shame the war interrupted Zale's reign.

 

During the war years no mw was on top of the world for longer imo (although the ring disagree with me).

He stopped williams for the coloured championship and was robbed in the rematch. He then lost a tough close fight to lloyd marshall.

Marshall and williams would fight each other in another disputed contest (judges didn't like marshall for some reason) and struggled in further fights. Meanwhile burley was consistently winning against a similar level of opposition but the cherry for me was when he pushed moore's **** in. Archie isn't just a great hindsight win, he wasn't far removed from being ring's top mw.

Burley stayed at the top until losing to williams again.

Between him and williams the war years were pretty sown up but burley beats him by a couple of month imo.

His depth of opposition is very impressive with victories from zivic to williams to moore.

What's more telling than anything is robinson's huge reluctance to face burley. A man that I personally think is best boxer in history, didn't want to face this man. As far as intangibles go, that ranks pretty highly.

His skill looks awesome on film imo, one of the best.

The downside for me is, as with all top contenders during the war, he could never face the recognised champion. Would he have beaten zale had he not been called up? I personally think so.