Do you give Zale a pass for fighting graziano over number 1 rated Lamotta?

Graziano the first time, yes but why a trilogy? That hasn't been explained

From klompton

"I dont think Zale was a cherry picker until after the war and then it was blatant. He spent four years out of action and when he returned had six fights in six months against total nobodies before signing to fight the undeserving Graziano (how do you get rated at MW beating up on washed up welterweights???). If you want argue he wanted to cash in on the popular Graziano thats fine but after knocking Graziano out he spent the next ten months facing: Unrated Deacon Logan whose best wins came years earlier against a faded Allan Matthews, Len Wadsworth who had only won 5 of his last 12 fights and lost, Tommy Charles who had only 1 of his last 6 losing four of those, 2 by KO, Al Timmons who had won only two of his last 8 fights, and Cliff Beckett who had failed to win any of his last 11 fights including getting stopped in his previous fight. Meanwhile Jake LaMotta had been rated #1 the entire time and had been practically begging for a title fight. He then rematched Graziano and lost before facing three tuneups, the best of which was Lou Woods who had been knocked out in his last fight. He then defeated Graziano in the rubber match and immediately went into the fight with Cerdan, who didnt deserve that shot over other fighters either. Had Zale defeated Cerdan (which I believe he would have had he not been totally shot) it would have been another fight against undeserving cherry picker who was percieved as being a bigger draw and lesser threat. Essentially Zale was ducking the best fighters nearly 3 years. So yeah, I think after the war his reputation as a cherry picker was deserved.

The thing thats always ****ed me off about Zale (who was supposedly a really nice guy) was that he used to write a column for Boxing Illustrated and in it he would regularly blast LaMotta and Robinson and talk about how he would have beaten them and done this and that to them when in reality he wouldnt have fought those two in a million years and actively ducked both of them

It doesnt matter what their reasoning was what matters is that he blatantly took the path of least resistance when better, much more dangerous fighters had been waiting for a chance at him for years. Essentially they were trying to keep his title bottled for the better part of a decade. Yeah, he fought tougher fights before the war but whats lost on hero worshippers like you is that he HAD to because the title was fractured and in dispute. With so many guys laying claim to it he had to fight those guys to move into position and he didnt even beat all of those guys. Soose took him to school in Chicago and Hostak was an inch away from beating him in Chicago and had Hostak not suffered from terrible hands he may have beaten Zale in their series. When Zale finally won universal recognition against Abrams his first fight afterwards was a non title fight against Conn, essentially a win win situation. If you look at Zale's record he actually has one of the less impressive records of any of those late 1930s/early 1940s claimants both in terms of performances and contenders faced. Abrams had fought and defeated everyone, Hostak had been in there with Risko, Steele, Krieger, Matthews, and Zale. Soose had been in there with Risko, Burley, Vigh, Abrams, Overlin, Zale, Mauriello, and Garcia. Apostoli had been in there with Steele, Risko, Broulliard, Thil, Overlin, Krieger, Garcia, Corbett, Conn, Bettina,and Zale. Hell, Zales path to the title was downright tame compared to those guys. Especially when he got the big names he got.
It doesnt matter what your rose colored hunch tells you the fact is that when he had the opportunity to fight LaMotta and Robinson he ran in the other direction. And to pretend it was because he was cashing in (as if he would have made peanuts fighting either of those guys) is pure fantasy on your part.

Had he retired after Conn he would be remembered as fairly innocuous champion because of his biggest fights: Hostak 3x, Apostoli, Abrams, Conn, Soose, and Mamakos he got ahold of a Hostak who was pretty well used up at that point suffering from bad hands and confidence issues and still didnt have the easiest time in the world in two of those fights, lost to Soose, got ahold of a pretty faded Apostoli who wouldnt defeat another contender until seven years later in his second to last fight (and that was a faded Abrams who would retire after one more fight). Mamakos was beating him handily in their fight and Mamakos was nothing special, Conn took 10 of 12 rounds, and Abrams dropped him. In short, the only reason anyone thinks anything of Zale today is because of his legendary three wars with a guy who never even deserved those fights to begin with and never beat a legitimate top MW contender to earn that shot


When Ray Robinson was trying to get a fight with Zale at MW. Sam Pian and Art Winch refused on the grounds that Robinson wasnt a middleweight and should restrict his activities to fighting exclusively middleweights in order to get a title shot. They stated he hadnt proven himself. An incredible statement when you consider the fact that Robinson had four times defeated Zales #1 contender. Within a few months Zale defended against Graziano who got his title shot by fighting a litany of WWs. Less than a year later Zale again refused to defend his title against Robinson."

 

Instead of the long waiting number one contender? I see

And giving the number 3 contender a rematch after beating him?

 

Lamotta fought Holman Williams Bert Lytell and Lloyd Marshall

Enough said

 

And giving a rematch to the number 3 is ok after you've already beaten him when your number 1 has been waiting around for years?