Charley Burley's Lack of Popularity in His Hometown of Pittsburgh During the Early 1940s.

At the time of his first bout with Ezzard Charles, it was widely reported that Charley Burley had won twenty-five bouts in a row up to that point. But according to his record on BoxRec, Burley had won "only" twenty in a row.

In his first bout with Burley, Charles was a substitute for Ken Overlin, who was serving in the U.S. Navy while being stationed in Corpus Christi, Texas and could not get permission to fight Burley. According to a news item in the April 30, 1942 edition of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette on Newspapers.com, the Rooney-McGinley Club had been trying to match Overlin for three months, but wasn't able to do it "until recently." At the time, Overlin was the former New York Athletic Commission world middleweight division and had fought in the Pittsburgh area a number of times, including two ten-round bouts with Mose Brown at Duquesne Gardens during 1941. Overlin won by a decision in both bouts.

Meanwhile, Burley had left his hometown of Pittsburgh to move to Minneapolis during November 1941. While living in Minneapolis, Burley was quite active in the ring while his winning streak continued. But up to that time, it appears that Minneapolis had not regained its status as good fight town, which it had been until being hit hard by the Great Depression. At the Armory in Minneapolis, the gross or net gates of Burley's bouts were usually less than $2,000., even when Burley was fighting the likes of Holman Williams and Shorty Hogue. One exception was when Burley was fighting on a card that also featured Sugar Ray Robinson and Reuben Shank in separate bouts. The gate of that card was $3,416.22 with the attendance being about $5,000. With Burley making relatively little money while living in Minneapolis, it is little wonder that he was looking forward to fighting Overlin for a reported purse of $1,500. at Forbes Field in his former hometown on May 25. 1942.

Burley vs. Overlin and Fritzie Zivic vs. Lew Jenkins were thought to be a very important attractions on the first boxing show being staged at Forbes Field during 1942. Mike Raffa vs. former world featherweight champion, Joey Archibald, and Mose Brown vs. Jack Marshall were other bouts which were lined up for the show. For one reason or another, Harry Bobo wasn't signed to fight on the show.

To give one an idea of how successful that the boxing shows were at Forbes Field during 1941, two of the three had impressive crowds and gate receipts during that year. The first highly successful show of 1941 featured Billy Conn fighting Buddy Knox a month before Conn's first bout with the reigning world heavyweight champion, Joe Louis. The second highly successful show featured all-star card with Fritzie Zivic, Harry Bobo, Mose Brown and Mike Raffa, all from Pittsburgh, fighting Milt Aron, Bill Poland, Jimmy Webb and Pete Scalzo respectively. Each of these highly successful shows had an attendance of over 24,000 and a gate of more than $67,000.

The first bout between Burley and Charles was considered to be less than an attraction than one between Burley and Overlin. While Charles had an impressive record for a boxer who was twenty years old at the time, almost all of his bouts had taken place in his hometown of Cincinnati with all of the others taking place elsewhere in Ohio. As a result, the Pittsburgh fans were not familiar with Charles.

While the bout between Zivic and Jenkins was a rematch of their memorable first bout that took place at Madison Square Garden during 1940, much had happened that made the rematch less attractive. The first bout featured Zivic and Jenkins when they were respectively the reigning world welterweight and world lightweight champions. Besides being former world titleholders at the time, Jenkins was in the midst of a nine-bout losing streak while the notoriously inconstant Zivic had lost his most recent bout when he fought Reuben Shank in Minneapolis. ,Zivic also had lost three other bouts and had one draw since he lost his world welterweight title to Freddie Cochrane during July 1941.

Before his scheduled bout with Mose Brown was to take place on the show, Jack Marshall had drop out after coming down with an infected foot. Al Boros was the substitute for Marshall.

With all of the problems in connection with the boxing show, it had an attendance of 12,134 and a gross gate of $31,686.50. Jake Mintz, the matchmaker of the show, said that the bout between Burley and Charles was likely to be a better one than one between Burley and Overlin. Both Burley and Overlin were known as "cuties" while Charles was much more of a puncher in comparison with Overlin. Charles definitely had more of a size advantage over Burley with the former being a full-fledged middleweight while the latter was close to being a welterweight.

The first bout between Charles and Burley was regarded by Al Abrams of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette as "one of the best and hardest fights ever seen in a Pittsburgh ring." Charles got off to a good start while winning the first two rounds. Burley did come back to win the third round by a clear margin with onlookers feeling that he was getting warmed up.

In the fourth, Charles came back and nearly knocked out Burley, who managed to hang on until the bell rang. But during the fifth, Burley was battering Charles from pillar to post for three minutes to have his best round. Burley went on to have an edge in the sixth.

Charles came back to carry the bout to Burley while winning the next three rounds. In the tenth and final round, Charles knocked Burley down. While Burley was down on one knee after being knocked down, Charles "let go of a punch." After the bout, Tommy "O'Laughlin," Burley's manager, said that he was going to ask the commission to disqualify Charles for the foul. The win by decision for Charles was considered "a stunning upset."

Note- In his ringside report, Abrams wrote that Burley had a streak of twenty-six consecutive wins going into his first fight with Charles. Considering that Charles hadn't been well-known in Pittsburgh before the fight, Burley's loss to him must have been consider a terrible setback. Of course, such a loss was not that bad in retrospect considering that Charles went on to be a truly great fighter and a world heavyweight champion. Jake Mintz, the matchmaker on this show, was to become Charles' manager.

- Chuck Johnston

 

According to a news item in the May 4, 1942 edition of the Minneapolis Star, Charley Burley was going back to Pittsburgh because he was dissatisfied with the money he was making and the lack of sparring partners in Minneapolis. This was after Burley received only $150. for fighting Charlie Wilson on a boxing card also featuring Sugar Ray Robinson and Reuben Shank in separate bouts at the Armory in Minneapolis on April 30, 1942. Burley was especially perturbed that Robinson received a purse of $1,000. for his bout . As a result, Burley was angry with his manager, Bobbie Eaton, and the boxing promoter in Minneapolis, Tommy O'Loughlin.

While rebelling against Eaton and O'Loughlin, Burley remained eager to fight Ken Overlin on a big boxing show at Forbes Field in Pittsburgh on the 25th of May. But Burley was not eager to go through with scheduled bouts in San Diego on Friday (May 8, 1942) and at Madison Square Garden in New York City on the 22nd on May. According to Eaton, Burley stood to receive $500. of a $700. purse in San Diego, $750. of a $1,000. purse at Madison Square Garden and $1,000. of a $1,500. purse at Forbes Field. That would have meant that Burley would netted a total of $2,250. for fighting in May. In his next bout, Burley fought a twenty-year-old fighter named Ezzard Charles at Forbes Field on the 25th of May. Charles was a substitute for Overlin after the latter could not get permission to fight Burley while serving in the U.S. Navy and stationed in Corpus Christi, Texas.

Note- Burley never fought at Madison Square Garden during his entire career. In fact his bout with Phil McQuillan was the only one he had in New York City.

- Chuck Johnston

 

Yes, it is.
- Chuck Johnston

 

In regards to the boxing show being staged at Forbes Field on May 25, 1942, there isn't any question that the rematch between Fritzie Zivic and Lew Jenkins was regarded as the main attraction on it. That is despite the fact that both fighters were no longer world champions and had recently lost a number of bouts. The Zivic-Jenkins rematch as the main bout on the show was even more pronounced when an unfamiliar young fighter, at least to Pittsburgh boxing fans at the time, named Ezzard Charles was a substitute for Ken Overlin in a bout with Charley Burley. Overlin had previously fought in Pittsburgh a number of times, including in two bouts with Mose Brown during 1941. As a result, a bout between Burley and Overlin was regarded as better attraction than the first Charles-Burley one.

The first Charles-Burley bout was regarded as a terrific one with Charles scoring an upset. As a result, a rematch between the two fighters took place at Hickey Park in Millvale, a borough that is located in Allegheny County and across the Allegheny River from Pittsburgh. Hickey Park had a capacity of only about 4,000. The relatively small size of the venue gives a hint that the Charles-Burley rematch was not thought to be a major attraction in the Pittsburgh area. This was despite the fact that the first bout between the two fighters was such a good one

The Charles-Burley rematch took place on June 29, 1942. The attendance was 3,951 with the gross and net gates being $6,843.30 and $6,193.38 respectively. Both gate figures were records for Hickey Park at the time. For a fight show featuring Burley in a "stand-alone" main event in Pittsburgh, the gate figures were far better than average.

The rematch proved to be far easier for Charles than his first bout with Burley. With Burley clinching much of the time, the rematch turned out to be boring. As the more aggressive fighter in the bout, Charles was able to land hard blows to the body after breaking free of Burley's clinches. As a result, Charles was regarded as less culpable than Burley for the bout being dull.

For the rest of his career, Burley remained a less than stellar gate attraction in Pittsburgh. When fighting at Forbes Field after his bouts with Charles, Burley never fought in the most important bout on any boxing show there.

- Chuck Johnston

 

Before having his rematch with Ezzard Charles, Charley Burley fought Holman Williams for the second time during 1942 and the third time overall. That second bout took place at Crosley Field, the home baseball park of the Cincinnati Reds at the time, in Cincinnati, Ohio on June 23, 1942. According to the ringside report in the June 24, 1942 edition of the Cincinnati Enquirer on Newspapers.com, the bout "provided plenty of action" with Burley winning a decision after ten rounds.

The show also had three other scheduled ten-round bouts, Leo Rodak vs. Charley Varre, Curtis Sheppard vs. Eddie Blunt and Freddie Pope vs. Chickero Sanchez in addition to a scheduled six-round bout between Charles Edgar and Gib Jones. Overall, the show was regarded as "pretty good." But the show had an attendance of 998 and a gate of $1,558. It was reported that Promoter Bill Gobel sustained a loss of "approximately $6,100." At first, it was thought that the show wasn't going to take place because of the low gate receipts, but the Cincinnati Boxing Commission told the managers of the fighters that they would get their guaranteed purses because Gobel had posted a $5,000. bond with the ring board.

- Chuck Johnston

 

In the February 5, 1970 edition of the Sioux City Journal (Sioux City, Iowa), I found an obituary of Tommy O'Loughlin, who managed Charley Burley for several years. Born in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada on February 12, 1898, O'Loughlin had one colorful life during which he was a civilian mechanic in a motorized unit under General John J. Pershing in the U.S.-Mexico border area during the middle 1910s; a promoter of a traveling show while displaying Pancho Villa souvenirs; an airplane pilot on a barnstorming tour; a driver of racecars (notably Indy-style dirt track cars and midget cars); a manager of boxers starting in the late 1920s; a manager of the famed ice skater, Sonia Henie, for a short time; a promoter of ice skating shows in the Midwest; and a promoter of trade shows for over at decade before his death.

During the middle 1930s, O'Loughlin and L. Doyle Harmon formed a partnership, Harmon-O'Loughlin Enterprises, to promote ice skating shows, which appear to have been a great success. But during the late 1940s, Harmon and O'Loughlin switched to promoting trade shows. After establishing their headquarters in Portland, Oregon during 1961, Harmon-O'Loughlin Enterprises became the largest producer of trade shows. O'Loughlin died of "an apparent heart seizure" in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada on Tuesday (February 3, 1970). At the time of his death, he was working on the arrangements of Edmonton Boat, Trailer and Sport Show, which was scheduled to take place in Edmonton during April.

On the boxing front, O'Loughlin managed other fighters besides Burley, notably Elmer "Violent" Ray and Jackie Graves. He also promoted boxing shows in Minneapolis during the early 1940s when Burley fought there. Jack Hurley was among the boxing men that he worked with on a regular basis in the Midwest.

Note- From the late 1930s to 1949, Hurley was part of the so-called Marigold Group, which staged boxing shows at Marigold Gardens, the Coliseum and Chicago Stadium in Chicago. Hurley was known to go out of his way to lend a helping hand to boxing men that he worked with in the past. Yet Charley Burley fought in Chicago only one time during his career with that bout taking place at the Coliseum. At the time, the Marigold Group apparently was no longer staging boxing shows at the Coliseum. One possible explanation for Burley not fighting on shows promoted by the Marigold Group is that Hurley was well-known for liking aggressive fighters, but not so-called cuties. But Elmer "Violent" Ray did fight on a number of shows promoted by the Marigold Group.

- Chuck Johnston

 

I had bought and read Harry Otty's fine biography of Charley Burley, but discarded it along with many other books when moving from Ventura, California to Arizona City, Arizona during 2017. In my research on Burley during the last month or two, I looked at various newspapers in digital form on the Newspapers.com website. During such research, I found that Burley wasn't much of a gate attraction, especially for a boxer of his stature and ability. In my opinion, that factor was far more important in Burley not getting lucrative bouts or a title shot rather that the fact that he was black.

What really spurred me to do such research were claims by posters on this forum and the BoxRec forum about Sugar Ray Robinson being a bad guy for not fighting Burley. There also have been similar claims about Jake LaMotta not fighting Burley. The fact is that promoters were not that eager to stage a bout between Burley and either of the two mentioned fighters. It was too big of a financial risk for any promoter to do it.

Yes, it appears that Fritzie Zivic put up the money to buy the contract of Burley during the early part of 1941. At the time of the purchase, Irwin Silverman became Burley's manager of record. But Luke Carney, Zivic's longtime manager, seems to have called the shots in regards to Burley's career for about eight months. Whether or not Zivic or Carney was trying to undermine Burley's career after purchasing his contract, I doubt if one could say for certain.

The reported purchase price of Burley's contract was $1,400., which seems like a hefty price to pay in order to undermine someone's career. It is very possible that Zivic and Carney felt they could make money on Burley after buying his contract. But it is doubtful that buying Burley's contract made Zivic and Carney much money. It appears that Burley's contract was sold for less than $1,400. to Bobby (or Bobbie) Eaton in late 1941. Eaton may have been a front for Tommy O'Loughlin, who was promoting boxing cards in Minneapolis at the time.

- Chuck Johnston