Did the best heavyweight talent get to the top of the rankings in the 40s and 50s?

I think the casualties, which includes wounded, were more like 20% of WWII in Vietnam. About 8.7 million served in the Vietnam era. More importantly, though, in WWII all classes served right up to the top--George Bush & John Kennedy served. Ted Williams and Joe Dimaggio served. Clark Gable, James Stewart, Henry Fonda, and Tyrone Power served. Also, with the total mobilization, many served who were over age. Famous people I can think who were over forty and served include Gable, Jack Dempsey, Gene Tunney, Tommy Loughran, Tim McCoy, George O'Brien, John Ford, William Wyler, Frank Capra, etc.

In Vietnam, the middle and upper classes mainly opted out. The brunt of the fighting was borne by the lower working and under classes, exactly where boxers have always come from. Therefore the impact on the talent pool for boxing might have been more severe than the total mobilization stats would imply.

 

This is a provocative thesis which is raised now and then. Few would doubt that the impact of the war while it was going on was pretty bad.
Why it would impact heavyweights more than any other weight is difficult for me to see, especially since men above a certain height (I believe 6' 3" if my memory is accurate) were not drafted until very late in the war.

There are all kinds of cross factors:
1. Desegregation opened doors to black fighters who were previously blocked out when many white fighters went into the service. This may have been a blessing in disguise. Top trainers turned their knowledge and skills toward talented blacks who could become great fighters rather than so-so white fighters whose major athletic asset was pigmentation.

2. The war hastened urbanization. The vast majority of the prewar population lived on farms or in small towns. The need for an urban labor force to man the armament factories led to a vast migration from the rural south to northern cities. Urban areas had boxing gyms and trainers. The migrants were a new and huge talent pool.

3. The Military had boxing programs which offered training to talented prospects.

4. Most soldiers did come back. Yes, they might have lost some time to the service, but the experience of the war also might have made them much tougher physically and mentally. I doubt it if a veteran of Normandy or Anzio or Iwo Jima was likely to be intimidated by a prefight staredown.

5. While the slaughter of WWII was immense, don't forget that about 1,000,000 Americans die in car accidents every 10 years. About 250,000 are murdered. In both cases, a disproportionate number of these are young males. And these statistics don't tell us how many are maimed and too seriously injured to pursue an athletic career. Diseases such as polio probably knocked an untold number of young men out of boxing. The Flu Pandemic of 1917-1920 killed more people than WWI. There are a lot of factors which effect the relatively few young men who might become champions.

 

The real problem with the WWII thesis is that not only is there no proof, but it falls of its own weight if you study the BOXING facts.

If this thesis is true, boxing should have been in a real slump from 1945 to 1950. What do the facts say--the top fighters in each division between 1945 and 1950:

Heavyweights--Joe Louis, Jersey Joe Walcott

Lightheavyweights--Ezzard Charles, Archie Moore

Middleweights--Charley Burley, Jake LaMotta, Marcel Cerdan, Tony Zale

Welterweights--Sugar Ray Robinson, Kid Gavilan

Lightweights--Ike Williams, Beau Jack

Featherweights--Willie Pep, Sandy Saddler

Boy, this is really a sorry bunch, isn't it.


If the WWII thesis is true, by 1955 there should be scant representation of WWII era fighters at the championship level as postwar fighters born after 1926 or 1927 should be dominating. 1955 champions:

Heavyweight-----Rocky Marciano, WWII veteran

Lightheavyweight-----Archie Moore, WW II era fighter

Middleweight-----Sugar Ray Robinson, Bobo Olson--WWII veterans

Welterweight-----Tony DeMarco (born 1932), Carmen Basilio born 1927, and I believe not a WWII veteran, but he did lose two years to the service as a marine.

Lightweight-----Jimmy Carter, WWII veteran, Wallace Smith (born 1929), Smith would lose the title the next year to WWII vet Joe Brown

Featherweight-----Sandy Saddler, born 1926, started boxing in 1944--a Korean War era veteran.

What seems to be missing here are more fellows just a bit too young to have fought in the war, born about 1927 to 1932. Most of the champions are older. WWII doesn't explain that.


If the WWII thesis is correct, the WWII generation should have been boxing history by 1960. Boxing champions Jan 1, 1960:

Heavyweight-----Ingemar Johansson, born 1932

Lightheavyweight-----Archie Moore, born 1916, WWII era fighter.

Middleweight-----Sugar Ray Robinson, WWII veteran, born 1920

Welterweight-----Don Jordan, born 1934

Lightweight-----Joe Brown, WWII veteran, born 1926

Featherweight-----Davey Moore, born 1933

So in 1960, fifteen years after the war, three of the top six divisions have a champion who did, or could easily have, served in WWII. It does seem a hard sell that the war killed off all the good fighters.

 

On the other hand, top athletes were among those who didn't have to go. And since most prospects turned pro at 18-20, they'd probably be excluded.

There were of course probably some who hadn't come far by 18-20, but would have developed later, but they probably weren't that many.

 

Good post. You make a very compelling case.

 

Wasn't this Revolver's argument (sorry to bring him up) not so much that though that fighters never got a chance to fight for a title but that they were denied a chance to even fight. People who may have gone into boxing professionaly never got the chance as they were either killed or wounded in the war, came back with all the fight gone in them mentally and physically or the time taken up in the service meant that the years that they would have been developing as a fighter and moving into their prime simply just never happened.

There is merit to the argument but to do the research for it is an huge task.

 

The Cockell fight was a test for the nose that Charles had split in two

 

Still regardless I think Marciano earn a soft touch by that point imo.

 

The same was true in WWII--top athletes usually played their sports in the service. How many top athletes can you name who were killed in WWII? I can think of one, football player Al Brozis.

 

One problem is that all this is relative. Boxing was, off radio ratings for top fights versus other sports, the single most popular sport from the 1920's through the 1940's. The Great Depression brought unparalled hard times which probably pushed many into pursuing a boxing career. Segregation in other sports and the general work force made boxing one of the few viable careers for young black males. Yes, WWII had a negative impact, but even if boxing was, let's say, 20% weaker than it might have been without WWII, that does not mean at all it was a weak era. It may still have been a far better era than any that came later when boxing fell out of the American mainstream and the pool of potential boxers dried up because of general prosperity and other career options, such as the rise of competing sports such as pro football.

 

So your answer to your own question is "no", then? I really think it's a shame that guys like Walcott and Moore didn't get more of a break when they were young. Wasn't only unfair to them, but to all boxing fans, as well.

 

At the heart of this thread, it is Walcott contracting Typhoid way back when Jack Blackburn left him for Louis that rings loudest.

That was a monumental turning point in the future of the division.

Had Walcott been supplied with adequate training circumstances and a trainer to get everything from his vast talent, a different reign of lengthy proportions may have commenced.

 

You think he could hav been as good as, or even better, than Louis?